Part 68

“Look!” I cried. “Oh, everybody, how the palms of his gloves are covered with rust!”

XIII. The Pumpkin Coach

The story of the American Ambassadress was not the only one related on this night.

Sir Henry Marquis himself added another, in support of the contention of his guest... and from her own country.

The lawyer walked about the room. The restraint which he had assumed was now quite abandoned.

“That's all there is to it,” he said. “I'm not trying this case for amusement. You have the money to pay me and you must bring it up here now, tonight.”

The woman sat in a chair beyond the table. She was young, but she looked worn and faded. Misery and the long strain of the trial had worn her out. Her hands moved nervously in the frayed coat-cuffs.

“But we haven't any more money,” she said. “The hundred dollars I paid you in the beginning is all we have.”

The man laughed without disturbing the muscles of his face. “You can take your choice,” he said. “Either bring the money up here now, to-night, or I withdraw from the case when court opens in the morning.”

“But where am I to get any more money?” the woman said.

The lawyer was a big man. His hair, black and thin, was brushed close to his head as though wet with oil; his nose was thick and flattened at the base. The office contained only a table, some chairs and a file for legal papers. Night was beginning to descend. Lights were appearing in the city. The two persons had come in from the Criminal Court after the session for the day had ended.

The woman seemed bewildered. She looked at the man with the curious expression of a child that does not comprehend and is afraid to ask for an explanation.

“If we had any more money,” she said, “I would bring it to you, but the hundred dollars was all we had.”

Then she began to explain, reiterating minute details. When the tragedy occurred and her husband was arrested by the police they had a small sum painfully saved up. It was now wholly gone. Like persons in profound misery, she repeated. The man halted the recital with a brutal gesture.

“I'll not discuss it,” he said. “You can bring the money in here before the court convenes in the morning, or I withdraw from the case.”

He went over to the file, took out a packet of legal papers and threw them on the table.

“All right, my lady!” he said, “perhaps you think your husband can get along without a lawyer. Perhaps you think the devil will save him, or heaven, or Cinderella in a pumpkin coach!” There was biting irony in the bitter words.

A sudden comprehension began to appear in the woman's face. She realized now what the man was driving at. The expression in her face deepened into a sort of wonder, a sort of horror.

“You think he's guilty!” she said. “You think we got the money and we're trying to keep it, to hide it.”

The lawyer turned about, put both hands on the table and leaned across it. He looked the woman in the face.

“Never mind what I believe; you heard what I said!”

For a moment the woman did not move. Then she got up slowly and went out. In the street she seemed lost. She remained for some time before the entrance of the building. Night had now arrived. Crowds of people were passing, intent on their affairs, unconcerned. No one seemed to see the figure motionless in the shadow of the great doorway.

Presently the woman began to walk along the street in the crowd without giving any attention to the people about her or to the direction she was taking. She was in that state of mental coma which attends persons in despair. She neither felt nor appreciated anything and she continued to walk in the direction in which the crowd was moving.

Some block in the traffic checked the crowd and the woman stopped. The block cleared and the human tide drifted on, but the woman remained. The crowd edged her over to the wall and she stood there before the shutter of a shop-window. After a time the crowd passed, thinned and disappeared, but the woman remained as though thrown out there by the human eddy.

The woman remained for a long time unmoving against the shutter of the shop-window. Finally she was awakened into life by a voice speaking to her. It was a soft, foreign voice that lisped the liquid accents of the occasional English words:

“Ma pauvre femme!” it said; “come with me. Vous etes malade!”

The woman followed mechanically in a sort of wonder. The person who had spoken to her was young and beautifully dressed in furs that covered her to her feet. She had gotten down from a motorcar that stood beside the curb--one of those modern vehicles, fitted with splendid trappings.

Beyond the shop-window was a great cafe. The girl entered and the woman followed. The attendants came forward to welcome the splendid visitor as one whose arrival at this precise hour of the evening had become a sort of custom. She gave some directions in a language which the woman did not understand, and they were seated at a table.