“Well-behaved people,” she told Charity, “do not have appearances.”
She was so cold that Charity froze also, and set her maid to packing. Mrs. Noxon's frigidity was a terrifying example of what she was to expect. She returned to New York on the first train. Jim was on it, too.
He had sped home, expecting to find Kedzie. She was gone and none of the servants knew where. If he had found her in the ferocious humor he had arrived at he might have given her the sort of divorce popular in divorce-less countries, where they annul the wife instead of the marriage. He might have sent Kedzie to the realm where there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage—which should save a heap of trouble.
Jim fancied that Kedzie must have taken the train to New York, since she spoke of sending her lawyer to McNiven. It did not occur to him that she could find a New York lawyer in Newport.
He met Charity, and not Kedzie, on the train. That made bad look worse. But it gave Jim and Charity an opportunity to face the calamity that was impending. Jim tried to reassure Charity that he would keep her from suffering any public harm. The mere thought of her liability to notoriety, the realization that her long life of decency and devotion were at the mercy of the whim of a woman like Kedzie, drove her frantic.
She begged Jim to leave her to her thoughts and he went away to the purgatory of his own. Reaching New York, he returned to Charity to offer his escort to her home. She broke out, petulantly:
“Don't take me any more places, Jim. I beg you!”
“Forgive me,” he mumbled, and relieved her of his compromising chivalry.
They went to their homes in separate taxicabs. Jim made haste to his apartment. Kedzie was not there and had not been heard from.
Late as it was, he set out on a telephone chase for McNiven and dragged him to a conference. It was midnight and Jim was haggard with excitement.