Chapter 15: The Other Man’s Road

The damp cold of a March night closed chillingly around the two, as they passed through the revolving door into the street. The restaurant did not face on Broadway, the street of a million lights; for a moment they seemed to have stepped into darkness, after the dazzle of light just left. Adriance turned away from the vociferous proffers of taxicabs, with an economy prompted by Elsie’s guiding hand rather than his own prudence. Indeed, his great amazement and vicarious shame for Masterson left him with slight attention for ordinary matters.

But they were not allowed to reach the subway, and return as they had come. As they neared the station entrance, a limousine rolled up to the curb and halted across their path. The car’s occupant threw open the door before the chauffeur could do so, and leaned out.

“Come in,” commanded, rather than invited Masterson’s voice. “You didn’t wait for me, so I had a chase to catch you. Put Mrs. Adriance in, Tony, and tell the man where you want to go. The ferry, is it? All right; tell him so.”

He spoke with an abrupt impatience and strain that excused much by its account of his sick nerves. Adriance complied without objection. Before she quite realized the situation, Elsie found herself seated beside him, opposite Masterson in the warmed interior of the car.

The air of the limousine was not only warm, but perfumed. Without analyzing their reason, it struck both the Adriances as peculiarly shocking that this should be so. Elsie identified the white heliotrope scent worn by the dancer. The globe set in the ceiling was not lighted, but the street lamps shone in, showing the thinness of Masterson’s flushed face and its haggardness, accentuated by smudges of make-up imperfectly removed. Elsie felt a quivering embarrassment for him, and a desperate hopelessness of finding anything possible to say. She divined that Anthony was experiencing the same feelings, but intensified.

The car rolled smoothly around Columbus Circle and settled into a steady pace up Broadway. The rush of after-theatre traffic was long since over, the streets comparatively clear. Masterson spoke first, with a defiance that attempted to be light.

“Well, haven’t you any compliments for me? I’ve been told I do it pretty well. That’s the only thing I learned at college of any use to me!”

“How did you come——?” Adriance began, brusquely. “I mean—what sent you there, to that? Why, Fred——?”

“I thought it was you, Tony, until to-day,” was the dry retort. “I’ve thought so ever since I found out who was financing the case. Until this morning, I believed Lucille lied when she told me you were married. I suppose I should apologize to you; consider it done, if you like.”

“Don’t!” Adriance begged. His hand closed sharply over his wife’s.

“We have been married since last November,” she gravely came to his aid. “I am sure Mrs. Masterson told you only the truth in that. Indeed, the announcement was published in the newspapers! Since then, we have been living where you saw me this morning; on a honeymoon quite out of the world.”

“I don’t read more of any newspaper than the first pages,” Masterson returned. “I see you two do not read even so much, or you would hardly have been taken by surprise, to-night. Shocked, were you, Tony? I suppose I would have been, myself, once. Now——”

“Now——?” Adriance prompted, after waiting.

Masterson faced his friend with a sudden blaze in his hollow eyes.

“Now, I am through with being shocked at myself, through with thinking of myself or sparing myself and other people. Can’t you see, can’t you guess for whom alone I would do this—or anything else? Have you forgotten Holly? I may not have a wife, but I have a son. And I will not have my son reared as I was, married as I was, and ruined as I am. I am going to have money, if I fish it out of the gutter, to take him away to some clean, far-off place. There I shall rear him myself, understand! He shall never know this Fred Masterson. Roughing it outdoors will put me in fit condition long before he is old enough to criticise. He’s got a fine little body, Tony! I’ll have him as hard and straight as a pine tree. I’ll teach him to work. What will I care for the squalls of this corner of the world, when I have done that? Since Lucille divorced me, I’ve stripped my mind of a good deal of hampering romance.”