"Paris, Vienna, Morocco--two years around the world!"
"On my honor!"
Rapidly Lightbody, impatient for the celebration, put De Gollyer into
his coat and armed him with his cane.
"In half an hour, Jim. Get Budd, get Reggie Longworth, and, I say, get
that little reprobate of a Smithy, will you?"
"Yes, by George."
At the door, De Gollyer, who, when he couldn't leave on an epigram,
liked to recall the best thing he had said, turned:
"Never again, eh, old boy?"
"Never," cried Lightbody, with the voice of a cannon.
"No social sounding-board for us, eh?"
"Never again!"
"You do like that, don't you? I say a good thing now and then, don't I?"
Lightbody, all eagerness, drove him down the hall, crying:
"Round 'em up--round them all up! I'll show them if I've come back!"
When he had returned, waltzing on his toes to the middle of the room, he
stopped and flung out his arms in a free gesture, inhaling a delicious
breath. Then, whistling busily, he went to a drawer in the book-shelves
and came lightly back, his arms crowded with time-tables, schedules of
steamers, maps of various countries. All at once, remembering, he seized
the telephone and, receiving no response, rang impatiently.
"Central--hello--hello! Central, why don't you answer? Central, give
me--give me--hold up, wait a second!" He had forgotten the number of his
own club. In communication at last, he heard the well-modulated accents
of Rudolph--Rudolph who recognized his voice after six years. It gave
him a little thrill, this reminder of the life he was entering once
more. He ordered one of the dinners he used to order, and hung up the
receiver, with a smile and a little tightening about his heart at the
entry he, the prodigal, would make that night at the Club.
Then, seizing a map of Morocco in one hand and a schedule of sailings in
the other, he sat down to plan, chanting over and over, "Paris, Vienna,
Morocco, India, Paris, Vienna--"
At this moment, unnoticed by him, the doors moved noiselessly and Mrs.
Lightbody entered; a woman full of appealing movements in her lithe
body, and of quick, decisive perceptions in the straight, gray glance of
her eyes. She held with one hand a cloak fastened loosely about her
throat. On her head was the hat with the three white feathers.
A minute passed while she stood, rapidly seizing every indication that
might later assist her. Then she moved slightly and said in a voice of
quiet sadness:
"Jackie."
"Great God!"
Lightbody, overturning chair and table, sprang up--recoiling as one
recoils before an avenging specter. In his convulsive fingers were the
time-tables, clinging like damp lily pads.
"Jackie, I couldn't do it. I couldn't abandon you. I've come back."
Gently, seeming to move rather than to walk, advancing with none of the
uncertainty that was in her voice, she cried, with a little break:
"Forgive me!"
"No, no, never!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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