The three automobiles rolled up through the rain, all shipshape for the storm, with tops hooded and side-curtains buttoned down snugly.
Forbes remembered that other rain with Persis in the taxicab. How much better the opportunity here, with the world shut out from view and two hours' cruise ahead. But he was again consigned to Mrs. Neff's car, and it was Willie Enslee who had Persis and the opportunity. Forbes could not follow even the flutter of her veil. All he could see ahead was the shoulder of Mrs. Neff's chauffeur and the windshield studded and streaked with rain.
There was no landscape to divert the mind, only his imagination of the courtship Willie would be paying to his newly announced fiancee. Forbes pictured the privileges he would exact, and Persis would not deny. And he gnashed his teeth in wrath. In the cave of Mrs. Neff's car Alice had nothing to say. She was thinking too eagerly ahead. Mrs. Neff had nothing to say. She was wondering what Alice was so cheerful about.
And so the car pushed south, with no passing scenery to indicate progress, only the bumps and teeterings, the swerves and slitherings, and the nauseating belches of noise made by the horn. Eventually the wheels ceased to run upon irregular ground and glided on asphalt. This must be New York.
At Seventy-second Street they turned off Broadway and crossed Central Park. At the eastern gate Mrs. Neff's chauffeur checked his car alongside a whale-like mass, from which Willie Enslee's voice was heard shrilly calling through the rain:
"Good-by, Mrs. Neff! Good-by Alice! Good-by Mr. Wa—er—Forbes. Awfully glad you could come. See you again. Go on to Miss Cabot's house." This last to his own driver.
Mrs. Neff and Alice cried in unison: "Good-by! Had lovely time! See you soon!"
And out of space came the disembodied voice of Persis as from a grave: "Good-by, Mrs. Neff! By-by, Alice! Good-by, Mr. Forbes!"
"Good-by, P—Miss Cabot!" he called. Her voice trailed away as if it were her soul going to death, and his voice followed with an ache of despair in it. Mrs. Neff caught the pathos hovering over the cries like overtones sounding above and beyond a tone of music. She said:
"Too bad you let Willie take her away from you; it's not too late yet if you've any ambition."