The Fighting Chance

Leila, white face quivering, shrank as though he had struck her, and he turned on her again, grinning: "As for you, you come home! And that'll be about all for yours."

"Are you insane, to make a scene like this?" whispered Plank.

But Mortimer swung on him insultingly: "That's about all from you, too!" he said. "Leila, are you coming?"

He stepped heavily toward her; but Plank's sudden crushing grip was on his fat arm above the elbow, and he emitted a roar of surprise and pain.

"Don't touch him! Don't, in Heaven's name!" stammered Leila, as Plank, releasing him, stepped back beside her chair. "Can't you see that I must go with him! I--I must go." She cast one terrified glance around her, where scores of strange faces met hers; and at every table people were standing up to see better.

Plank, who had dropped Mortimer's arm as the latter emitted his bellow of amazement, stepped toward him again, dropping his voice as he spoke: "You go! Do you hear?" he said quietly. "I'll do what you ask me, to-morrow! I will do what you ask, if you'll go now!"

"You come--do you hear!" snarled Mortimer, turning on his wife, who had already risen. "If you don't I'll make a row here that you'll never hear the end of as long as you live! And there'll be nothing to talk over in Quarrier's office, if I do."

Leila looked at Plank, rose, and moved swiftly toward the veranda steps, her head resolutely lowered, the burning shame flaming in her face. Mortimer cast one triumphant glance at Plank, then waddled unsteadily after his wife.

"Hold on," he growled; "I've a Mercedes here! I'll drive you back--wait! Here it is! Here we are!" And to Quarrier's machinist he said: "You get into the tonneau. I want to show Mrs. Mortimer what night-driving is. Do you hear? I tell you I'm going to drive this machine and show you how!"

Leila scarcely heard him. She obeyed the impulse of his hand on her arm, and mounted to the seat, staring straight ahead of her with dazed and straining eyes that saw nothing.

Then Mortimer clambered to his seat, and, without an instant's warning, opened up and seized the wheel.

Unprepared, the machinist attempted to swing aboard, missed his footing in the uncertain light, and fell sprawling on the gravel. Plank saw him from the veranda and instantly vaulted the rail to the lawn below.

"You damn fool!" yelled Mortimer, looking around, "what in hell do you think you'll do?" And he clapped on full speed as Plank made a leap for the car and missed.