Quin Part 41

"I don't think I'd put it in just yet," he said quietly.

For a moment she paused irresolute; then she dropped the coin in the slot.

"Is this the Hotel Kington?" she asked. "Will you please try again to get Mr. Phipps--Harold Phipps? P-h-i-p-p-s."

Quin watched her fingers drumming on the shelf, and he knew he ought to go out of the booth and close the door; but instead he stayed in and closed it.

"He doesn't answer?" Eleanor was repeating over the telephone. "Will you please page the dining-room, and if he is not at breakfast send a bell-boy up to waken him? It's _very_ important."

Again there was a long wait, during which Eleanor did not so much as turn her head in Quin's direction. It was only when her answer came that she looked at him blankly.

"They say he isn't there. The chambermaid was cleaning the room, and said his bed had not been disturbed."

Then, seeing a humorously unsympathetic look flit across Quin's face, she burst out angrily:

"What right had you to follow me over here?"

They were standing very close in the narrow gla.s.s enclosure, and as he looked down at the small, trembling figure with her back against the wall and her eyes full of frightened defiance, he felt uncomfortably like a hunter who has run down some young wild thing and holds it at bay.

"Please, Miss Nell," he implored, "don't think I'm going to peach on you!

Whatever you do, I'll stand by you. Only I thought, perhaps, you might need a friend."

"I _have_ a friend!" she retorted furiously. "If Harold Phipps had received my telegram last night, nothing in the world could have stopped him from meeting me--nothing!"

Then the defiance dropped from her eyes, leaving her small sensitive face quivering with hurt pride and an overwhelming doubt. She bit her lips and turned away to hide her tears.

Quin put a firm hand on her arm and piloted her back to her suit-case.

"What we both need is breakfast," he said. "Come to think of it, I haven't had a mouthful since yesterday noon."

"Neither have I; but I couldn't swallow a bite. Besides, I've got to find Harold."

"Well, you can't do anything till he gets back to the hotel. If you'll come in with me while I get a cup of coffee, we can talk things over."

She followed him reluctantly into the dining-room, but refused to order anything. For some time she sat with her chin on her clasped hands, watching the door; then she turned toward him accusingly.

"Did you see Rose's telegram?"

"No."

He watched her open her purse and take out a yellow slip, which she handed to him.

"Don't take the step planned. Imperative reasons forbid. Rose."

he read slowly; then he looked up. "Well?" he said.

"What does she mean?" burst forth Eleanor. "How dared she send me a message like that unless she knew something----"

She broke off abruptly and her eyes searched Quin's face. But he was apparently counting the grains of sugar that were going into his coffee, and refused to look up.

"If it had been grandmother or Aunt Isobel I shouldn't have been in the least surprised; they are just a bunch of prejudices and believe every idle story they hear. But Rose is different. She's known about Harold and me for months. She forwarded his letters to me when I was in Baltimore.

And now for her to turn against me like this----"

"Why don't you wait till you hear her side of it?" suggested Quin, still concerned with the sugar-bowl.

"How can I?" cried Eleanor, flinging out her hands. "I've no place to go, and I've no money. If I had had money enough I'd have gone straight to Papa Claude last night."

Quin's heart gained a beat. He made a hurried calculation of his financial resources in the vain hope that that might yet be the solution of the difficulty. Whatever was to be done must be done at once, for Harold Phipps might arrive at any moment, and Quin felt instinctively that his advent would decide the matter.

"I wish I had enough to send you," he said, "but all I've got is my return ticket and enough to buy another one for you."

At the mere suggestion Eleanor's anger flared.

"I'll never go back to grandmother's! I'll jump in the lake first!"

"What's the matter with Valley Mead?"

"What good would that do? Grandmother would make Uncle Ranny send me straight home. No; I've thought of all those things--it's no use."

"You could go to the Martels'."

"Yes, and put another burden on Ca.s.s. I tell you, I'm not going home. I am going to see Harold, and--and talk things over, and perhaps go straight on to New York to-night."

"You can't see him if he is out of town."

"Why do you think he is out of town?"

"Well, he isn't here," Quin observed dryly.

The next moment he was sorry he had said it, for the light died out of her face and she looked so absurdly young and helpless that it was all he could do to refrain from gathering her up in his arms and carrying her home by force.

"See here, Miss Nell," he said earnestly, leaning across the table.

"Would you be willing to go back to the Martels' if you knew that this time next month you'd be in New York with money enough to carry you through the winter?"

"No. That is--whose money?"

"Your own. I'll go to Queen Vic and put the whole thing up to her so she can't get around it."

Eleanor brushed the suggestion aside impatiently.

"Don't you suppose I've exhausted every possible argument? And now, when she finds out what I've done----"

"But you haven't done anything--yet."

"She wouldn't believe me if I told her that I hadn't seen Harold. She never believes me."

"She'd believe _me_," said Quin, "and what's more she'd listen to me."