“How very improper!” she remarked. But she led the way in, and, for the hour that followed, the world began and ended for me just where a little semicircle of palms drew its friendly screen about Margery and me. I believe I ate something; I know I made two forays upon the supper table and hurried back just in time to come upon Mrs. “Ted,” who made a most exasperating face at me, but said nothing. And I remember recording a mental note of Margery’s fondness for sweetbreads en coquille. But of the rest my recollection retains only the picture of a slender girl in the depths of a big, cane chair, a slipper impertinently cocked upon the rung of another chair, the soft light which filtered through the leaves throwing into tantalizing shadow the curves of a mouth and the hide-and-seek play of blue eyes which were successfully employed in supplying me with an entirely new set of sensations.
This experience, absorbing to myself, apparently was not without its diversion to the other party, for there was just enough left of “Home, Sweet Home” to identify the air when Margery suddenly slipped from the chair, and I, perforce, followed her. “I will be ready in ten minutes,” she told me. “Meet me downstairs.” Then she turned—to run into the arms of Mrs. “Ted.”
I waited by. There was no alternative; Mrs. “Ted” held me with a glance that definitely said: “Flight is at your peril.”
She asked Margery a question. I did not catch the words, but Margery’s reply was unmistakable. “Why, of course, Mr. Page will take me home. Edith expects me, you know.” And with that she passed into the dressing room.
Mrs. “Ted’s” perplexity would have been comic from another point of view than mine. To me it was like unto the frown of Jove. There was a little pause before she spoke. “Was there ever such another man?” she said. “If it was anyone but you, Page, I would tell that girl the truth at once. Mr. Stoughton Page has not come for her, and has sent no word. I see why, now, though I don’t understand it all, by any means. But—well, I am going to trust the rest to you, only—remember!”
I never liked Mrs. “Ted” as I did at that moment, and my liking was not altogether selfish, either. As for her “Remember,” it was—significant.
But when she had followed Margery, and I was walking slowly down the stairway, an appreciation of my own position began to obscure every other feeling. A trickle of something cold seemed to pass down my spine, and I am not accounted timid. In a haze I blundered over to the table. There I had the sense to sit down and try to fit together the few facts which must guide me.
The proposition shaped itself something like this: Given an automobile and a young woman who believes you to be the husband of her dearest friend—which you are not—how are you, without chaperon or voucher, to deliver her, safely and without destruction of her faith in you or of the good opinion of others for herself, into the keeping of this other man’s wife—residence unknown—at three o’clock in the morning?
I took up the premises separatively. First, the automobile. I lighted the lamps and cranked the engine. The motor started sweetly, and mentally I checked off the first item. Second, the young woman. I recalled my experience of the evening, and decided that, as Mrs. “Ted” trusted me, Margery would have no reason to distrust me. So far so good. Third, “the safe delivery.” That depended upon knowledge of the place we were to reach, and of the roads thereto.
I hunted up a stableman, and asked him for the shortest and best route to Mr. Stoughton Page’s place. He gave me directions. I made him repeat them. As the repetition was a little more confusing than the original information, I thanked him and decided to stake my chances on the apparent facts that the traveling was excellent and the distance only eight miles. The devil of it was there were four turnouts. I suspected that, before I was through, Mr. Stoughton Page’s reputation as an automobile driver would not be undamaged in the estimation of at least one person. But for that and for what must be when the crisis arrived—well, it was inevitable. I threw in the clutch and drew out of the stable. At any rate, there were the hours back of me, and Margery was—Margery. There was sweetness in this thought, and infinite anguish, too.