The Second Latchkey Part 5

"I'm _sure_ not," echoed the other. "You are Michael Varcoe. There's no getting away from that."

The emphasis seemed to add, "And no getting away from _us_."

Excitement stirred Annesley to courage. "Why, how horrid!" she exclaimed, bending past the human obstacle; "people taking you for some _foreigner_!

I'm sure you can't be like a man with such a name as--Michael Varcoe!

Tell them who we are."

"My name is Nelson Smith," said her official husband. "My wife is not----"

"Your wife!" repeated the man standing opposite Annesley. He stared with insolent incredulity. "'Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith.' A good name to take."

"It happens to have been given me." Slight sharpness broke the tolerance of Smith's tone.

"I don't believe you!" exclaimed the other.

Smith's black brows drew together. "It doesn't matter whether you believe or not," he said. "What does matter is that you should annoy us. I tell you I'm not Michael Varcoe, and never heard the name. If you're not satisfied, and if you don't go back to your dinner and let us finish ours in peace, I'll appeal to the management."

"Well!" grumbled the taller of the pair. "If you're not the man I want, you're his image--minus moustache and beard. You _must_ be Varcoe!"

"Of course he's Varcoe," insisted the other.

"Of course he's not!" said Annesley, with just the right amount of irritation. "Our name is Smith. Nelson, do tell this--person to ask the head-waiter who engaged the table, and not stay here making a fuss."

"Anybody can engage a table in the name of Smith!" sneered the first speaker. "That is nothing. We go by something more convincing than a name. There are countries where men have been arrested on less resemblance--or put out of the way."

"Oh, Nelson, he's frightening me," faltered Annesley. "He must have lost his senses."

"You think that, do you?" The fierce eyes fixed her with a stare. "You tell me--_you_, madame, that you are this man's wife?"

"I do tell you so," the girl replied, firmly, "though I don't see that it's your affair! Now go away."

"Very well, we take your word," returned the man, in a tone which said that he did nothing of the sort. "And we go--back to our table, to let you finish your meal, Mr. and Mrs. Smith."

His black glance sprang like a tarantula from her face to her companion's, then to his friend's. The latter accepted the ultimatum and followed in sulky silence; but when the pair were seated at their own table, though they ordered food and wine, their attention was still for the alleged Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

Annesley tried to ignore the fact that they stared without ceasing, but she could not help being aware of their eyes. She felt faint, and everything in the room whirled giddily.

"Drink some champagne," said Smith's quiet voice.

The girl obeyed, and the ice-cold wine cooled the fire in blood and nerves.

"You have been splendid," Smith encouraged her. "I know you won't fail me now."

"I promise you I will not!" returned Annesley. "The worst is over. I feel ready for anything."

"How can I thank you?" he murmured. "If I had all the rest of my life to do it in, instead of a few minutes, it wouldn't be too much. You were perfect in your manner, not anxious, only annoyed; just the right air for a self-respecting Mrs. Smith."

They both laughed, and Annesley was surprised that she could laugh naturally and gaily. Presently she laughed again, when Mr. Smith remarked that she had missed her vocation in not being an actress--she, the country mouse, who had hardly been inside a theatre.

The two lingered over their dinner, watched with impatience by the men at the other table, who had ordered only one dish and paid for it immediately, that they might be ready for anything at an instant's notice. They had also a small bottle of wine, which they sipped abstemiously as an excuse to remain after their food had been eaten.

When at last Mr. and Mrs. Smith had finished their _bombe surprise_, and trifled with some fruit, Annesley said: "Evidently they don't care how long they have to wait! I suppose there's nothing for us to do but to go?"

"Oh, yes, there's still something," said Smith. "We'll have coffee in the foyer, and see what the enemy's next move is. It would be a mistake to let the brutes believe they're frightening us."

Annesley agreed in silence; but in her heart she was glad to lengthen out the adventure. Soon she would have to creep back to her dull modern subst.i.tute for a moated grange, and after that--not "the deluge"; nothing so exciting: extinction.

