Chapter XVII

Clancy had, on the other occasions on which she had met David Randall, been cool, aloof, mildly flirtatious, fun-making. Even when fear had swayed her and he had guessed at some worry eating at her heart, she had managed to preserve a verbal self-command.

But it was a Clancy whom he had never met before who faced him now. It was an incoherent Clancy, who said brokenly, while his big hand still held hers:

"What a surprise! I expected--I'm _glad_-- What a terrible storm--so much snow--in a few hours-- Wasn't it fun--last night?"

Then the incoherence that, from a person who had heretofore been always in complete possession of herself, was all the more charming, vanished. She looked down at her hand, then demurely up at him. With Vandervent's detectives ready to knock upon the front door--it is a peculiar thing that one always thinks of detectives as knocking, never ringing--with ten thousand dollars of venal money in her purse; with flight from the city as her only escape--and that, her common sense told her, a temporary one--from her amazing difficulties; with her career, not merely the moving-picture ambitions but the new one of achieving success with Miss Henderson, vanishing as the snow upon the streets would vanish before the rain and sun; with more trouble than she could cope with, Clancy became demure. She was thoroughly feminine. And a woman regards a man as something to be swayed by her. So Clancy forgot her own troubles for the moment in the pleasing task of making Randall's face redder than it was.

"You like it?" she asked. He didn't understand her. "My hand," she explained.

Randall dropped it at once. Her own incoherence communicated itself to him.

"I didn't mean-- I didn't realize----"

"Oh, it's perfectly all right," said Clancy soothingly. "If I were you, I'd probably like to hold my hand, too."

She laughed. Randall discovered from the laugh that he had not offended irreparably. Emboldened, he snatched at the hand again. But they were in the hall, and Mrs. Gerand, disapproving of eye as she looked at this young couple violating the austerity of her house by open and bold flirtation, was only twenty feet away.

"Let's go in the parlor," said Clancy.

There was a sort of sofa near the old-fashioned marble mantel in the parlor, and in the exact center of this Clancy sat. Randall was forced to deposit himself upon a chair, a rickety affair which he drew as near to Clancy as he dared. He coughed nervously. Then he smiled--a broad smile, the smile, he thought, of large friendliness, of kindly impersonality. Clancy was not deceived by it.

"How'd you find me here?" she demanded. "Didn't I refuse to tell you my address?"

"Mrs. Carey told me this morning."

"Oh, she did! Why did she do that?"

"It wasn't a crime, was it?" asked Randall aggrievedly. "I guess that she thought she owed it to me--after last night."

"What do you mean?"

Randall's eyes lowered. He fidgeted uneasily in his chair. Then he lifted his eyes until they met hers.

"Well, she wouldn't give me a chance last night."

"'A chance?' What do you mean?" Clancy sat bolt upright on the sofa.

"She was afraid that you might listen to me." The explanation didn't quite explain.

"I'm listening to you now," she said.

"Yes; yes"--and Randall smiled rather wanly--"Mrs. Carey is a mind-reader, I think. She knew that I intended--she knew what I intended to say," he corrected his phrasing, "and she didn't want me to say it."

Into Clancy's eyes came glints of merriment.

"Oh, yes; she was afraid that you would propose to me."

Somehow or other, without Clancy putting it into words, her manner indicated an amused scorn. Randall was in love--in love in that terrific and overwhelmingly passionate fashion that only love at first sight can attain. But he was a grown man, who had proved, by his business success, his right to walk among men. He was good-natured, would always be good-natured. But he had self-respect. And now he hit back.

"Oh, no," he said; "she was afraid that you would accept me."

Not afraid to hit back, nevertheless, for a moment, he feared that he had struck too hard. He misread, at first, the light in Clancy's eyes. He thought it was anger.

But, to his relieved amazement, she began to laugh.

"Some one has a flattering conception of you, Mr. Randall," she told him.

He grinned cheerfully.

"Not flattering, Miss Deane--correct."

"Hm." Clancy pursed her lips. "You think well of Mr. David Randall, don't you?"

"I couldn't offer you goods of whose value I had any doubt, Miss Deane," he retorted.

Clancy's respect for him reached an amazing altitude. He could, after all, then, be quick of speech. And Clancy liked a man who could find ready verbal expression for his thoughts.

"I take it, then, that you are definitely offering me your hand and fifty per cent of all your worldly goods, Mr. Randall."

"Do you accept them?" he asked.

Clancy shook her head, smiling.

"Not to-day, thank you."

Randall frowned.

"Mrs. Carey is altogether too ambitious," he said. "She couldn't play Fate."

Clancy made a _moue_.

"Oh, then, last night--you think it might have been different?"

"I have no thoughts, Miss Deane--merely hopes. But Mrs. Carey said that you were worried-- I could see that, too--and she thought that it wasn't fair----"

Clancy felt a sudden resentment at Sophie Carey. After all, even though Mrs. Carey had been ever so kind, it had all been voluntary. Clancy hadn't dreamed of asking anything of her. And even involuntary kindness, grudging kindness, doesn't bestow upon the donor the right to direct the affairs of the donee. Once again, she was rather certain that she and Sophie Carey would never be real friends. She would always owe the older woman gratitude, but----

"Not fair, eh? You didn't mind that, though."

The humor left Randall's eyes. He was deadly serious as he answered,

"Miss Deane, any way that I could get you would be fair enough for me."

"But why hurry matters?" smiled Clancy.

"'Hurry?'" His smile was a little bit uneasy. "You--you're destined to a great success, Miss Deane, and pretty soon I'm afraid that you'll be way beyond my reach."

