"And perhaps Lieutenant Ames is in town and can come also," suggested Marie softly.
Some time later, wearily, weakly, they limped into Flynn Springs, and Eveley hurriedly put in her call.
"Nolan? It is Eveley. I am at Flynn Springs. You must come for me, and bring Jimmy Ames. Yes, Marie is with me, and Angelo.--Yes, we are all right. And have a man from the garage with extra tires and a timer for the carburetor. No, we do not need the police. No guns either. Nolan, your voice is sweeter than any angel"s."
Then they went into a small room where there was a bed, and Eveley took off her ruined pumps, and bathed her burning feet, and they fixed their hair, and had hot coffee, always looking at each other with tender eyes.
"Will you never go back on me again, little sister?"
And Marie kissed her in answer.
So they waited patiently for the men breaking all known speed laws to come to them, and the time did not seem long, for they lay on the bed together, each with an arm across the other"s shoulder. And in the small dark hallway outside, Angelo sat before their door, his arms clasped around his knees, his head sunk upon his breast, sound asleep. But even in his sleep keeping guard over his Americanizer and the "little Greaser."
CHAPTER XXI
HER ONE EXCEPTION
All evening Kitty had been trying to get Nolan by telephone, always being told that he was not at the hotel and had gone to the office, and then hearing that the office line was busy. It was after eight when she finally got him on the wire.
"Nolan, whoever have you been talking to? If it was anybody else besides Eveley, I am going to tell. I have been trying to get you all evening. I want you to come over here immediately. Something terrible is about to happen, and you must stop it."
Nolan hesitated. "I am to be at Eveley"s at nine, but if you promise to talk fast I will come."
Receiving her fervent a.s.surance, he immediately closed his desk, and in ten minutes Kitty was drawing him feverishly into her favorite corner of the living-room.
"Nolan, you could never guess what is going on."
"No," he admitted, with a reminiscent smile. "So many odd things have been going on lately that I confess my inability as a guesser."
"Listen to this. Eveley"s sister has fallen in love with some crazy aviator, and is going to elope with him. And she wants Burton to get a divorce so she can marry him."
Nolan was plainly dumfounded at this revelation.
"And that is not the worst. She is going to desert those two children, and Eveley--You know Eve. She says she will be the willing sacrifice to save the honor of the family, and has decided to marry Burton herself, to be a mother to Winifred"s children."
"Preposterous!" gasped Nolan, looking into her flushed face for symptoms of delirium.
"True," came the grim answer. "But we must never allow such a bloodcurdling thing to happen. It wouldn"t be right. I want you to go right over to Eveley"s as fast as you can, and make her marry you. You can pretend you do not know anything about this, and sweep her right off her feet. Get her promise before she knows what is going on, and marry her before she realizes it. Then perhaps Winifred will come to her senses and not do this outrageous thing."
"But, Kitty--"
"You love Eveley, don"t you?"
"Yes, of course, but--"
"Then do you call yourself a man, and yet stand idly by and see the woman you love sacrifice her life for her sister"s honor--and--er babies--and--"
"And husband," he said gloomily. "I could stand the honor and the babies, but I object to the husband."
"Of course you do. I have my car here, and I will take you right over to Eveley"s and you can settle it immediately."
"I do not believe I could propose before you, Kitty," he objected shyly.
"I could not think of the words."
"I shall wait in the car until it is over. Then I shall come sauntering up later on and wish you joy, etc., and Eveley need not know I had a thing to do with it. Just you get her promise, and I shall be witness for you. If she tries to back out we shall sue her for breach of promise."
"All right," he decided suddenly. "We certainly can not submit to any such nonsense as this. Let"s go."
All the way to the Cloud Cote they kept up hearty agreement that the idea was utterly wild and preposterous, and that Nolan should never stand for it. As she stopped the car, two doors down where Eveley could not see from her window, Kitty said:
"Arnold and I want to take a honeymoon trip to Yosemite after we are married, and we want you and Eveley to get married in time to go along.
It is so much more fun when everybody"s married."
"Now, you fix it up with Eveley, and when you are through pull back the shade in the living-room, and I"ll take it for a sign and come up to make my call."
So Nolan went up the rustic steps to Eveley, and Kitty settled down in a corner of the car. For thirty minutes she chuckled gleefully to herself, but after half an hour she began to feel that he was decidedly slow.
"I could be engaged to a dozen people in that time," she thought impatiently, "Oh, the poky thing. But I suppose they are waxing demonstrative, and he has forgotten me."
She toyed restlessly with the keys and screws on the car, still watching the black window in the Cloud Cote with only the faint gleam of light from behind.
"An hour," she cried at last furiously. "If that isn"t the limit! I have a notion to go right home, and let him settle it as best he can--but I do want to see how Eveley takes it. Oh, well, I shall give him fifteen minutes more, and then if he has not signaled I"ll go up and see for myself."
So she waited another uneasy quarter of an hour, and then banged stormily out of the car and up the rustic steps. Her sharp tap brought a sudden scurry and scramble from within, but Kitty did not wait for a summons.
She drew back the portieres and climbed in, uninvited.
Eveley was standing flushed and brilliant in the center of the room, trying to tuck up badly straying curls, and Nolan was adjusting himself to the davenport with an air of studied ease.
"Well, Kitty," cried Eveley nervously. "Why didn"t you phone you were coming over?"
"You do not seem any too glad to see me," said Kitty rather peevishly, and then at their flushed and shining faces, she laughed. "My, how happy you look! Just like newlyweds--or something."
"Yes--something," said Eveley. She flashed a questioning look at Nolan, and received a rea.s.suring nod. "Nolan and I are engaged, Kitty."
"Really," cried Kitty. "After all these years. How surprising." She put her arms around Eveley lovingly. "When did all this happen?"
"Last night, coming down from Flynn Springs," said Eveley. "We--we had a whole car full of it."
"Last night!" Kitty quickly disengaged herself from Eveley"s arm and looked sharply at Nolan, smiling in great contentment on the davenport.
"Last night?"
"Yes, last night. It was an awfully big night all around, wasn"t it, Nolan?"
"It was for me," he said, coming over and taking Eveley"s hand in his.