Bab a Sub-Deb Part 9

With me, to think is to act. Hannah was out, it being Xmas and her brother-in-law having a wake, being dead, so I was free to do anything I wanted to.

First I called the Club and got Carter Brooks on the telephone.

"Carter," I said, "I--I am writing a letter. Where is--where does H.

stay?"

"Who?"

"H.--Mr. Grosvenor."

"Why, bless your ardent little Heart! Writing, are you? It's sublime, Bab!"

"Where does he live?"

"And is it all alone you are, on Xmas Night!" he burbled. (This is a word from Alice in WonderLand, and although not in the dictionery, is quite expressive.)

"Yes," I replied, bitterly. "I am old enough to be married off without my consent, but I am not old enough for a real Ball. It makes me sick."

"I can smuggle him here, if you want to talk to him."

"Smuggle!" I said, with scorn. "There is no need to smuggle him. The Familey is crazy about him. They are flinging me at him."

"Well, that's nice," he said. "Who'd have thought it! Shall I bring him to the 'phone?"

"I don't want to talk to him. I hate him."

"Look here," he observed, "if you keep that up, he'll begin to beleive you. Don't take these little quarrels too hard, Barbara. He's so happy to-night in the thought that you----"

"Does he live in a Cabinet, or where?"

"In a what? I don't get that word."

"Don't bother. Where shall I send his letter?"

Well, it seemed he had an apartment at the Arcade, and I rang off. It was after eleven by that time, and by the time I had got into my school mackintosh and found a heavy veil of mother's and put it on, it was almost half past.

The house was quiet, and as Patrick had gone, there was no one around in the lower Hall. I slipped out and closed the door behind me, and looked for a taxicab, but the veil was so heavy that I hailed our own limousine, and Smith had drawn up at the curb before I knew him.

"Where to, lady?" he said. "This is a private car, but I'll take you anywhere in the city for a dollar."

A flush of just indignation rose to my cheek, at the knowledge that Smith was using our car for a taxicab! And just as I was about to speak to him severely, and threaten to tell father, I remembered, and walked away.

"Make it seventy-five cents," he called after me. But I went on. It was terrable to think that Smith could go on renting our car to all sorts of people, covered with germs and everything, and that I could never report it to the Familey.

I got a real taxi at last, and got out at the Arcade, giving the man a quarter, although ten cents would have been plenty as a tip.

I looked at him, and I felt that he could be trusted.

"This," I said, holding up the money, "is the price of Silence."

But If he was trustworthy he was not subtile, and he said:

"The what, miss?"

"If any one asks if you have driven me here, YOU HAVE NOT" I explained, in an impressive manner.

He examined the quarter, even striking a match to look at it. Then he replied: "I have not!" and drove away.

Concealing my nervousness as best I could, I entered the doomed Building. There was only a hall boy there, asleep in the elevator, and I looked at the thing with the names on it. "Mr. Grosvenor" was on the fourth floor.

I wakened the boy, and he yawned and took me to the fourth floor. My hands were stiff with nervousness by that time, but the boy was half asleep, and evadently he took me for some one who belonged there, for he said "Goodnight" to me, and went on down. There was a square landing with two doors, and "Grosvenor" was on one. I tried it gently. It was unlocked.

"FACILUS DESCENSUS IN AVERNU."

I am not defending myself. What I did was the result of desparation.

But I cannot even write of my sensations as I stepped through that fatal portal, without a sinking of the heart. I had, however, had suficient forsight to prepare an alabi. In case there was some one present in the apartment I intended to tell a falshood, I regret to confess, and to say that I had got off at the wrong floor.

There was a sort of hall, with a clock and a table, and a shaded electric lamp, and beyond that the door was open into a sitting room.

There was a small light burning there, and the remains of a wood fire in the fireplace. There was no Cabinet however.

Everything was perfectly quiet, and I went over to the fire and warmed my hands. My nails were quite blue, but I was strangly calm. I took off mother's veil, and my mackintosh, so I would be free to work, and I then looked around the room. There were a number of photographs of rather smart looking girls, and I curled my lip scornfully. He might have fooled them but he could not decieve me. And it added to my bitterness to think that at that moment the villain was dancing--and flirting probably--while I was driven to actual theft to secure the Letter that placed me in his power.

When I had stopped s.h.i.+vering I went to his desk. There were a lot of letters on the top, all addressed to him as Grosvenor. It struck me suddenly as strange that if he was only visiting, under an a.s.sumed name, in order to see me, that so many people should be writing to him as Mr.

Grosvenor. And it did not look like the room of a man who was visiting, unless he took a freight car with him on his travels.

THERE WAS A MYSTERY. All at once I knew it.

My letter was not on the desk, so I opened the top drawer. It seemed to be full of bills, and so was the one below it. I had just started on the third drawer, when a terrable thing happened.

"h.e.l.lo!" said some one behind me.

I turned my head slowly, and my heart stopped.

THE PORTERES INTO THE Pa.s.sAGE HAD OPENED, AND A GENTLEMAN IN HIS EVENING CLOTHES WAS STANDING THERE.

"Just sit still, please," he said, in a perfectly cold voice. And he turned and locked the door into the hall. I was absolutely unable to speak. I tried once, but my tongue hit the roof of my mouth like the clapper of a bell.

"Now," he said, when he had turned around. "I wish you would tell me some good reason why I should not hand you over to the Police."

"Oh, please don't!" I said.

"That's eloquent. But not a reason. I'll sit down and give you a little time. I take it, you did not expect to find me here."

"I'm in the wrong apartment. That's all," I said. "Maybe you'll think that's an excuse and not a reason. I can't help it if you do."

"Well," he said, "that explains some things. It's pretty well known, I fancy, that I have little worth stealing, except my good name."

"I was not stealing," I replied in a sulky manner.