Cora lost no time. Corliss had
not closed the front door behind him before she was
running up the stairs. Mrs. Madison, emerging
from her husband’s room, did not see her daughter’s
face; for Cora passed her quickly, looking the other
way.
“Was anything the matter?”
asked the mother anxiously. “I thought
I heard ”
“Nothing in the world,”
Cora flung back over her shoulder. “Mr.
Corliss said I couldn’t imitate Sara Bernhardt,
and I showed him I could.” She began to
hum; left a fragment of “rag-time” floating
behind her as she entered her own room; and Mrs. Madison,
relieved, returned to the invalid.
Cora changed her clothes quickly.
She put on a pale gray skirt and coat for the street,
high shoes and a black velvet hat, very simple.
The costume was almost startlingly becoming to her:
never in her life had she looked prettier. She
opened her small jewel-case, slipped all her rings
upon her fingers; then put the diamond crescent, the
pendant, her watch, and three or four other things
into the flat, envelope-shaped bag of soft leather
she carried when shopping. After that she brought
from her clothes-pantry a small travelling-bag and
packed it hurriedly.
Laura, returning from errands downtown
and glancing up at Cora’s window, perceived
an urgently beckoning, gray-gloved hand, and came
at once to her sister’s room.
The packed bag upon the bed first
caught her eye; then Cora’s attire, and the
excited expression of Cora’s face, which was
high-flushed and moist, glowing with a great resolve.
“What’s happened?”
asked Laura quickly. “You look exactly like
a going-away bride. What ”
Cora spoke rapidly: “Laura,
I want you to take this bag and keep it in your room
till a messenger-boy comes for it. When the bell
rings, go to the door yourself, and hand it to him.
Don’t give Hedrick a chance to go to the door.
Just give it to the boy; and don’t
say anything to mamma about it. I’m going
downtown and I may not be back.”
Laura began to be frightened.
“What is it you want to do, Cora?” she
asked, trembling.
Cora was swift and business-like.
“See here, Laura, I’ve got to keep my
head about me. You can do a great deal for me,
if you won’t be emotional just now, and help
me not to be. I can’t afford it, because
I’ve got to do things, and I’m going to
do them just as quickly as I can, and get it over.
If I wait any longer I’ll go insane. I
can’T wait! You’ve been a wonderful
sister to me; I’ve always counted on you, and
you’ve never once gone back on me. Right
now, I need you to help me more than I ever have in
my life. Will you ”
“But I must know ”
“No, you needn’t!
I’ll tell you just this much: I’ve
got myself in a devil of a mess ”
Laura threw her arms round her:
“Oh, my dear, dear little sister!” she
cried.
But Cora drew away. “Now
that’s just what you mustn’t do. I
can’t stand it! You’ve got to be
quiet. I can’t ”
“Yes, yes,” Laura said
hurriedly. “I will. I’ll do whatever
you say.”
“It’s perfectly simple:
all I want you to do is to take charge of my travelling-bag,
and, when a messenger-boy comes, give it to him without
letting anybody know anything about it.”
“But I’ve got to know
where you’re going I can’t let
you go and not ”
“Yes, you can! Besides,
you’ve promised to. I’m not going
to do anything foolish ”
“Then why not tell me?”
Laura began. She went on, imploring Cora to confide
in her, entreating her to see their mother to
do a dozen things altogether outside of Cora’s
plans.
“You’re wasting your breath,
Laura,” said the younger sister, interrupting,
“and wasting my time. You’re in the
dark: you think I’m going to run away with
Val Corliss and you’re wrong. I sent him
out of the house for good, a while ago ”
“Thank heaven for that!” cried Laura.
“I’m going to take care
of myself,” Cora went on rapidly. “I’m
going to get out of the mess I’m in, and you’ve
got to let me do it my own way. I’ll send
you a note from downtown. You see that the messenger ”
She was at the door, but Laura caught
her by the sleeve, protesting and beseeching.
Cora turned desperately. “See
here. I’ll come back in two hours and tell
you all about it. If I promise that, will you
promise to send me the bag by the ”
“But if you’re coming back you won’t
need ”
Cora spoke very quietly. “I’ll
go to pieces in a moment. Really, I do think
I’d better jump out of the window and have it
over.”
“I’ll send the bag,”
Laura quavered, “if you’ll promise to come
back in two hours.”
“I promise!”
Cora gave her a quick embrace, a quick
kiss, and, dry-eyed, ran out of the room, down the
stairs, and out of the house.
She walked briskly down Corliss Street.
