The man was at her elbow all the while she talked--so close that he could easily overhear the other end of the dialogue. This was with a purpose made manifest when Staff asked Eleanor where she was stopping, when instantly the little man clapped his palm over the transmitter. "Tell him the St. Regis," he said in a sharp whisper. Her eyes demanded the reason why. "Don't stop to argue--do as I say: it'll give us more time. The St. Regis!" He removed his hand. Blindly she obeyed, reiterating the name to Staff and presently saying good-bye. "And now--not a second to spare--hurry!" In the hallway, while they waited for the elevator, he had further instructions for her. "Go to the desk and ask for your bill," he said, handing her the key to her room. "You've money, of course?... Say that you're called unexpectedly away and will send a written order for your trunks early in the morning. If the clerk wants an address, tell him the Auditorium, Chicago. Now ..." They stepped from the dimly lighted hall into the brilliant cage of the elevator. It dropped, silently, swiftly, to the ground floor, somehow suggesting to the girl the workings of her implacable, irresistible destiny. So precisely, she felt, she was being whirled on to her fate, like a dry leaf in a gale, with no more volition, as impotent to direct her course.... Still under the obsession of this idea, she went to the desk, paid her bill and said what she had been told to say about her trunks. Beyond that point she did not go, chiefly because she had forgotten and was too numb with fatigue to care. The clerk's question as to her address failed to reach her understanding; she turned away without responding and went to join at the door the man who seemed able to sway her to his whim. She found herself walking in the dusky streets, struggling to keep up with the rapid pace set by the man at her side. After some time they paused before a building in a side street. By its low facade and huge sliding doors she dimly perceived it to be a private garage. In response to a signal of peculiar rhythm knuckled upon the wood by her companion, the doors rolled back. A heavy-eyed mechanic saluted them drowsily. On the edge of the threshold a high-powered car with a close-coupled body stood ready. With the docility of that complete indifference which is bred of deadening weariness, she submitted to being helped to her seat, arranged her veil to protect her face and sat back with folded hands, submissive to endure whatsoever chance or mischance there might be in store for her. The small man took the seat by her side; the mechanic cranked and jumped to his place. The motor snorted, trembling like a thoroughbred about to run a race, then subsiding with a sonorous purr swept sedately out into the deserted street, swung round a corner into Broadway, settled its tires into the grooves of the car-tracks and leaped northwards like an arrow.