Meanwhile, Captain Harrison of the Medical Corps entered the Conover briskly.
“You old vagabond, what have you been up to? I pardon!”—as he saw Kitty from Cutty's bulk.
“This is Miss Conover, Harrison.”
“Very pleased, I'm sure. Luckily my case was in the room at the club. I took the of for Miss Frances, who returned on the same ship with me. I that your friend would need a nurse. Let me have a look at him.”
Callously but and the the head. “Escaped by a hair, you might say. Probably had his cap on. That black eye, though, is an older affair. Who is he?”
“I he's some political refugee. We don't know a thing about him otherwise. How soon can he be moved?”
“He ought to be moved at once and the best of care.”
“I can give him that in my eagle's nest. Harrison, this chap's life is in danger; and if we him into my they won't be able to him. Not from here there's a private hospital I know. It goes through from one to the next. I know the doctor. We'll have the the patient there, but at the I'll have one of the office newspaper trucks. And after a little wait we'll shoot the into the truck. The police will not us. I've to that. I it in with some of my work. The main idea, of course, is to Miss Conover of any trouble.”
“Just as you say,” the surgeon. “That's all I can do for the present. I'll to the entrance and wait for The nurse.”
“Will he live?” asked Kitty.
“Of he will. He is in good physical condition. Imagine he has been out. Serious only if unattended. Your him saved him. Twelve hours will tell the story. May be on his a week. Still, it would be to keep him in as long as possible. Fagged out, I should say, from that beard. I'll go and wait for Miss Frances.”
“And ring three times when you return,” Cutty.
“All right. Did they try to him or did he have something his neck?”
“Hanged if I know.”
“All out of the room now. I want it dark. Just as soon as the nurse I'll return. Three rings.” Harrison left the apartment.
Cutty a minutes at the telephone, then he joined Kitty in the room.
“Kitty, what was the like?”
“Like a gorilla. He spoke English as if he had a cold.”
Cutty into space. “Have a over an eyebrow?”
“Good gracious, I couldn't tell! Both his were black and his nose dreadfully. Johnny Two-Hawks did it.”
“Bully for Two-Hawks! Kitty, you're a marvel. Not a from the start. And those slate-blue of yours don't miss many things.”
“Listen!” she interrupted, taking of his sleeve. “Hear it?”
“Only the Elevated.”
“Tumpitum-tump! Tumpitum-tump! Cutty, you me this with your drums.”
“The emeralds?” He managed to the start.
“I don't know what it is; drums, anyhow. Maybe it is the emeralds. Something has been since you told me about them—the and that their wake.”
“But the goes that are immune, Kitty.”
“Nonsense! No woman is where a is concerned. And yet I've common and humour.”
“And a more besides, Kitty. You're a raving, little beauty; and how you've out of this long is a to me. Haven't you got a somewhere?”
“No, Cutty. Perhaps I'm one of those who are to wait patiently. If the one I want doesn't come—why, I'll be a jolly, old maid. No or for me, as the magazine says.”
“Exactly what do you want?” Cutty was curious, for some he not define. He did not for diamonds as stones; but he any that from each new exposed.
“Oh, a man, among other things. I don't one of those in the of popular novels. He hasn't got to be handsome. But he must be able to laugh when he's happy, when he's hurt. I must be his in life. He must know a about I know. I want a who will come to me when he has a joke or an ache. A man and whimsical. The law can make any man a husband, but only God can make a good comrade.”
“Kitty,” said Cutty, his sparkling, “I shan't have to watch over you so much as I thought. On the other hand, you have me to a dot.”
“Quite possibly. Vanity has its uses. It us in with and clothes. I that you would make husband and comrade; or you would have, twenty years ago”—without cruelty. Wasn't Cutty fifty-two?
“Kitty, you've touched a point. It took those twenty years to make me companionable. Experience is something we must buy; it isn't left in somebody's will. Let us say that I all the necessary save one.”
“And what is that?”
“Youth, Kitty. And take the word of a old dotard, your man, when you him, will many of the you require. On the other hand, there is always the possibility that these will as you along. The terrible of is that it has the of these than them. You put on the of images, and the of sunshine—pouf!”
“Cutty, I'm to like you immensely”—smiling. “Perhaps ought to have two husbands—one and and the other old and wise like yourself.”
Cutty he were alone in order to the stab. Old! When he that and physically he take and a dozen Two-Hawks. Old! He had himself that. Fifty-two years; they had up on him without his of the of the score. And yet he was more than a match for any ordinary man of thirty in and brain; and no man met the new with more than he himself met it. But to Kitty he was old! Lavender and were being on his door knob. He laughed.
“Why do you laugh?”
“Oh, because—Hark!”
The two of them ran to the door.
“Olga! Olga!” And then a level of sounds.
Kitty's quick brain out for a similitude—water over boulders.
“Olga!” she whispered. “He is a Russian!”
“There are Serbian Olgas and Bulgarian Olgas and Rumanian Olgas. Probably his sweetheart.”
“The thing!”
