The door closed, and Warrington went slowly back to his desk, his mind
filled with pleasant recollections of youth. He re-read the letter,
studied it thoroughly, in hopes that there might be an anagram. There
was nothing he could see, and he put it away, rather annoyed. He
arranged the sheets and notes of the scenario, marshaled the scattered
pencils, and was putting the glasses on the tray, when a sound in the
doorway caused him to lift his head. One of the glasses tumbled over
and rolled across the desk, leaving a trail of water which found its
level among the ash-trays.
"It is quite evident that you forgot me," said the woman, a faint
mirthless smile stirring her lips. "It was very close in there, and I
could hear nothing." She placed a hand on her forehead, swayed, and
closed her eyes for a second.
"You are faint!" he cried, springing toward her.
"It is nothing," she replied, with a repelling gesture. "John
Bennington, was it not?"
"Yes." His eyes grew round with wonder.
"I was going to keep it secret as long as I could, but I see it is
useless. He is the man I have promised to marry." Her voice had a
singular quietness.
Warrington retreated to his desk, leaning heavily against it.
"Bennington? You are going to marry John Bennington?" dully.
"Yes."
He sat down abruptly and stared at her with the expression of one who
is suddenly confronted by some Medusa's head, as if in the straggling
wisps of hair that escaped from beneath her hat he saw the writhing
serpents. She was going to marry John Bennington!
She stepped quickly up to the desk and began to scatter things about.
Her hands shook, she breathed rapidly, her delicate nostrils dilating
the while.
"Look out!" he warned, at her side the same instant. "Your hat is
burning!" He smothered the incipient flame between his palms.
"Never mind the hat. My gloves, Dick, my gloves! I left them here on
the desk."
"Your gloves?" Then immediately he recollected that he had seen them
in Bennington's hands, but he was positive that the gloves meant
nothing to Bennington. He had picked them up just as he would have
picked up a paper-cutter, a pencil, a match-box, if any of these had
been within reach of his nervous fingers. Most men who are at times
mentally embarrassed find relief in touching small inanimate objects.
So he said reassuringly: "Don't let a pair of gloves worry you, girl."
"He bought them for me this morning," a break in her voice. "I MUST
find them!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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