"Good gracious!"
"Fact. But come up to the roost--changing taxis--to-morrow at five and
have tea."
Down in the street Cutty bore into the slanting rain, no longer a
drizzle. With his hands jammed in his side pockets and his gaze on the
sparkling pavement he continued downtown, in a dangerously ruminative
frame of mind, dangerous because had he been followed he would not have
known it.
Molly Conover's girl! That afternoon it had been Tommy Conover's girl;
now she was Molly's. It occurred to him for the first time that he was
one of those unfortunate individuals who are always able to open the
door to Paradise for others and are themselves forced to remain outside.
Hadn't he introduced Conover to Molly, and hadn't they fallen in love
on the spot? Too old to be a hero and not old enough to die. He grinned.
Some day he would use that line.
Of course it wasn't Kitty who set this peculiar cogitation in motion. It
wasn't her arms and the perfume of her hair. The actual thrill had come
from a recrudescence of a vanished passion; anyhow, a passion that had
been held suspended all these years. Still, it offered a disquieting
prospect. He was sensible enough to realize that he would be in for some
confusion in trying to disassociate the phantom from the quick.
Most pretty young women were flitter-flutters, unstable, shallow,
immature. But this little lady had depth, the sense of the living drama;
and, Lord, she was such a beauty! Wanted a man who would laugh when he
was happy and when he was hurt. A bull's-eye--bang, like that! For the
only breed worth its salt was the kind that laughed when happy and when
hurt.
The average young woman, rushing into his arms the way she had, would
not have stirred him in the least. And immediately upon the heels of
this thought came a taste of the confusion he saw in store for himself.
Was it the phantom or Kitty? He jumped to another angle to escape the
impasse. Kitty's coming to him in that fashion raised an unpalatable
suggestion. He evidently looked fatherly, no matter how he felt. Hang
these fifty-two years, to come crowding his doorstep all at once!
He raised his head and laughed. He suddenly remembered now. At nine that
night he had been scheduled to deliver a lecture on the Italo-Jugoslav
muddle before a distinguished audience in the ballroom of a famous
hotel! He would have some fancy apologizing to do in the morning.
He stepped into a doorway, then peered out cautiously. There was not a
single pedestrian in sight. No need of hiking any further in this
rain; so he hunted for a taxi. To-morrow he would set the wires humming
relative to old Stefani Gregor. Boris Karlov, if indeed it were he,
would lead the way. Hadn't Stefani and Boris been boyhood friends, and
hadn't Stefani betrayed the latter in some political affair? He wasn't
sure; but a glance among his 1912 notes would clear up the fog.