"Jimmie--are you there?"
"You!" His lips were dry, he moistened them with his tongue. "You!" he
whispered hoarsely. "You, Marie--and I thought--I thought that you
were--"
"Jimmie," she broke in, a quick, wistful catch in her voice, "I cannot
stay here a moment--you understand, don't you? There is not an instant
to lose--on the floor by the Sanctuary window--a note--will you hurry,
Jimmie--good-bye."
She was gone. Mechanically he replaced the receiver on the hook. She was
gone--but it _was_ her voice he had heard--hers--and she was alive. The
play of emotion upon him robbed him for the moment of coherent thought,
and came and swept over him in a mighty surge and engulfed him; and now
in the sudden revulsion from despair and the bitterest of agony his mind
was dazed and numbed. It seemed as though he were obeying some
subconscious power, as he turned and left the room; as though some
influence outside of, and extraneous to, himself gave him a spurious
self-mastery, a self-command, a mask of nonchalance, as he walked calmly
through the club lobby and out to the street.
Benson, his chauffeur, held the door of his car open for him.
"Where to, sir?" Benson asked.
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