Bab: A Sub-Deb by Mary Roberts Rinehart Read Free Book Online Page A

crazy about him. They are flinging me at him."
    "Well, that's nice," he said. "Who'd have thought it! Shall I bring him to the 'phone?"
    "I don't want to talk to him. I hate him."
    "Look here," he observed, "if you keep that up, he'll begin to beleive you. Don't take these little quarrels too hard, Barbara. He's so happy to-night in the thought that you----"
    "Does he live in a Cabinet, or where?"
    "In a what? I don't get that word."
    "Don't bother. Where shall I send his letter?"
    Well, it seemed he had an apartment at the Arcade, and I rang off. It was after eleven by that time, and by the time I had got into my school mackintosh and found a heavy veil of mother's and put it on, it was almost half past.
    The house was quiet, and as Patrick had gone, there was no one around in the lower Hall. I slipped out and closed the door behind me, and looked for a taxicab, but the veil was so heavy that I hailed our own limousine, and Smith had drawn up at the curb before I knew him.
    "Where to, lady?" he said. "This is a private car, but I'll take you anywhere in the city for a dollar."
    A flush of just indignation rose to my cheek, at the knowledge that Smith was using our car for a taxicab! And just as I was about to speak to him severely, and threaten to tell father, I remembered, and walked away.
    "Make it seventy-five cents," he called after me. But I went on. It was terrable to think that Smith could go on renting our car to all sorts of people, covered with germs and everything, and that I could never report it to the Familey.
    I got a real taxi at last, and got out at the Arcade, giving the man a quarter, although ten cents would have been plenty as a tip.
    I looked at him, and I felt that he could be trusted.
    "This," I said, holding up the money, "is the price of Silence."
    But If he was trustworthy he was not subtile, and he said:
    "The what, miss?"
    "If any one asks if you have driven me here, YOU HAVE NOT" I explained, in an impressive manner.
    He examined the quarter, even striking a match to look at it. Then he replied: "I have not!" and drove away.
    Concealing my nervousness as best I could, I entered the doomed Building. There was only a hall boy there, asleep in the elevator, and I looked at the thing with the names on it. "Mr. Grosvenor" was on the fourth floor.
    I wakened the boy, and he yawned and took me to the fourth floor. My hands were stiff with nervousness by that time, but the boy was half asleep, and evadently he took me for some one who belonged there, for he said "Goodnight" to me, and went on down. There was a square landing with two doors, and "Grosvenor" was on one. I tried it gently. It was unlocked.
    "FACILUS DESCENSUS IN AVERNU."
    I am not defending myself. What I did was the result of desparation. But I cannot even write of my sensations as I stepped through that fatal portal, without a sinking of the heart. I had, however, had suficient forsight to prepare an alabi. In case there was some one present in the apartment I intended to tell a falshood, I regret to confess, and to say that I had got off at the wrong floor.
    There was a sort of hall, with a clock and a table, and a shaded electric lamp, and beyond that the door was open into a sitting room.
    There was a small light burning there, and the remains of a wood fire in the fireplace. There was no Cabinet however.
    Everything was perfectly quiet, and I went over to the fire and warmed my hands. My nails were quite blue, but I was strangly calm. I took off mother's veil, and my mackintosh, so I would be free to work, and I then looked around the room. There were a number of photographs of rather smart looking girls, and I curled my lip scornfully. He might have fooled them but he could not decieve me. And it added to my bitterness to think that at that moment the villain was dancing--and flirting probably--while I was driven to actual theft to secure the Letter that placed me in his power.
    When I had stopped shivering I went to his desk. There