In Secret | Page 6

both laughed. A pleasant steam arose from the tall glass at his elbow.
"Well," she said, "I have to change my gown--"
"Good Lord! Are we going now?" he remonstrated.
"Yes. I don't believe there will be a soul on the streets."
"But I don't wish to go at all," he explained. "I'm very happy here, discussing things."
"I know it. But you wouldn't let me go all alone, would you, Mr. Vaux?"
"I don't want you to go anywhere."
"But I'm GOING!"
"Here's where I perish," groaned Vaux, rising as the girl passed him with her pretty, humorous smile, moving lithely, swiftly as some graceful wild thing passing confidently through its own domain.
Vaux gazed meditatively upon the coals, glass in one hand, cigarette in the other. Patriotism is a tough career.
"This is worse than inhuman," he thought. "If I go out on such an errand to-night I sure am doing my bitter bit. ... Probably some policeman will shoot me--unless I freeze to death. This is a vastly unpleasant affair.... Vastly!"
He was still caressing the fire with his regard when Miss Erith came back.
She wore a fur coat buttoned to the throat, a fur toque, fur gloves. As he rose she naively displayed a jimmy and two flashlights.
"I see," he said, "very nice, very handy! But we don't need these to convict us."
She laughed and handed him the instruments; and he pocketed them and followed her downstairs.
Her car was waiting, engine running; she spoke to the Kadiak chauffeur, got in, and Vaux followed.
"You know," he said, pulling the mink robe over her and himself, "you're behaving very badly to your superior officer."
"I'm so excited, so interested! I hope I'm not lacking in deference to my honoured Chief of Division. Am I, Mr. Vaux?"
"You certainly hustle me around some! This is a crazy thing we're doing."
"Oh, I'm sorry!"
"You're an autocrat. You're a lady-Nero! Tell me, Miss Erith, were you ever afraid of anything on earth?"
"Yes."
"What?"
"Lightning and caterpillars."
"Those are probably the only really dangerous things I never feared," he said. "You seem to be young and human and feminine. Are you?"
"Oh, very."
"Then why aren't you afraid of being shot for a burglar, and why do you go so gaily about grand larceny?"
The girl's light laughter was friendly and fearless.
"Do you live alone?" he inquired after a moment's silence.
"Yes. My parents are not living."
"You are rather an unusual girl, Miss Erith."
"Why?"
"Well, girls of your sort are seldom as much in earnest about their war work as you seem to be," he remarked with gentle irony.
"How about the nurses and drivers in France?"
"Oh, of course. I mean nice girls, like yourself, who do near-war work here in New York--"
"You ARE brutal!" she exclaimed. "I am mad to go to France! It is a sacrifice--a renunciation for me to remain in New York. I understand nursing and I know how to drive a car; but I have stayed here because my knowledge of ciphers seemed to fit me for this work."
"I was teasing you," he said gently.
"I know it. But there is SO much truth in what you say about near-war work. I hate that sort of woman.... Why do you laugh?"
"Because you're just a child. But you are full of ability and possibility, Miss Erith."
"I wish my ability might land me in France!"
"Surely, surely," he murmured.
"Do you think it will, Mr. Vaux?"
"Maybe it will," he said, not believing it. He added: "I think, however, your undoubted ability is going to land us both in jail."
At which pessimistic prognosis they both began to laugh. She was very lovely when she laughed.
"I hope they'll give us the same cell," she said. "Don't you?"
"Surely," he replied gaily.
Once he remembered the photograph of Arethusa in his desk at headquarters, and thought that perhaps he might need it before the evening was over.
"Surely, surely," he muttered to himself, "hum--hum!"
Her coupe stopped in Fifty-sixth Street near Madison Avenue.
"The car will wait here," remarked the girl, as Vaux helped her to descend. "Lauffer's shop is just around the corner." She took his arm to steady herself on the icy sidewalk. He liked it.
In the bitter darkness there was not a soul to be seen on the street; no tramcars were approaching on Madison Avenue, although far up on the crest of Lenox Hill the receding lights of one were just vanishing.
"Do you see any policemen?" she asked in a low voice.
"Not one. They're all frozen to death, I suppose, as we will be in a few minutes."
They turned into Madison Avenue past the Hotel Essex. There was not a soul to be seen. Even the silver-laced porter had retired from the freezing vestibule. A few moments later Miss Erith paused before a shop on the ground floor of an old-fashioned brownstone residence which had been altered for business.
Over the shop-window was a sign: "H. Lauffer, Frames and Gilding."