The Big-Town Round-Up
Page 17
CHAPTER XVI
A FACE IN THE NIGHT
Clay did his best under the handicap of a lack of _entente_ between himand the authorities to search New York for Kitty. He used the personalcolumns of the newspapers. He got in touch with taxicab drivers,ticket-sellers, postmen, and station guards. So far as possible heeven employed the police through the medium of Johnnie. The East Sidewater-front and the cheap lodging-houses of that part of the city hecombed with especial care. All the time he knew that in such a maze asManhattan it would be a miracle if he found her.
But miracles are made possible by miracle-workers. The Westerner was asixty-horse-power dynamo of energy. He felt responsible for Kitty andhe gave himself with single-minded devotion to the job of discoveringher.
His rides and walks with Beatrice were rare events now because he wasso keen on the business of looking for his Colorado protegee. He gavethem up reluctantly. Every time they went out together into the openMiss Whitford became more discontented with the hothouse existence shewas living. He felt there was just a chance that if he were constantenough, he might sweep her off her feet into that deeper current oflife that lay beyond the social shallows. But he had to sacrifice thischance. He was not going to let Kitty's young soul be ship-wrecked ifhe could help it, and he had an intuition that she was not wise enoughnor strong enough to keep off the rocks alone.
A part of his distress lay in the coolness of his imperious youngfriend who lived on the Drive. Beatrice resented his dividedallegiance, though her own was very much in that condition. Clay andshe had from the first been good comrades. No man had ever so deeplyresponded to her need of friendship. All sorts of things he understoodwithout explanations. A day with him was one that brought the deepcontent of happiness. That, no doubt, she explained to herself, wasbecause he was such a contrast to the men of cramped lives she knew.He was a splendid tonic, but of course one did not take tonics exceptoccasionally.
Yet though Beatrice intended to remain heart-whole, she wanted to bethe one woman in Clay's life until she released him. It hurt hervanity, and perhaps something deeper than her vanity, that such a girlas she conceived Kitty Mason to be should have first claim on the timeshe had come to consider her own. She made it plain to him, in thewordless way expert young women have at command, that she did not meanto share with him such odd hours as he chose to ask for. He had tocome when she wanted him or not at all. Without the name of Kittyhaving been mentioned, he was given to understand that if he wished toremain in the good graces of Beatrice Whitford he must put thecigarette girl out of his mind.
For all his good nature Clay was the last man in the world to acceptdictation of this sort. He would go through with anything he started,and especially where it was a plain call of duty. Beatrice might likeit or not as she pleased. He would make his own decisions as to hisconduct.
He did.
Bee was furious at him. She told herself that there was either a weakstreak in him or a low one, else he would not be so obsessed by thedisappearance of this flirtatious little fool who had tried to entraphim. But she did not believe it. A glance at this brown-faced man wassufficient evidence that he trod with dynamic force the way of thestrong. A look into his clear eyes was certificate enough of hisdecency.
When Clay met Kitty at last it was quite by chance. As it happenedBeatrice was present at the time.
He had been giving a box party at the Empire. The gay little group wasgathered under the awning outside the foyer while the limousine thatwas to take them to Shanley's for supper was being called. ColinWhitford, looking out into the rain that pelted down, uttered anexclamatory "By Jove!"
Clay turned to him inquiringly.
"A woman was looking out of that doorway at us," he said. "If she'snot in deep water I'm a bad guesser. I thought for a moment she knewme or some one of us. She started to reach out her hands and thenshrank back."
"Young or old?" asked the cattleman.
"Young--a girl."
"Which door?"
"The third."
"Excuse me." The host was off in an instant, almost on the run.
But the woman had gone, swallowed in the semi-darkness of a sidestreet. Clay followed.
Beatrice turned to her father, eyebrows lifted. There was a moment'sawkward silence.
"Mr. Lindsay will be back presently," Whitford said. "We'll get in andwait for him out of the way a little farther up the street."
When Clay rejoined them he was without his overcoat. He stood in theheavy rain beside the car, a figure of supple grace even in his eveningclothes, and talked in a low voice with Beatrice's father. The miningman nodded agreement and Lindsay turned to the others.
"I'm called away," he explained aloud. "Mr. Whitford has kindlypromised to play host in my place. I'm right sorry to leave, but it'surgent."
His grave smile asked Beatrice to be charitable in her findings. Theeyes she gave him were coldly hostile. She, too, had caught a glimpseof the haggard face in the shadows and she hardened her will againsthim. The bottom of his heart went out as he turned away. He knewBeatrice did not and would not understand.
The girl was waiting where Clay had left her, crouched against abasement milliner's door under the shelter of the steps. She waswearing the overcoat he had flung around her. In its pallid despairher face was pitiable.
A waterproofed policeman glanced suspiciously at them as he sloshedalong the sidewalk in the splashing rain.
"I--I've looked for you everywhere," moaned the girl. "It'sbeen--awful."
"I know, but it's goin' to be all right now, Kitty," he comforted."You're goin' home with me to-night. To-morrow we'll talk it all over."
He tucked an arm under hers and led her along the wet, shining streetto a taxicab. She crouched in a corner of the cab, her body shakenwith sobs.
The young man moved closer and put a strong arm around her shoulders."Don't you worry, Kitty. Yore big brother is on the job now."
"I--I wanted to--to kill myself," she faltered. "I tried to--in theriver--and--it was so black--I couldn't." The girl shivered with cold.She had been exposed to the night rain for hours without a coat.
He knew her story now in its essentials as well as he did later whenshe wept it out to him in confession. And because she was who she was,born to lean on a stronger will, he acquitted her of blame.
They swung into Broadway and passed taxis and limousines filled withgay parties just out of the theaters. Young women in rich furs,wrapped from the cruelty of life by the caste system in which wealthhad encased them, exchanged badinage with sleek, well-dressed men. Aripple of care-free laughter floated to him across the gulf thatseparated this girl from them. By the cluster lights of Broadway hecould see how cruelly life had mauled her soft youth. The bloom of herwas gone, all the brave pride and joy of girlhood. It would probablynever wholly return.
He saw as in a vision the infinite procession of her hopeless sisterswho had traveled the road from which he was rescuing her, saw themfirst as sweet and merry children bubbling with joy, and again, afterthe world had misused them for its pleasure, haggard and tawdry, withdragging steps trailing toward the oblivion that awaited them. Hewondered if life must always be so terribly wasted, made a bruised andbroken thing instead of the fine, brave adventure for which it wasmeant.