OTWITHSTANDING the philosophy with which he had seemed to dismiss the Cheever-Spencer episode on the day of its occurrence, the annoyance of it rankled more deeply in Dolliver's mind than in Marjorie's; perhaps because he was worried about business affairs and his mind was in condition to rankle; perhaps because, owing to the delay caused by Mrs. Cheever's machinations, his carefully planned little tour had to be abandoned, and they went, instead, down the length of Staten Island, returning the next day through New Jersey. The night was hot and breathless, the breakfast was not very good, they made a late start, and had first a puncture and then a blowout, and finally their faithful engine gasped and stopped, and Page had to work over it for an hour in sweltering heat.
Between times he explained to Marjorie with great particularity that this automobile game they had invented was too dangerously liable to misinterpretation to be continued indiscriminately, and that in future they positively must confine its activities to persons of their acquaintance, who, presumably, would know how it should be played. And Marjorie tactfully refrained from asking, "Like Mrs. Cheever, for example?"
Late in the afternoon they had put up the cover of the car, buttoned down the side curtains, and were scudding toward New York, while occasional hurrying pedestrians cast envious glances at them as they whirred past, for the air had grown even more sultry, the sky was obscured by a heavy, sweeping curtain of cloud, and the landscape had taken on a grotesque aspect in the weird, greenish light that frequently precedes a thunder-storm.
"Lots of these people are going to be drenched, aren't they?" said Marjorie, at last, in a carefully casual tone.
"They are," succinctly returned her husband. "We're not playing the automobile game any more, you remember."
"Oh, I'll remember," she promised, drolly.
"Well, don't you imagine for one fleeting instant that I'm going to forget it," he advised. "Hereafter the pathetic, perspiring pedestrians panting along the way may continue to pant, as far as we're concerned, and those who are so ill-advised as to be overtaken by a flood may swim out. This ark's full."
"Woof!" barked Marjorie. "Woof! woof!"
"That's all right, but this time you beware of the dog. His bite's going to be worse than his bark," warned Page, whereat his wife laughed outright. "Well, what manner of worms are we, that we should never turn?" he demanded, whimsically argumentative. "Haven't we been smitten on both cheeks and yet again just because we're always asking people to fill up our empty seats?"
"I know, but—in spite of it all it does seem selfish not to, doesn't it?"
"Sure it does! That's where the fun comes in. I like to be selfish."
"You?" Marjorie laughed again, with a quick little glow in her eyes. "You're exactly like Susie Damn."
"Susie who?"
"Damn. Don't you remember her? She was one of those tippy dolls with a weight in the bottom, so she always came up smiling, however hard and often she was knocked down. You can't help it, Page. You're made that way."
"Oh, I am, am I?" he retorted. "Well, I'm going to help it this time. You see those two women just ahead? Yesterday we'd have insisted upon taking them home, but you watch us discreetly and consistently mind our own business to-day!"
"Oh, Page, see what lovely clothes they have!" commented Marjorie, as they passed the two women in question. "But if we should pick them up, I suppose one or the other of them would prove to be an adventuress," she added, sighing.
"Or take you for one," he supplemented.
They ran along for a few minutes in silence, and then he added: "Here it comes! Now we'll catch it!"
A cloud of dust swept toward them on a blustering wind, and following that came the first big, pattering drops of rain, accompanied by increasingly brilliant lightning and an almost continuous rumble of thunder. Dolliver, who had diminished his speed before meeting the blinding dust-cloud, now slowed still more and glanced at Marjorie, who was staring unheedingly out into the rain; then, with a smothered, impatient ejaculation he opened the throttle so sharply that the automobile sprang forward like a live thing under spur. A moment later, frowning and without comment, he swung the car abruptly to the left and stopped it, with the fore wheels in the grass by the side of the road.
"What's the matter?" she asked.
"I'm going back," he doggedly returned, reversing the engine.
"Oh, dearest! You mean—no, of course you don't mean—"
"Yes, I do. I'm going back to get those two women."