It was a clear day, bright noon, with an exhilarating
tang in the air, and a sky so glorious that people
outdoors were continually conscious of the blue overhead,
and looked up at it often. An autumnal cheerfulness
was abroad, and pedestrians showed it in their quickened
steps, in their enlivened eyes, and frequent smiles,
and in the colour of their faces. But none showed
more colour or a gayer look than Cora. She encountered
many whom she knew, for it was indeed a day to be
stirring, and she nodded and smiled her way all down
the long street, thinking of what these greeted people
would say to-morrow. “I saw her yesterday,
walking down Corliss Street, about noon, in a gray
suit and looking fairly radiant!” Some of those
she met were enemies she had chastened; she prophesied
their remarks with accuracy. Some were old suitors,
men who had desired her; one or two had place upon
her long list of boy-sweethearts: she gave the
same gay, friendly nod to each of them, and foretold
his morrow’s thoughts of her, in turn. Her
greeting of Mary Kane was graver, as was aesthetically
appropriate, Mr. Wattling’s engagement having
been broken by that lady, immediately after his drive
to the Country Club for tea. Cora received from
the beautiful jilt a salutation even graver than her
own, which did not confound her.
Halfway down the street was a drug-store.
She went in, and obtained appreciative permission
to use the telephone. She came out well satisfied,
and went swiftly on her way. Ten minutes later,
she opened the door of Wade Trumble’s office.
He was alone; her telephone had caught
him in the act of departing for lunch. But he
had been glad to wait glad to the verge
of agitation.
“By George, Cora!” he
exclaimed, as she came quickly in and closed the door,
“but you can look stunning! Believe
me, that’s some get-up. But let me tell
you right here and now, before you begin, it’s
no use your tackling me again on the oil proposition.
If there was any chance of my going into it which
there wasn’t, not one on earth why,
the very fact of your asking me would have stopped
me. I’m no Dick Lindley, I beg to inform
you: I don’t spend my money helping a girl
that I want, myself, to make a hit with another man.
You treated me like a dog about that, right in the
street, and you needn’t try it again, because
I won’t stand for it. You can’t play
me, Cora!”
“Wade,” she said, coming
closer, and looking at him mysteriously, “didn’t
you tell me to come to you when I got through playing?”
“What?” He grew very red,
took a step back from her, staring at her distrustfully,
incredulously.
“I’ve got through playing”,
she said in a low voice. “And I’ve
come to you.”
He was staggered. “You’ve come ”
he said, huskily.
“Here I am, Wade.”
He had flushed, but now the colour
left his small face, and he grew very white.
“I don’t believe you mean it.”
“Listen,” she said.
“I was rotten to you about that oil nonsense.
It was nonsense, nothing on earth but nonsense.
I tell you frankly I was a fool. I didn’t
care the snap of my finger for Corliss, but oh,
what’s the use of pretending? You were always
such a great `business man,’ always so absorbed
in business, and put it before everything else in
the world. You cared for me, but you cared for
business more than for me. Well, no woman likes
that, Wade. I’ve come to tell you
the whole thing: I can’t stand it any longer.
I suffered horribly because because ”
She faltered. “Wade, that was no way to
win a girl.”
“Cora!” His incredulity was strong.
“I thought I hated you for it,
Wade. Yes, I did think that; I’m telling
you everything, you see just blurting it out as it
comes, Wade. Well, Corliss asked me to help him,
and it struck me I’d show that I could understand
a business deal, myself. Wade, this is pretty
hard to say, I was such a little fool, but you ought
to know it. You’ve got a right to know
it, Wade: I thought if I put through a thing
like that, it would make a tremendous hit with you,
and that then I could say: `So this is the kind
of thing you put ahead of me, is it? Simple
little things like this, that I can do, myself,
by turning over my little finger!’ So I got
Richard to go in that was easy; and then
it struck me that the crowning triumph of the whole
thing would be to get you to come in yourself.
That would be showing you, I thought! But
you wouldn’t: you put me in my place and
I was angry I never was so angry in my
life, and I showed it.” Tears came into
her voice. “Oh, Wade,” she said,
softly, “it was the very wildness of my anger
that showed what I really felt.”
“About about me?”
His incredulity struggled with his hope. He stepped
close to her.
“What an awful fool I’ve been,”
she sighed.
“Why, I thought I could show
you I was your equal! And look what it’s
got me into, Wade!”
“What has it got you into, Cora?”
“One thing worth while:
I can see what I really am when I try to meet you
on your own ground.” She bent her head,
humbly, then lifted it, and spoke rapidly. “All
the rest is dreadful, Wade. I had a distrust
of Corliss from the first; I didn’t like him,
but I took him up because I thought he offered the
chance to show you what I could do. Well,
it’s got me into a most horrible mess. He’s
a swindler, a rank ”
“By George!” Wade shouted.
