A deferential man in livery came toward them and led them to a long,
shining limousine car which stood at the curb. A moment later they
were whirling away through the crowded streets, escaping death every
instant, so it seemed to the newcomer, by the miracle of a second’s
fraction. He held his peace, as he had now for five days in a new,
mad world of which he had not dreamed. They passed on out through the
crowded traffic street until they reached paved ways leading to the
north, and so, after a long and steady flight of the car, drew up at
the entrance of a great apartment building on the river drive.
Joslin followed in. He never in his life before had been in a passenger
elevator. He felt a strange sinking at the pit of his stomach, and
caught instinctively at the bars of the gate. He was still less at ease
when they led him into the silent and dim apartments where Haddon and
his wife lived, as luxurious as any of the Riverside, the rent of which
each month was more than any farm in all the Cumberlands would bring in
a year.
But Joslin was now in the home of a gentlewoman. Quietly she took him
in hand, relieving his embarrassment, setting him at his ease, showing
him where he might live, and telling him kindly what might be expected
of him. He looked about him at his own room with awe. These furnishings
to him were so unbelievably luxurious that he dared not sit down upon
a chair. He gazed upon the bed, with its yellow coverlet of silk, with
but one resolve—he would sleep upon the floor, but never venture
further—nor did he. And when presently they called him to table he
felt his heart sink yet further in these strange surroundings, so that
he could not eat. He had accosted as “Mister” the servant who went to
his room with him—he saw the same man now, and wondered that he stood,
and did not eat with the others—wondered that no one noticed him nor
the white-capped maid who passed. Surely it was all a strange, mad
world.
“Well,” said Haddon, after his hurried finishing of his own meal, “I’ve
got to get down to the little old shop right away, Marcia. They’ll not
be expecting me, of course, but it’s a good piece of business that I’m
back when I am, and just the way I am.”
“I presume you’ll have plenty to do,” commented his wife.
“Listen! I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’m going to get together all the
directors of the Company, and we’ll pull off a little dinner at the
Williston—in the Gold Room. How’ll that do, my Christian friend?” said
he, grinning at Joslin as he stepped to the hall table and picked up
his own hat and gloves.
“Of course, I can’t do that right away,” he continued, turning back,
his stick over his arm, his well-brushed hat now on his head. “Maybe a
couple of days. I’ll be busy. Maybe I’ll have to stay down at the club
to-night, Marcia. I’ll check up about dinner time.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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