Carlotta dressed herself with unusual care--not in black this time, but in
white. She coiled her yellow hair in a soft knot at the back of her head,
and she resorted to the faintest shading of rouge. She intended to be gay,
cheerful. The ride was to be a bright spot in Wilson's memory. He
expected recriminations; she meant to make him happy. That was the secret
of the charm some women had for men. They went to such women to forget
their troubles. She set the hour of their meeting at nine, when the late
dusk of summer had fallen; and she met him then, smiling, a faintly
perfumed white figure, slim and young, with a thrill in her voice that was
only half assumed.
"It's very late," he complained. "Surely you are not going to be back at
ten."
"I have special permission to be out late."
"Good!" And then, recollecting their new situation: "We have a lot to talk
over. It will take time."
At the White Springs Hotel they stopped to fill the gasolene tank of the
car. Joe Drummond saw Wilson there, in the sheet-iron garage alongside of
the road. The Wilson car was in the shadow. It did not occur to Joe that
the white figure in the car was not Sidney. He went rather white, and
stepped out of the zone of light. The influence of Le Moyne was still on
him, however, and he went on quietly with what he was doing. But his hands
shook as he filled the radiator.
When Wilson's car had gone on, he went automatically about his preparations
for the return trip--lifted a seat cushion to investigate his own store of
gasolene, replacing carefully the revolver he always carried under the seat
and packed in waste to prevent its accidental discharge, lighted his lamps,
examined a loose brake-band.
His coolness gratified him. He had been an ass: Le Moyne was right. He'd
get away--to Cuba if he could--and start over again. He would forget the
Street and let it forget him.
The men in the garage were talking.
"To Schwitter's, of course," one of them grumbled. "We might as well go
out of business."
"There's no money in running a straight place. Schwitter and half a dozen
others are getting rich."
"That was Wilson, the surgeon in town. He cut off my brother-in-law's
leg--charged him as much as if he had grown a new one for him. He used to
come here. Now he goes to Schwitter's, like the rest. Pretty girl he had
with him. You can bet on Wilson."