Dillon saw the girl pull her sables about her white round neck. He also noted, with unconscious satisfaction, the dismissal in her gesture, and how Mr. Redmond imperceptibly dissolved into the group about Mr. Dollar. But his mind was occupied with Renig. The fellow was a nervous wreck, and another family had already moved into his flat. He might lend him a blanket and let him sleep on the sofa in the office for a night or two. Then he saw the reporters step aside to allow the redheaded girl, who had been sitting beside the judge, to approach. Why should she come hanging around? It annoyed him even more than her gratuitous presence. Why couldn’t she have the decency—having paraded her vulgar curiosity all the afternoon—to take herself off? Still, he was not unconscious of the fact that she was pretty in a bizarre, theatrical sort of way. He could see “Deacon” Terry of The Tribune extending a wicked ear, and Charley White of The Sun drifting innocently in their direction.
“Mr. Dillon?”
A wisp of auburn hair had escaped the rim of her small toque, the rich colour in vivid contrast with her pellucid skin and the strange blue of her eyes. Somewhere, when on leave in Paris, he had seen a picture of a woman with that sort of colouring, and it had taken his fancy—in the Louvre, maybe, or was it the Luxembourg? He got to his feet.
“My name is Devens—Moira Devens. I would like to do something for Mr. Renig.” Her voice was low, her manner contained.
He felt somehow impelled to do as she wished. Without replying, he turned to the ashen face of the man beside him, who was staring vacantly at the Blind Goddess.
“This lady wants to talk to you, Paul!”
“I don’t feel like talkin’!”
Miss Devens sat down on the other side of the table and leaned forward on her arms.
“Mr. Renig, I want you to let me help you.”
Renig, for the first time since his trial had begun, stopped the slow rhythmic movement of his jaws.
“That’s all right, miss. I can make out.”
“But I— Oh, please, isn’t there anything I can do?” The reporters made a semicircle behind her.
“Speak up, Paul!” urged Charley White. “Don’t be bashful. We all know you’re broke.”
The muscles of Renig’s face twitched. Then he muttered something to Dillon, studiously looking away from the girl meanwhile.
“Mr. Renig tells me,” said Hugh, “that if you really want to help him, there is one thing he feels very deeply about—he owns only the old yellow suit he has on. He would like to wear black for his wife and child.”
“Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” suddenly sobbed Renig, dropping his face in his hands. “Oh, Jesus!” he rasped, as he searched in his pocket for a handkerchief.
Dillon put his arm about him.
“Buck up, old man!”
The girl opened a bag of gold mesh and took from it a roll of yellow bills.
“Please take this!” she said, pushing it under Renig’s sleeve. “It will keep you going for a while.”
Renig fingered the money in bewilderment.
“Five hundred dollars!—My wife and baby are dead from a leak in the gas, and you give me five hundred dollars? Is that straight?”
“Sure, she’s a rich woman!” interjected “Deacon” Terry, with a prophetic vision of a full column on the morrow’s front page.
“But why—should you give me five hundred dollars?”
The girl closed her bag with a snap.
“Because,” she answered half whimsically, “because—well!—for one thing my father happens to be a director of the gas company.”
“Holy Mike!” ejaculated Charley White, searching quickly for his hat, which had rolled under the table. “Let me get to the ’phone!”
At that instant Mr. Wilhelm Ganz, who had been listening attentively, shouldered his way into the group.
“Listen here!” he declared, “if there’s money going ’round how about the seventy-two fifty he owes the company?”
The “Deacon” turned on him with a snarl.
“Get out of here before we boot you out!”
Ganz lowered his head belligerently.
“Keep your hands off me! Even if the jury did acquit this feller, he stole seventy-two dollars, didn’t he? I can have him arrested for that, and I’m goin’ to. There’s some justice left!”
“Justice! Bah!” roared White. “You baldheaded baboon!—Try it!”
“I will see that the money is repaid!” said Moira coldly. “Mr. Renig, here is my address. Come and see me if you need any more help. May I speak to you outside, Mr. Dillon?”
She nodded to the reporters and to Mr. Dollar, and turned confidently to Hugh—a self-possessed young person with a well-developed histrionic sense.
The court-room was already nearly empty. The “nut” who wanted to speak to the judge for a moment had followed him up-stairs, and the decorous drunk had been officially awakened and cast out. The only spectator left was the woman in chinchilla, who had crept nearer and nearer as the little scene inside the rail was being enacted. Now, as Captain Lynch held open the gate for Moira to pass out of the enclosure, the woman swayed toward her with an almost imperceptible forward movement of her hands.
“Go over and wait for me at the office, Paul,” directed Dillon, following the girl into the lobby. In spite of what he regarded as her ostentatious largesse his heart was still hardened against her. Nevertheless, this did not exclude a certain curiosity as to what she might prove to be like on further acquaintance. She was quite different from any girl he had ever met before. Neither of them noticed the woman who was lurking in the shadow between the outer and inner doors.
“Won’t you drive uptown with me, Mr. Dillon? I want to talk to you.”
To Hugh it was an astounding suggestion. What could she want of him? Was she worried about the case, perhaps?
“About Renig?”
“Yes—partly.”
“What do you want to know about him?” he asked, without moving further.
She gave a gesture of impatience.
“I can’t talk to you here. I—I’ve got an appointment uptown.”
He looked at her, frowning. She could not be peremptory with him, whatever prerogatives might be accorded to her by others.
“I have one myself at my office, Miss Devens. I’m sorry.”
An angry gleam came into her eyes.
“Perhaps you’ll take me to my motor, then?”
“Delighted.”
