And so in time Polly Pendleton hitched up her shoulder-strap once more,
and ran off in her final exit.
David Joslin found himself, slightly reeling, passing out to the open
air with the others. Some men whistled, others bore copies of a song,
which they had purchased from the ushers at the door. He never could
remember how or why he went to the principal hotel. Certainly it was
not to find quarters for himself. Aimlessly he walked down the cross
hall of the lobby to another entrance; and so sheer accident favored
him.
He knew that the rustle of skirts at the door of the “ladies’ parlor”
meant the presence of the woman he sought—knew it by some strange
super-sense that came to him. A moment later Polly Pendleton herself
appeared at the door, looking across the hall to the open door of the
café upon the other side.
“All right, Jimmy,” she called out to someone beyond, invisible to
Joslin. “I’ll be in right away. Order me a milk-fed, won’t you, and a
bottle of pale—with you in just a minute.”
She stepped back into the parlor. Without announcement, Joslin followed
on in, and so once more found himself face to face with her.
She stepped back, startled, surprised, frightened almost. “Oh!” she
exclaimed; and then frowned. “I didn’t ask for anyone. Who are you?”
she demanded.
Then with a sudden revelation she remembered. Yes, pale and hot-eyed as
when she had seen him last; it was the same man, the wild man from the
mountains!
She could not quite evade him. “What do you want? How did you get in
here?” she gasped.
He did not answer at first, and she herself, not knowing what manner
of scene might be expected, resourcefully took him by the sleeve and
led him far over to the further corner, where a sofa afforded seats
for two. She pushed him down into one end of it, and moved as far as
possible into the other.
“You don’t remember me?” His voice was broken and hoarse. She nodded.
“Don’t talk so loud. They’ll hear us.”
He seemed unconscious of her warning.
“Why are you here?” he demanded, as though she owed him an explanation.
“Haven’t you seen? We’re playing here to-night This one-night business
is getting my goat.”
David Joslin stared at her. “I know—I saw it all. Sometimes a man’s
hard to manage.” His voice was savage.
“That’s the truth!” said Polly Pendleton. “I’m not big enough to throw
you out, and I don’t like to call the porter, but I’ve got to have my
supper before long. Have you had yours?”
“Yes. It cost me six bits. That’s the mostest I ever spent for one meal
in all my life.”
“Is that so?” said Polly wistfully. “I wish I could get mine down to
that scale! Sometimes it’s—well, rather more.”
“It left me thirty-five cents,” said David Joslin, smiling bitterly.
“Huh! That’s just about what you had the last time you saw me. Is it
the same thirty-five cents you had then?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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