"Lutie! For G.o.d"s sake-"
"Quick!" she cried out to the driver. "Open the door! Be quick!"
The engine was throbbing. She looked back. George was supporting himself by clinging to one of the awning rods. His legs seemed to be crumbling beneath his weight. Her heart smote her. He had no overcoat. It was a bare hand that gripped the iron rod and a bare hand that was held out toward her. Thank heaven, he had stopped there! He was not coming on.
"Lutie! Oh, Lutie!" came almost in a wail from his lips. Then he began to cry out something incoherent, maudlin, unintelligible.
"Never mind him," said the driver rea.s.suringly. "Just a souse. Wants to make a touch, madam. Streets are full of "em these cold nights. He won"t bone you while I"m here. Where to?" He was holding the door open.
Lutie hesitated. Long afterwards she recalled the strange impulse that came so near to sending her back to the side of the man who cried out to her from the depths of a bottomless pit. Something whispered from her heart that _now was her time_,-_now_! And then came the loud cry from her brain, drowning the timid voice of the merciful: "Wait! Wait! Not now! To- morrow!"
And while she stood there, uncertain, held inactive by the two warring emotions, George turned and staggered away, reeling, and crying out in a queer, raucous voice.
"They"ll get him," said the driver.
"Who will get him?" cried Lutie, shrilly.
"The police. He-"
"No! No! It must not be _that_. That"s not what I want,-do you hear, driver? Not that. He must not be locked up-Oh!" George had collapsed. His knees went from under him and he was half-prostrate on the curb. "Oh! He has fallen! He has hurt himself! Go and see, driver. Go at once." She forgot the sleet and the wind, and stood there wide-eyed and terrified while the man shuffled forward to investigate. She hated him for stirring the fallen man with his foot, and she hated him when he shook him violently with his hands.
"I better call a cop," said the man. "He"s pretty full. He"ll freeze if-I know how it is, ma"am. I used to hit it up a bit myself. I-"
"Listen!" cried Lutie, regaining the shelter of the awning, where she stopped in great perturbation. "Listen; you must put him in your cab and take him somewhere. I will pay you. Here! Here is five dollars. Don"t mind me. I will get another taxi. Be quick! There is a policeman coming. I see him,-there by-"
"Gee! I don"t know where to take him. I-"
"You can"t leave him lying there in the gutter, man," she cried fiercely.
"The gutter! The gutter! My G.o.d, what a thing to happen to-"
"Here! Get up, you!" shouted the driver, shaking George"s shoulder. "Come along, old feller. I"ll look out for you. Gee! He weighs a ton."
Tresslyn was mumbling, half audibly, and made little or no effort to help his unwilling benefactor, who literally dragged him to his feet.
"Is-is he hurt?" cried Lutie, from the doorway.
"No. Plain souse."
"Where will you take him?"
The man reflected. "It wouldn"t be right to take him to his home. Maybe he"s got a wife. These fellers beat "em up when they get like this."
"A wife? Beat them up-oh, you don"t know what you are saying. He-"
At this juncture George straightened out his powerful figure, shook off the Samaritan and with a loud, inarticulate cry rushed off down the street. The driver looked after the retreating figure in utter amazement.
"By Gosh! Why-why; he ain"t any more drunk than I am," he gasped. "Well, can you beat that? All bunk! It beats thunder what these panhandlers will do to pick up a dime or two. He was-say, he saw the cop, that"s what it was. Lord, look at him go!"
Tresslyn was racing wildly toward the corner. Lutie, aghast at this disgusting exhibition of trickery, watched the flying figure of her husband. She never knew that she was clinging to the arm of the driver.
She only knew that her heart seemed to have turned to lead. As he turned the corner and disappeared from view, she found her voice and it seemed that it was not her own. He had swerved widely and almost lost his feet as he made the turn. He _was_ drunk! Her heart leaped with joy. He _was_ drunk. He had not tried to trick her.
"Go after him!" she cried out, shaking the man in her agitation. "Find him! Don"t let him get away. I-"
But the policeman was at her elbow.