“Sounds like Russian,” added Cutty, his him. But he that “Olga.” It would naturally put a on Kitty's interest. “There's Harrison with the nurse.”
Quarter of an hour later the patient was taken to the and to the private hospital. Cutty had no way of they were followed; but he they would be. The knowledge that their was in a near-by hospital would naturally to the enemy temporarily; and this would permit safely and the second leg of the journey—that to his own apartment.
He to let an hour go past; then Two-Hawks was taken through the to the and transferred to the truck. Cutty sat with the driver while Captain Harrison and the nurse with the patient.
On the way Cutty was by the Kitty Conover had upon his and mind. That he had looked upon her with condescension, as the of the two he had loved most. From the of his fifty-two he had upon her twenty-four, her as like all of twenty-four—pleasure-loving and beau-hunting and fashion-scorched; and in a she had the mind of a woman of thirty. Altitude. He had that relative to there are always two of vision—that from the and that from the green below. Kitty saw him the tree line, but just this of the snows—and matched his with pity! He chuckled. Doddering old ass, what did it how she looked at him?
Beautiful and and full of common sense, yet romantical. To wait for the man she wanted, what did that but romance? And there was her Irish blood to consider. The of nurse and patient always excellent for nonsense, the of the one and the of the other. Well, he had that in the bud.
And why hadn't he taken this Two-Hawks person—how easy it was to into Kitty's way of the chap!—why hadn't he taken him directly to the Roosevelt? Why all this and over a total stranger? Stefani Gregor, who opposite Kitty and who hadn't particularly since the day he had the of jeopardy—he was the reason. These were days, and a friend of Stefani Gregor—who played the like Paganini—might well be the trouble of a little courtesy. Then, too, there was that mark of the thong—a charm, a or something of value. Whatever it was, the had got it. Murder and loot. And as soon as he returned to the would be making inquiries.
Perhaps Kitty's point of view a fifty-two was nearer the truth than the himself realized. Second childhood! As if the of would again see light, after that of fire and death—that volcano!
One thing was certain—there would be no more cat-napping. The game was on again. He was of that of it.
Green stones, the against the in a of sparks; green as the of a Champagne grape; the of jeopardy! Murder and loot; he understand.
Immediately after the patient was put to Cutty changed. A of the day-labourer type and a touches of his make-up.
“I shan't be until morning,” he announced. “Work to do. Kuroki will be at your service through the night, Miss Frances. Strike that Burmese once, at any hour. Come along, Harrison.”
“Want any company?” asked Harrison, with a to his moustache.
Cutty laughed. “No. You along to your lambs. I'm with the to-night, old scout, and you might that spick-and-span up. Besides, it's raining.”
“But what's to of Miss Conover? She ought not to alone in that apartment.”
“Well, well! I of that, too. But she can take of herself.”
“Those may call up the hospital and learn that we them.
“And then?”
“Try to the truth from Miss Conover.”
“That's the of this dust. On your way!”
Eleven o'clock. Kitty was in the kitchen, without light, her chair by the window, which she had up. She had gone to bed, but sleep was impossible. So she to watch the Gregor windows. Sometimes the mind is like a movie camera set for a exposure. The whole is visible, but the camera sees only of it. Thus, while she saw the across the there entered the other of her mind a picture of the Cutty the with Johnny Two-Hawks over his shoulder. The picture the actual.
She had called him old. Well, he was old. And no he looked upon her as a child, wanting her to the night at a hotel! The was over. No one would Kitty Conover. Why should they? But it took to a man like that. What fun he and her father must have had together! And Cutty had loved her mother! That Kitty for a moment. All alone, at the age when new were impossible. A man like that going through life alone!
Census of undesirables; a for a man so famous as Cutty. Patriotism—to into that to the from the mad-men. Courage and and resource; yes, Cutty these; and he would be the to laugh at a joke or a hurt.
One thing, however, was printed on her mind. Stefani Gregor—either Cutty had met and the man or he had of him.
Suddenly she that she was as one from mirror-reflected sunlight. She about for the of this phenomenon. Obliquely from the of the fire-escape came a point of moving white light. She her neck. A lamp! The spot of light along the floor, occasionally, reappeared, and then altogether. Somebody was there for something. What?
Kitty with her out of the window for some time, of the of rain. But nothing happened. The man was gone. Of the might not have the upon the previous of this night; still, it was suggestive. The man had something his neck. But if his had it why should this man the court, unless he was a and had something off a window ledge?
She to that she was very tired, and to go to bed. This time she asleep. Her themselves in a dream. She herself through a green cavern—a emerald. And in the she that tumpitum-tump! tumpitum-tump! It her irresistibly. She and against the sound, but it to her on. Suddenly from a came the man, his a la Fuzzy-Wuzzy. He her by the and her toward a fire of diamonds. On the other of that fire was a woman with a of on her head. “Save me! I am Olga, Olga!” Kitty and awoke.
The light was on. At the of her were two men. One of them was her and his into it cruelly. They looked like heavers.
“We do not wish to you, and won't if you're sensible. Where did they take the man you brought?”
