“He—he’s waiting down in the hall,” Mrs. Adams answered, nervously; and she held up another garment to go over the wrap.
Alice frowned at it. “What’s that, mama?”
“It’s—it’s your father’s raincoat. I thought you’d put it on over–-“
“But I won’t need it in a taxicab.”
“You will to get in and out, and you needn’t take it into the Palmers’. You can leave it in the—in the –-It’s drizzling, and you’ll need it.”
“Oh, well,” Alice consented; and a few minutes later, as with Walter’s assistance she climbed into the vehicle he had provided, she better understood her mother’s solicitude.
“What on earth IS this, Walter?” she asked.
“Never mind; it’ll keep you dry enough with the top up,” he returned, taking his seat beside her. Then for a time, as they went rather jerkily up the street, she was silent; but finally she repeated her question: “What IS it, Walter?”
“What’s what?”
“This—this CAR?”
“It’s a ottomobile.”
“I mean—what kind is it?”
“Haven’t you got eyes?”
“It’s too dark.”
“It’s a second-hand tin Lizzie,” said Walter. “D’you know what that means? It means a flivver.”
“Yes, Walter.”
“Got ‘ny ‘bjections?”
“Why, no, dear,” she said, placatively. “Is it yours, Walter? Have you bought it?”
“Me?” he laughed. ”I couldn’t buy a used wheelbarrow. I rent this sometimes when I’m goin’ out among ‘em. Costs me seventy-five cents and the price o’ the gas.”
“That seems very moderate.”
“I guess it is! The feller owes me some money, and this is the only way I’d ever get it off him.”
“Is he a garage-keeper?”
“Not exactly!” Walter uttered husky sounds of amusement. “You’ll be just as happy, I guess, if you don’t know who he is,” he said.
His tone misgave her; and she said truthfully that she was content not to know who owned the car. “I joke sometimes about how you keep things to yourself,” she added, “but I really never do pry in your affairs, Walter.”
“Oh, no, you don’t!”
“Indeed, I don’t.”
“Yes, you’re mighty nice and cooing when you got me where you want me,” he jeered. “Well, I just as soon tell you where I get this car.”
“I’d just as soon you wouldn’t, Walter,” she said, hurriedly. “Please don’t.”
But Walter meant to tell her. “Why, there’s nothin’ exactly CRIMINAL about it,” he said. “It belongs to old J. A. Lamb himself. He keeps it for their coon chauffeur. I rent it from him.”
“From Mr. LAMB?”
“No; from the coon chauffeur.”
“Walter!” she gasped.
“Sure I do! I can get it any night when the coon isn’t goin’ to use it himself. He’s drivin’ their limousine to-night—that little Henrietta Lamb’s goin’ to the party, no matter if her father HAS only been dead less’n a year!” He paused, then inquired: “Well, how d’you like it?”
She did not speak, and he began to be remorseful for having imparted so much information, though his way of expressing regret was his own. “Well, you WILL make the folks make me take you to parties!” he said. “I got to do it the best way I CAN, don’t I?”
Then as she made no response, “Oh, the car’s CLEAN enough,” he said. “This coon, he’s as particular as any white man; you needn’t worry about that.” And as she still said nothing, he added gruffly, “I’d of had a better car if I could afforded it. You needn’t get so upset about it.”
“I don’t understand—” she said in a low voice— “I don’t understand how you know such people.”
“Such people as who?”
“As—coloured chauffeurs.”
“Oh, look here, now!” he protested, loudly. “Don’t you know this is a democratic country?”
“Not quite that democratic, is it, Walter?”
“The trouble with you,” he retorted, “you don’t know there’s anybody in town except just this silk-shirt crowd.” He paused, seeming to await a refutation; but as none came, he expressed himself definitely: “They make me sick.”
They were coming near their destination, and the glow of the big, brightly lighted house was seen before them in the wet night. Other cars, not like theirs, were approaching this center of brilliance; long triangles of light near the ground swept through the fine drizzle; small red tail-lights gleamed again from the moist pavement of the street; and, through the myriads of little glistening leaves along the curving driveway, glimpses were caught of lively colours moving in a white glare as the limousines released their occupants under the shelter of the porte-cochere.
Alice clutched Walter’s arm in a panic; they were just at the driveway entrance. “Walter, we mustn’t go in there.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Leave this awful car outside.”
“Why, I–-“
“Stop!” she insisted, vehemently. “You’ve got to! Go back!”
“Oh, Glory!”
The little car was between the entrance posts; but Walter backed it out, avoiding a collision with an impressive machine which swerved away from them and passed on toward the porte-cochere, showing a man’s face grinning at the window as it went by. “Flivver runabout got the wrong number!” he said.
“Did he SEE us?” Alice cried.
“Did who see us?”
“Harvey Malone—in that foreign coupe.”
“No; he couldn’t tell who we were under this top,” Walter assured her as he brought the little car to a standstill beside the curbstone, out in the street. “What’s it matter if he did, the big fish?”
Alice responded with a loud sigh, and sat still.
“Well, want to go on back?” Walter inquired. “You bet I’m willing!”
“No.”
“Well, then, what’s the matter our drivin’ on up to the porte-cochere? There’s room for me to park just the other side of it.”
“No, NO!”
“What you expect to do? Sit HERE all night?”
“No, leave the car here.”
“I don’t care where we leave it,” he said. “Sit still till I lock her, so none o’ these millionaires around here’ll run off with her.” He got out with a padlock and chain; and, having put these in place, offered Alice his hand. “Come on, if you’re ready.”
“Wait,” she said, and, divesting herself of the raincoat, handed it to Walter. “Please leave this with your things in the men’s dressing-room, as if it were an extra one of your own, Walter.”
He nodded; she jumped out; and they scurried through the drizzle.
As they reached the porte-cochere she began to laugh airily, and spoke to the impassive man in livery who stood there. “Joke on us!” she said, hurrying by him toward the door of the house. “Our car broke down outside the gate.”
The man remained impassive, though he responded with a faint gleam as Walter, looking back at him, produced for his benefit a cynical distortion of countenance which offered little confirmation of Alice’s account of things. Then the door was swiftly opened to the brother and sister; and they came into a marble-floored hall, where a dozen sleeked young men lounged, smoked cigarettes and fastened their gloves, as they waited for their ladies. Alice nodded to one or another of these, and went quickly on, her face uplifted and smiling; but Walter detained her at the door to which she hastened.
“Listen here,” he said. “I suppose you want me to dance the first dance with you–-“
“If you please, Walter,” she said, meekly.
“How long you goin’ to hang around fixin’ up in that dressin’-room?”
“I’ll be out before you’re ready yourself,” she promised him; and kept her word, she was so eager for her good time to begin. When he came for her, they went down the hall to a corridor opening upon three great rooms which had been thrown open together, with the furniture removed and the broad floors waxed. At one end of the corridor musicians sat in a green grove, and Walter, with some interest, turned toward these; but his sister, pressing his arm, impelled him in the opposite direction.