The Voice in the Fog | Page 2

a husband who was her lover all his
waking hours.
"What! in this fog? And a lot I'd care if they did. Now, don't stir till I
come back; and above all, keep the light on."
"And hurry right back; I'm getting lonesome already."
He stepped out of the coupé. Harlequin, and Colombine, and

Humpty-Dumpty; shapes which came out of nowhere and instantly
vanished into nothing, for all the world like the absurd pantomimes of
his boyhood days. He kept close to the curb, scrutinizing the numbers
as he went along. Never had he seen such a fog. Two paces away from
the curb a headlight became an effulgence. Indeed, there were a
thousand lights jammed in the street, and the fog above absorbed the
radiance, giving the scene a touch of Brocken. All that was needed was
a witch on a broomstick. He counted five vehicles, and stopped. The
door-window was down.
"Miss Killigrew?" he said.
"Yes. Is anything wrong?"
"No. Just wanted to see if you were all right. Better let me take your
place and you ride with Mrs. Crawford."
"Good of you; but you've had enough trouble. I shall stay right here."
"Where's your light?"
"The globe is broken. I'd rather be in the dark. Its fun to look about. I
never saw anything to equal it."
"Not very cheerful. We'll be held up at least half an hour. You are not
afraid?"
"What, I?" She laughed. "Why should I be afraid? The wait will not
matter. But the truth is, I'm worried about mother. She would go to that
suffragette meeting; and I understand they have tried to burn up the
prime minister's house."
"Fine chance! But don't you worry. Your mother's a sensible woman.
She'll get back to the hotel, if she isn't there already."
"I wish she had not gone. Father will be tearing his hair and twigging
the whole Savoy force by the ears."
Crawford smiled. Readily enough he could conjure up the picture of Mr.

Killigrew, short, thick-set, energetic, raging back and forth in the lobby,
offering to buy taxicabs outright, the hotel, and finally the city of
London itself; typically money-mad American that he was. Crawford
wanted to laugh, but he compromised by saying: "He must be very
careful of that hair of his; he hasn't much left."
"And he pulls out a good deal of it on my account. Poor dad! Why in
the world should I marry a title?"
"Why, indeed!"
"Mrs. Crawford was beautiful tonight. There wasn't a beauty at the
opera to compare with her. Royalties are frumps, aren't they? And that
ruby! I don't see how she dares wear it!"
"I am not particularly fond of it; but it's a fad of hers. She likes to wear
it on state occasions. I have often wondered if it is really the Nana
Sahib's ruby, as her uncle claimed. Driver, the Savoy, and remember it
carefully; the Savoy."
"Yes, sir; I understand, sir. But we'll all be some time, sir. Collision
forward is what holds us, sir."
Alone again, Kitty Killigrew leaned back, thinking of the man who had
just left her and of his beautiful wife. If only she might some day have
a romance like theirs! Presently she peered out of the off-window. A
brood of Siegfried-dragons prowled about, now going forward a little,
now swerving, now pausing; lurid eyes and threatening growls.
Once upon a time, in her pigtail days, when her father was going to be
rich and was only half-way between the beginning and the end of his
ambition, Kitty had gone to a tent-circus. Among other things she had
looked wonderingly into the dim, blurry glass-tank of the "human fish,"
who was at that moment busy selling photographs of himself. To-night,
in searching for comparisons, this old forgotten picture recurred to her
mind; blithely memory brought it forth and threw it upon the screen.
All London had become a glass-tank, filled with human pollywogs.

She did not want to marry a title; she did not want to marry money; she
did not want to marry at all. Poor kindly dad, who believed that she
could be made happy only by marrying a title. As if she was not as
happy now as she was ever destined to be!
Voices. Two men were speaking near the curb-door. She turned her
head involuntarily in this direction. There were no lights in the frontage
before which stood her cab, which intervened between the Brocken
haze in the street, throwing a square of Stygian shadow against the fog,
with right and left angles of aureola. She could distinguish no shapes.
"Cheer up, old top; you're in hard luck."
"I'm a bally ass."
"No, no; only a ripping good sporty game all the way through."
Oddly enough, Kitty sensed