XIVTHE SECOND FLIGHT
Petermet her in the main entrance. “How did he take it?” he asked excitedly, his nerves obviously unstrung.
“Not very well,” replied she.
“Yes—I saw him tearing away into the woods. Good Lord! Howcanyou take it so quietly!”
By way of answer Beatrice shrugged her shoulders and lifted her eyebrows.
“Beatrice—honestly don’t you think we’d better go ahead and do as he wants? He is a dangerous man—believe me, he is. I don’t like to speak so of your father, but everyone agrees that he——”
“You can never tell a man’s family any news about what he is,” said Beatrice.
“He’ll make life a hell for you,” groaned Hanky. “And he’ll make mischief for me.”
“I think not,” replied she. “He’ll have other things besides you to occupy him. He knows it’s wholly my fault.”
“But, Beatrice—don’t be obstinate. You must know it’d really not be so rotten bad to marry me.”
“I thought I mentioned the fact that I’m in love with some one else.”
“Oh—to be sure,” said Peter. “I suppose that has got something to do with it. But your obstinacy——”
“That’s it,” mocked the girl. “Obstinacy. Well, whatever my reason is, I’m leaving here by the next train.”
“But I was going by that,” objected Hanky. “I must get away from here.”
“Better stay on and let father see you’re not at all to blame,” advised she. “If we went up town together he’d be sure you were conspiring with me.”
“Oh, I’ll stay—I’ll stay,” cried Peter. “But where are you going, Beatrice?”
“Not to get any of my friends in trouble,” said she. “I’ll take Valentine and go to a hotel—to the Wolcott. Come and call. I’ll not tell father.”
“At a hotel!” Peter stared stupefied. “You don’t mean you’re leaving home—for good?”
“Wouldn’t you—in my place?”
“No. I’d be sensible and marry the man my father wished.”
Beatrice looked at him quizzically. “Hanky,” said she, “you ought to fall on your knees every day of your life and give thanks that you had the good luck to escape marrying me.”
Her mischievous smile, her mocking tone, combined with the words themselves, had an immediately tranquilizing effect upon him. Not for the first time by any means he had a chilling, queasy misgiving that there was truth in that view of a marriage between them. After a pause he said:
“But what will you do?”
“Blessed if I know,” replied she, as if the matter were of not the smallest consequence.
“You’ll have no friends. Nobody’ll dare be friends with you.”
“Have I any friends now?—any worth calling my own?”
“Then, as I understand it, you haven’t got much money. About enough to pay for dresses?”
“About.”
“Then—what will you do?” repeated he, a real, friendly solicitude in his voice and, better still, in his eyes.
“That’s unimportant. I’m escaping worse than I could possibly be running into.”
“Marry me, Beatrice,” cried he. “It’s not a bad bet if you lose.”
She put out her hand impulsively with a grateful smile, the sweetest and friendliest he had ever had from her. “I like that, Hanky! And I like you when youshow what you really are. But I’m not taking advantage of your generosity.”
“I mean it, Beatrice—in dead, sober earnest—on a cold collar.”
She shook her pretty head smilingly. “Good-by. Come to see me. If we run across each other when father’s about scowl and look the other way.”
“What do you take me for?”
“For a person with a little sense. Keep solid with father—for Allie’s sake.”
“But I wantyou——”
She fled, laughing as if she had not a care in the world.
She tried to make her departure unobtrusive. But her father would not have it so. Coming toward the house with the worst of his rage about steamed away he caught sight of her and her maid waiting while several trunks and packages were being loaded on the roof of a touring car. At the sight he went insane again. He rushed wildly toward them and shouted out, heedless of the servants: “Take that car back to the garage, Léry! Valentine, go into the house—report to Mrs. Richmond. And you”—he glared crazily at his daughter—“if you leave here you walk!—and you never come back!”
Beatrice took the hand bag from her maid. “Good-by,Valentine,” said she. There was a wonderful, quiet dignity in her bearing—a delicate correctness of attitude, neither forward nor shrinking—evident sensibility to the situation, yet no desire to aggravate it by show of superior breeding or by defiance. It was a situation savagely testing character. Beatrice responded to the test in a way that augured well for her being able to look out for herself in any circumstances. She smiled pleasantly, yet with restraint, to the agitated servants and started down the road.
Valentine hesitated, then set out in her wake. “Come back here!” shouted Richmond. “You are in my employ, not my daughter’s.”
Beatrice, guessing what was occurring, paused and turned. “Do as my father says,” she said. “I shall not be able to keep you.”
“I, too, belong to myself, mademoiselle,” replied the girl with a quiet dignity equal to that of her mistress. “I cannot stay here. I’ll go with you if I may. But—I’ll not stay here.”
Richmond, realizing that his rage of the impotent had once more whirled him into an impossible situation, disappeared in the house. Before Beatrice and Valentine reached the lodge the auto overtook them. The chauffeur, Léry, swung the car close in to the footpath beside the road, jumped from his seat, opened the door.
“Did my father send you?” asked she.
“Yes, mademoiselle.”
When the two women were seated—Beatrice insisted on Valentine’s sitting by her—Beatrice said: “I don’t believe Léry.”
Valentine gave a queer, little smile.
“But,” continued Beatrice, “father will never make any inquiries.”
“Léry understands,” said Valentine.
“Understands—what?”
“That you will win. Your father adores you.”
“You don’t know,” said Beatrice, shaking her head in a decided negative. “And I can’t tell you.”