The Cab at the Corner A ten o'clock, a page bearing a card upon a silver tray knocked upon the door, and stared with wide-eyed astonishment at the disordered gentleman who opened it.
The card was Lady Mount-Rhyswicke's. Underneath the name was written:
If you are there will you give me a few minutes? I am waiting in a cab at the next corner by the fountain.
Mellin's hand shook as he read. He did not doubt that she came as an emissary; probably they meant to hound him for payment of the note he had given Sneyd, and at that thought he could have shrieked with hysterical laughter.
"Do you speak English?" he asked.
"Spik little. Yes."
"Who gave you this card?"
"Coachman," said the boy. "He wait risposta.""Tell him to say that I shall be there in five minutes.""Fi' minute. Yes. Good-by."Mellin was partly dressed--he had risen half an hour earlier and had been distractedly pacing the floor when the page knocked--and he completed his toilet quickly. He passed down the corridors, descended by the stairway (feeling that to use the elevator would be another abuse of the confidence of the hotel company) and slunk across the lobby with the look and the sensations of a tramp who knows that he will be kicked into the street if anybody catches sight of him.
A closed cab stood near the fountain at the next corner. There was a trunk on the box by the driver, and the roof was piled with bags and rugs. He approached uncertainly.
"Is--is this--is it Lady Mount-Rhyswicke?" he stammered pitifully.
She opened the door.
"Yes. Will you get in? We'll just drive round the block if you don't mind. I'll bring you back here in ten minutes." And when he had tremulously complied, "~Avanti, cocchiere~," she called to the driver, and the tired little cab-horse began to draw them slowly along the deserted street.
Lady Mount-Rhyswicke maintained silence for a time, while her companion waited, his heart pounding with dreadful apprehensions.
Finally she gave a short, hard laugh and said:
"I saw your face by the corner light. Been havin' a hard day of it?"The fear of breaking down kept him from answering. He gulped painfully once or twice, and turned his face away from her. Light enough from a streetlamp shone in for her to see.
"I was rather afraid you'd refuse," she said seriously. "Really, I wonder you were willin' to come!""I was--I was afraid not to." He choked out the confession with the recklessness of final despair.
"So?" she said, with another short laugh. Then she resumed her even, tired monotone: "Your little friend Cooley's note this morning gave us all a rather fair notion as to what you must be thinkin' of us. He seems to have found a sort of walkin' 'Who's-Who-on-the-Continent' since last night. Pity for some people he didn't find it before! I don't think I'm sympathetic with your little Cooley. I 'guess,' as you Yankees say, 'he can stand it.'
But"--her voice suddenly became louder--"I'm not in the business of robbin' babies and orphans, no, my dear friends, nor of helpin'
anybody else to rob them either!--Here you are!"She thrust into his hand a small packet, securely wrapped in paper and fastened with rubber bands. "There's your block of express checks for six hundred dollars and your I 0 U to Sneyd with it.
Take better care of it next time."
He had been tremulous enough, but at that his whole body began to shake violently.
"~What~!" he quavered.
"I say, take better care of it next time," she said, dropping again into her monotone. "I didn't have such an easy time gettin' it back from them as you might think. I've got rather a sore wrist, in fact."She paused at an inarticulate sound from him.
