Kedzie was afraid to speak. She put her finger on the menu at a chafing-dish version of chicken, and the Marquess added it to his order. Skip shuffled away without recognizing Kedzie. She waited only for his exit to make her own.
It was terrifying enough to realize that the moment Skip caught a glimpse of her he would hail her noisily and tell the Marquess all about her. There still lingered in Kedzie a little more honesty than snobbery and she felt even less dread of being “bawled out” by a waiter in the presence of a Marquess than of having Skip Magruder know that she was in such a place even with a Marquess. Skip had been good to her and had counseled her to go straight.
She felt no gratitude toward him now, but she could not face his contempt. That would be degradation beneath degradation. She was disgusted with everything and everybody, including herself. The glamour of the escapade was dissipated. The excitement of an illicit amour so delicious in so many farces, so tenderly dramatic in so many novels, had curdled. She saw what an ugly business she was in and she was revolted.
Kedzie waited only to hear the swinging door whiff after Skip's syncopated feet, then she whispered sharply across the table to the Marquess:
“Take me out of this awful place. I don't know what I'm doing here. I won't stay! not a moment!”
“But we've ordered—”
“You stay and eat, then. I won't stop here another minute!”
She rose. She smothered the Marquess's protests about the awkwardness, the ludicrousness of such a flight.
“What will the waiter think?” he asked, being afraid of a waiter, though of no one else.
Kedzie did not care what the waiter thought, so long as he did not know whom he thought it of. Strathdene gave the headwaiter a bill and followed Kedzie out. He was hungry, angry, and puzzled.