As they walked out of the restaurant together the girl glanced up at the dark profile, mysterious as a stranger's, yet familiar as a friend's. The man had told her nothing about himself except that he was in danger, and had given no hint as to what that danger was; but the girl's heart was warm with belief in him. If there were a question of crime, the crime was not his. His superiority over those creatures must be moral as well as physical and social.

By an odd coincidence, Mr. Smith steered for the sofa in the corner whence a man had stared from behind an open newspaper at a tall, lonely girl in gray, earlier in the evening. Annesley knew nothing of this coincidence, because she had not noticed the man; but even if she had, she would have forgotten him. She had been thinking of herself when she first trailed her gray dress over the red carpet of the foyer; now, returning, she thought of the man who was with her and the two who were certain to follow.

Scarcely were she and Smith seated before the others appeared. The men sat down in chairs drawn up at a little table; and not only must those in the corner pa.s.s by them in escaping, but every word spoken above a whisper must be overheard.

This fact did not embarra.s.s Smith. He ordered coffee and cigarettes, and talked to Annesley in an ordinary tone about a motor trip which it would be pleasant to take. The watchers also demanded coffee. But the waiter they summoned was slow in fulfilling their order. When it was obeyed, before the pair had time to lift cup to lip, Mr. Smith took impish pleasure in getting to his feet.

"Come, dear," he said, "we'd better be off."

He laid on the table money for the coffee and cigarettes, with a satisfactory tip. Then without looking at their neighbours he and Annesley pa.s.sed, walking shoulder to shoulder with a leisurely step toward the entrance.

"I suppose there's no chance of shaking them off?" the girl whispered.

"None whatever," said Smith. "But we've had the fun of cheating them out of their coffee, because they won't chance our stopping to pick up our wraps. They'll be on our heels till the end of the journey, so there's nothing for it except to stick to the original plan of my going home with you. I hope you don't mind? I hope you're not afraid of me now?"

"I'm not at all afraid," said Annesley.

"Thank you for that. If our taxi outruns theirs, I sha'n't need to trespa.s.s on your kindness beyond the doorstep. But if they overtake us, and are on the spot before you can vanish into the house and I can disappear in some other direction, are you still game to keep your promise--the promise to let me go indoors with you?"

"Yes, I am 'game' to the end--whatever the end may be," the girl answered; and she wondered at herself, because her heart was as brave as her words.

Five minutes later Annesley, wrapped in her thin cloak, was stepping into a taxi. As Smith followed and told the chauffeur where to drive, the two watchers shot through the revolving door in time to overhear, and also to order a taxi.

Annesley wondered for one dismayed instant why her companion should have given the real address. He might have mentioned some other street, and thus have gained time; but a second thought told her that, with the pursuing taxi so close upon their heels, an attempt to deceive would have been useless. The policy of defiance was the only one.

For a few moments neither the girl nor the man spoke, although Annesley felt that there were a thousand things to say. Every second was taking them nearer to Torrington Square; and their parting must come soon. After that, all would be blankness for her, as before this wonderful night.

Such thoughts made the girl a prisoner of silence; and "Mr. Smith" was also tongue-tied. Was he concentrating his mind upon some plan of escape from these mysterious enemies? She told herself this must be so; yet his first words proved that he had been thinking of the risk she ran.

"If the dragon comes out of her den and catches us at the door, will that mean a catastrophe for you, or can I be explained away?" he inquired.

"I don't know," said Annesley. "And somehow I don't care!"

"I care," the man replied. "I can't have harm come to you through me. But tell me, before we go farther--does it matter to you, Miss Grayle, that in a little while you and I may see the last of each other? I feel I have a sort of right to ask that question, because it matters such a lot to me. I've got to know you better in this one evening than I could in a year in a commonplace way. I don't want you to go out of my life, because you're the best thing that ever came into it. And if I dared hope that I might mean to you some day half what you've begun to mean for me already, why, I wouldn't _let_ you go!"

Annesley clasped her hands under her cloak. They were cold yet tingling.

Her blood was leaping; but she could not speak. She was afraid of saying too much.

"Can't you give me a grain of hope?" he went on. His voice was wistful.

"We have so little time."