Rufe spoke in English, which the mother and father did not understand, but of which the daughter had plenty to catch the drift. Dicky did not miss the fact that in the midst of her weeping there were subtle affairs to confide to her father.... It cost him eighteen hundred dollars to get Melton clear that night; but, at least, Melton was thoroughly clear, the marriage certificate and receipt for heartbalm in full, in his pocket. He watched curiously now to see if the tears of Daughter Ducier were dried—but no, though Melton spurned her last proffer of a kiss—at least with her, money was not all.
In the days that followed, Dicky wasn’t able to get any rest from a sense that he had done well. With every ounce of his returning strength Rufe Melton yearned to get out of Paris. He had been abused; he was frightened to depths hitherto unplumbed. He lived in a mortal dread day and night that the Duciers would come for him again.
“I can’t get a passage for you at a moment’s notice,” Dicky would say. “Besides, you’re not fit to travel for a few days yet. I don’t want to send you back to New York looking like a hounded Apache. Let me do this thing right, Melton, while I’m in on it.”
“But don’t go away and leave me here!” Rufe moaned. “Let me go out with you when you go.”
“You needn’t have the slightest fear from the Duciers.”
The hands came up and waved hopelessly.
“You don’t know them! You don’t know her!” Rufe moaned. “I want to get out of here. I want to get on the ship. I don’t want to be left alone.”
And this was what he was getting ready to send back to Pidge! Once, when Dicky was really hard driven, a sudden chill of rage came over him and he proceeded this far with a sentence:
“Why, Melton, I really ought to put you——”
The other words—“to death,” he somehow managed to keep from speech. Dicky suffered especially from the feeling that he was playing the boob. To be sincerely in wrong was his pet aversion—dating from the night of the Punjabi dinner. Besides, he was tortured with the thought that Pidge Musser wouldn’t thank him. Surely, for her sake, his mind repeated, it would have been better even to put old Ames straight, and let one American meet Paris unaided. But Rufe had called for him in his trouble, had mentioned the name of Cobden to the others.