“Cora, you’re talking out now like a real
woman.”
“Listen. I got horribly
tired of him after a week or so, but I’d promised
to help him and I didn’t break with him; but
yesterday I just couldn’t stand him any longer
and I told him so, and sent him away. Then, this
morning, an old man came to the house, a man named
Pryor, who knew him and knew his record, and he told
me all about him.” She narrated the interview.
“But you had sent Corliss away
first?” Wade asked, sharply.
“Yesterday, I tell you.”
She set her hand on the little man’s shoulder.
“Wade, there’s bound to be a scandal over
all this. Even if Corliss gets away without being
arrested and tried, the whole thing’s bound
to come out. I’ll be the laughing-stock
of the town and I deserve to be: it’s
all through having been ridiculous idiot enough to
try and impress you with my business brilliancy.
Well, I can’t stand it!”
“Cora, do you ” He
faltered.
She leaned toward him, her hand still
on his shoulder, her exquisite voice lowered, and
thrilling in its sweetness. “Wade, I’m
through playing. I’ve come to you at last
because you’ve utterly conquered me. If
you’ll take me away to-day, I’ll marry
you to-day!”
He gave a shout that rang again from the walls.
“Do you want me?” she
whispered; then smiled upon his rapture indulgently.
Rapture it was. With the word
“marry,” his incredulity sped forever.
But for a time he was incoherent: he leaped and
hopped, spoke broken bits of words, danced fragmentarily,
ate her with his eyes, partially embraced her, and
finally kissed her timidly.
“Such a wedding we’ll have!” he
shouted, after that.
“No!” she said sharply.
“We’ll be married by a Justice of the
Peace and not a soul there but us, and it will be now,
or it never will be! If you don’t ”
He swore she should have her way.
“Then we’ll be out of
this town on the three o’clock train this afternoon,”
she said. She went on with her plans, while he,
growing more accustomed to his privilege, caressed
her as he would. “You shall have your way,”
she said, “in everything except the wedding-journey.
That’s got to be a long one I won’t
come back here till people have forgotten all about
this Corliss mix-up. I’ve never been abroad,
and I want you to take me. We can stay a long,
long time. I’ve brought nothing we’ll
get whatever we want in New York before we sail.”
He agreed to everything. He had
never really hoped to win her; paradise had opened,
dazing him with glory: he was astounded, mad
with joy, and abjectly his lady’s servant.
“Hadn’t you better run
along and get the license?” she laughed.
“We’ll have to be married on the way to
the train.” “Cora!” he gasped.
“You angel!”
“I’ll wait here for you,”
she smiled. “There won’t be too much
time.”
He obtained a moderate control of
his voice and feet. “Enfield that’s
my cashier he’ll be back from his
lunch at one-thirty. Tell him about us, if I’m
not here by then. Tell him he’s got to
manage somehow. Good-bye till I come back Mrs.
Trumble!”
At the door he turned. “Oh,
have you you ”
He paused uncertainly. “Have you sent Richard
Lindley any word about ”
“Wade!” She gave his inquiry
an indulgent amusement. “If I’m not
worrying about him, do you think you need to?”
“I meant about ”
“You funny thing,” she
said. “I never had any idea of really marrying
him; it wasn’t anything but one of those silly
half-engagements, and ”
“I didn’t mean that,”
he said, apologetically. “I meant about
letting him know what this Pryor told you about Corliss,
so that Richard might do something toward getting
his money back. We ought to ”
“Oh, yes,” she said quickly. “Yes,
that’s all right.”
“You saw Richard?”
“No. I sent him a note.
He knows all about it by this time, if he has been
home this morning. You’d better start, Wade.
Send a messenger to our house for my bag. Tell
him to bring it here and then take a note for me.
You’d really better start dear!”
“Cora!” he shouted,
took her in his arms, and was gone. His departing
gait down the corridor to the elevator seemed, from
the sounds, to be a gallop.
Left alone, Cora wrote, sealed, and
directed a note to Laura. In it she recounted
what Pryor had told her of Corliss; begged Laura and
her parents not to think her heartless in not preparing
them for this abrupt marriage. She was in such
a state of nervousness, she wrote, that explanations
would have caused a breakdown. The marriage was
a sensible one; she had long contemplated it as a
possibility; and, after thinking it over thoroughly,
she had decided it was the only thing to do.
She sent her undying love.
She was sitting with this note in
her hand when shuffling footsteps sounded in the corridor;
either Wade’s cashier or the messenger, she
supposed. The door-knob turned, a husky voice
asking, “Want a drink?” as the door opened.
Cora was not surprised she
knew Vilas’s office was across the hall from
that in which she waited but she was frightened.
Ray stood blinking at her.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, at
last.