"I suppose that I should courtesy," said Clancy. "But I won't. I'll simply tell you that----"

"Don't tell me anything unless it's something I want to hear," he interposed.

"You'll like this, I'm sure," she said naïvely. "Because I was going to tell you that I like you immensely, and--well, I like you."

"And you won't marry me?"

"Well, not now, at any rate," she replied.

He rose abruptly.

"I'm sorry--awfully sorry. You see--last night--it's altogether ridiculous, I suppose, my expecting, daring to hope, even, that a girl like you would fall in love with me so soon. But--you're so lovely! Vandervent--last night--please don't be offended--and I'm leaving town to-day."

"'Leaving town?'" Clancy was shocked.

"That's why. I'll be gone a month. And I've never met a girl like you. Never will again; I know that. I--didn't want to tell you last night. It wasn't absolutely decided. If I'd taken you home--well, I'd have told you. Because I'd have proposed then. But not at Mrs. Carey's. I hoped to--sort of surprise you in the taxi. But that chance went. You spent the night at her house. And I'm leaving to-day."

"Where for?" she asked. She didn't know how dull her voice had suddenly become. She wasn't in love with Randall. Clancy Deane was not the kind to surrender her heart at the first request. Her head would not rule her heart, yet it would guide it. Under normal conditions, even had she fallen in love with Randall, she would not have married him offhand, as he suggested. She would demand time in which to think the matter over.

But these were abnormal conditions. She was in danger. In the rare moments, when she could force her mind to analyze the situation, she believed that her danger was not great, that the police _must_ believe her story. But she was a young and somewhat headstrong girl; fear triumphed over reason most of the time.

If she loved Randall, she might have accepted him. Of course, she would have told him her predicament. She was enough of a character-reader to know that Randall would believe her and marry her. But she didn't love him.

"California," he said. "A moving-picture combination. They've asked me to handle the flotation of stock and the placing of the bonds. It's a big thing, and I want to look the proposition over." He leaned suddenly near to her. "Oh, don't you think that you can come with me? If you knew how much I cared!"

She shook her head.

"I don't love you," she said.

He managed a smile. The nicest thing about him, Clancy decided, was his sportsmanship.

"Well, I _have_ rushed matters, Miss Deane. But--don't forget me, please."

"I won't," she promised. "And I hope you have a fine trip and make a great success."

"Thank you," he said. "Good-by."

They touched hands for a moment, and then he was gone. Thus banal, almost always, are the moments that follow upon the ones that have reached for the height of emotion.

Clancy was left alone almost before she realized it. Up-stairs, in her shabby bedroom, she wondered if any other girl had ever crowded so much of differing experience into a few days. Truth was stranger than fiction--save in this: in fiction, all difficulties were finally surmounted, all problems solved.

But her own case-- One who flees always prejudices his case. Fanchon DeLisle's reply to Vandervent's telegram would arrive by the morrow, anyway. The only reason that Clancy had not been called upon by Vandervent's men that she could conceive was that the storm had delayed the transmission of telegrams. A thin reed on which to lean! She suddenly wished with all her heart that she loved Randall. If she did love him, she could demand his protection. That protection suddenly loomed large before her frightened eyes.

Well, there was only one thing to do. Accepting defeat bravely is better than running away from it eternally. Also, in her mind lived the idea that Vandervent might possibly-- Absurd! He'd only met her last night. And he was an officer of the law, sworn to do his duty.

She had no preconceived idea of what she'd do. She felt dull, bewildered, dazed.

Surrender! It was the only thing to do. Better by far that than being rudely taken to the Tombs. She'd read of the Tombs prison. What a horrible name! How it suggested the gruesome things! Lesser characters than Clancy for much less reason have had recourse to poison, to other things-- It never even entered her head.

Mrs. Gerand, amazed at the question, told her where to find the district attorney's office. Clancy fought her way to the Astor Place subway station. She got off at Brooklyn Bridge. From there, a policeman directed her to the Criminal Courts Building. In the lobby, an attendant told her that Mr. Vandervent's office was on the third floor. She took an elevator, and, after entering two offices, was correctly directed. To a clerk who asked her business, she merely replied:

"Tell Mr. Vandervent that Florine Ladue wishes to see him."

The clerk showed no surprise. That was natural. Vandervent's underlings, of course, knew nothing of the clue which Vandervent possessed to the identity of the Beiner murderer. He departed toward an inner office.

Clancy sank down upon a wooden bench. Well, this was the end. She supposed that she'd be handcuffed, locked in a cell. She picked up a newspaper, a paper largely devoted to theatrical doings. Idly she read the dramatic gossip. She turned a page, and glanced a second time at a portrait displayed there.

It was a picture of Fanchon DeLisle. Her bosom rose; in her excitement she did not breathe. For beneath the picture was a head-line reading:

FAMOUS SOUBRETTE DIES OF INFLUENZA

She read the brief paragraph that followed. Fanchon DeLisle, leading woman of the New York Blondes Company, had died of the "flu" in Belknap, Ohio, on Wednesday afternoon. It was her second attack of the disease. Clancy's eyes blurred. She read no more. She looked about her. She must escape. Fanchon DeLisle was the only person who could tell Vandervent that Florine Ladue was Clancy Deane. Of course, Fay Marston knew, but Fay Marston's knowledge was not known to the police. Only Fanchon DeLisle could, just now, at any rate, tell that Clancy-- She had sent in the name, Florine Ladue!

She must escape before Vandervent-- But even as she rose tremblingly to her feet, Vandervent entered the outer reception-room. He stopped short at sight of Clancy. His mouth opened. But Clancy didn't hear what he said, because she fainted.