"What"s the matter here?" he demanded.
"Panhandler," said the driver succinctly.
"Just a poor wretch who-who wanted enough for-for more drink, I suppose,"
said Lutie, warily. Her heart was beating violently. She was immensely relieved by the policeman"s amiable grunt. It signified that the matter was closed so far as he was concerned. He politely a.s.sisted her into the taxi-cab and repeated her tremulous directions to the driver. As the machine chortled off through the deserted street, she peered through the little window at the back. Her apprehensions faded. The officer was standing where she had left him.
Then came Thorpe and Simmy Dodge in the dead hour of night and she learned that she had turned away from him when he was desperately ill. Sick and tortured, he had come to her and she had denied him. She looked so crushed, so pathetic that the two men undertook to convince her that she had nothing to fear,-they would protect her from George!
She smiled wanly, shook her head, and confessed that she did not want to be protected against him. She wanted to surrender. She wanted _him_ to protect her. Suddenly she was transformed. She sprang to her feet and faced them, and she was resolute. Her voice rang with determination, her lips no longer drooped and trembled, and the appeal was gone from her eyes.
"He must be found, Simmy," she said imperatively. "Find him and bring him here to me. This is his home. I want him here."
The two men went out again, half an hour later, to scour the town for George Tresslyn. They were forced to use every argument at their command to convince her that it would be highly improper, in more ways than one, to bring the sick man to her apartment. She submitted in the end, but they were bound by a promise to take him to a hospital and not to the house of either his mother or his sister.
"He belongs to me," she said simply. "You must do what I tell you to do.
They do not want him. I do. When you have found him, call me up, Simmy, and I will come. I shall not go to bed. Thank you,-both of you,-for-for-"
She turned away as her voice broke. After a moment she faced them again.
"And you will take charge of him, Dr. Thorpe?" she said. "I shall hold you to your promise. There is no one that I trust so much as I do you."
Thorpe was with the sick man when Simmy arrived at his apartment. George was rolling and tossing and moaning in his delirium, and the doctor"s face was grave.
"Pneumonia," he said. "Bad, too,-devilish bad. He cannot be moved, Simmy."
Simmy did not blink an eye. "Then right here he stays," he said heartily.
"Baffly, we shall have two nurses here for a while,-and we may also have to put up a young lady relative of Mr. Tresslyn"s. Get the rooms ready. By Jove, Brady, he-he looks frightfully ill, doesn"t he?" His voice dropped to a whisper. "Is he likely to-to-you know!"
"I think you"d better send for Dr. Bates," said Braden gravely. "I believe his mother and sister will be better satisfied if you have him in at once, Simmy."
"But Lutie expressly-"
"I shall do all that I can to redeem my promise to that poor little girl, but we must consider Anne and Mrs. Tresslyn. They may not have the same confidence in me that Lutie has. I shall insist on having Dr. Bates called in."
"All right, if you insist. But-but you"ll stick around, won"t you, Brady?"
Thorpe nodded his head. He was watching the sick man"s face very closely.
Half an hour later, Lutie Tresslyn and Anne Thorpe entered the elevator on the first floor of the building and went up together to the apartment of Simeon Dodge. Anne had lifted her veil,-a feature in her smart tribute to convention,-and her lovely features were revealed to the cast-off sister- in-law. For an instant they stared hard at each other. Then Anne, recovering from her surprise, bowed gravely and held out her hand.
"May we not forget for a little while?" she said.
Lutie shook her head. "I can"t take your hand-not yet, Mrs. Thorpe. It was against me once, and I am afraid it will be against me again." She detected the faintest trace of a smile at the corners of Anne"s mouth. A fine line appeared between her eyes. This fine lady could still afford to laugh at her! "I am going up to take care of my husband, Mrs. Thorpe," she added, a note of defiance in her voice. She was surprised to see the smile,-a gentle one it was,-deepen in Anne"s eyes.
"That is why I suggested that we try to forget," she said.