“I’m sorry,” he muttered inanely.
“Sorry?” she mocked. “Is that the best you can offer? Anything goes to-night. And I’ve got plenty.” She winked one dark lash at him and rubbed her body against him suggestively.
“I... I... I’m sorry,” Robert muttered. He loosed himself from her and hurried down the street.
She made a little face after him. “Off after some other wench!” she exclaimed angrily. “It’s his hard luck... but, Gawd, I coulda shown that han’some son-of-a-gun a thing or two.”
Robert looked neither to the right nor left as he turned into Claiborne and hurried westward. He was feverishly impatient to reach the Brinkley home, for he.had a feeling that Barbara would be awaiting him. Mr. Brinkley would have told her of his phone call, and he envisioned her waiting for him breathlessly at the front gate.
The two encounters on the street had given him new courage. He felt savagely capable of sweeping all Babs’ protestations away. The red wine of passion coursed through his veins for the first time in his life. And it was heady stuff.
He would teach Babs passion, he thought exultantly. How exceedingly wonderful it would be to teach her gently what he had learned this night.
Claiborne was much quieter than Canal Street. There were many groups of riotous couples, and Robert was accosted by several girls who strolled singly, but he did not pause to talk with any. His soul cried out that he must hurry to Babs.
He came to the street at last, and turned up it more slowly, looking for house numbers to locate the Brinkley home. This street was deserted and quiet. So much in contrast to the hurly-burly just quitted that it seemed endless leagues removed.
He found the house at last. A two-story home set back from the street in the center of a lawn. A thick hedge, shoulder-high, surrounded the yard. A dim light gleamed in the front window as he halted on the sidewalk and considered his course.
Somehow, the house seemed cold and lifeless. It was inconceivable that its bulk sheltered the vital spirit that was Babs. Perhaps she had not yet returned. A cold chill overtook him at the thought. He studied his watch in the dim glow from a street lamp on the corner and discovered that it was eleven-thirty. He could not believe she would still be out.
Cautiously he moved up the path until he stood directly before the front door. There was no sign of life within the dimly lit parlor. Only one floor lamp was burning.
He shook his head dismally and retraced his steps to the front gate. He knew that Babs had not returned. She would have waited expectantly for him if she had returned in the interim.
What to do? He considered swiftly. He could not return to the hotel without seeing her. Until he saw her there would be no rest for him.
He decided he would wait. Certainly, he thought, she would come at any moment. Never in all her life had he known of Babs being out later than ten o’clock. He would wait.
So he waited. For two hours he waited, tortured with jealousies and anxious with fears for her safety.
He was suddenly aware of the lights of an approaching automobile. Other automobiles had approached while his heart stood still... and passed on.
This was different. Some hidden sense, warned him that this was the automobile he had long awaited. He sat near the path in the dark shadow of the hedge, his knees drawn up beneath his chin — a picture of abject misery.
He felt strangely lethargic as the car ground to a halt in front of the house. There were light voices and Barbara’s clear laugh. It was, indeed, she.
He made no move to arise. He saw that a man drove the car. And Ethel was with them. He breathed a silent prayer of thanksgiving as he noted there were only the three. What a fool he had been! Of course Babs had just gone out for a ride with Ethel and her friend.
Then occurred that terrible scene which Robert was never wholly to efface from his memory. Ethel stepped from the car first and helped Barbara to alight. The driver leaped from the seat and hurried around the car to murmur indistinguishable words.
Ethel moved away and the man had his arm about Babs’ waist!
Barbara’s voice:
“I’ve always thought I’d feel terrible after doing this the first time... I don’t... I’m not a bit ashamed.”
The world stood still for Robert.
The stranger’s voice:
“I’m so glad... never cease calling myself a dog...”
Barbara! Stopping at the gate not five feet from Robert. Lifting her arms to the stranger. Her voice, warm and vibrant:
“Kiss me. I want to thank you... for — everything...”
Robert heard nothing more. A merciful blackness descended which shut out the remainder of the horrible scene.
He was not conscious that the automobile sped away. He did not hear Barbara and Ethel go up the front steps and slam the door behind them.
He did not know that he stumbled and fell as he ran from the hideous thing he had overheard.
He knew only that he must escape... and that there could be no escape from the black phantom which pursued him.
Chapter Eleven
Hattie looked up with a grim frown as Jim hesitated in the doorway.
“Oh! It’s you!” she snapped. “Where’s Robert?”
“Why he’s... he’s gone out to... to see if he...” Jim got no further with his stumbling explanation.
“He’s slipped out to chase after that slip of a Barbara, I’ll be bound. You’d think he’d have more pride, wouldn’t you? Robert Sutler! My own cousin! His head so turned by a good-for-nothing that he forgets everything else.” Cousin Hattie assumed a martyred expression. She did it quite well. Jim marveled at the facility she showed in settling her harsh features into injured lines. He didn’t know how much practice she had had in this respect.
“Goes right out at this outlandish time of the night without so much as a by-your-leave to me who came with him because it was my plain duty to see that he came to no harm.”
“But it’s really not so late,” Jim protested. “It’s just eleven now. The fun’s just beginning on the streets.”
“Fun? Humph!” Cousin Hattie’s tone expressed her idea of people who started their fun at eleven o’clock in the night.
Jim started to answer, but she pressed on relentlessly:
“Little he cares about me. His head’s so turned by that flittery-gibbet girl that he doesn’t know I’m living. A lot he cares about what becomes of me. Why, I could be kidnaped or... or attacked... and he’d never turn a hair.”
“That’s... that’s not quite fair to Robert,” Jim protested, choking back a chuckle as he envisioned Cousin Hattie being kidnaped... or attacked. “I’m here,” he added helplessly. “Robert asked me to do anything I could to make up for his rushing away like this.”
“Humph.” Cousin Hattie sniffed three times and softened visibly.
“Perhaps you’d like to go out and see the sights,” Jim offered desperately. “Though I don’t suppose you’d care for that so late at night.”
“Well, now maybe it’s my duty to go and get the sights of these scandalous carryings-on.” Cousin Hattie arose with alacrity. Her nose wriggled as she simpered before the mirror.
“I must say I’ll feel perfectly safe with you to protect me,” she went on. “I suppose I should change, though goodness knows I have on my very nicest dress right now. I insisted on wearing this on the train... not wanting Robert to be ashamed of me when we met his friends here in the city. And it is a right nice dress if I do say it myself as who shouldn’t. I made it especial from a pattern in the magazine for Rose’s funeral last fall. Rose Duncan, that was. Jacob Duncan’s second wife. Poor dear. She looked so sweet lying in her casket. So sweet and peaceful. Land sakes, I told them... it’s the first peace she’s known since she married that man. A terrible rounder, he was. Sporty. Up at all hours playing billiards and all those sinful card games. For money, too, mind you...”