that did not seem to be much traveled.
“‘Bout a mile back?” asked the stranger.
“About.”
“Hmm! Copple’s Lane, I reckon. In bad shape. Well, say, we might go back and hitch her on and tow her in. I ain’t in any special hurry.” And the man began to apply the thought to his brakes for a turn around.
The young man roused in alarm.
“Oh, no,” he said energetically. “I’ve got an appointment. I’llhave to hurry on. How far is it to a trolley or train? I’ll be glad if you’ll let me out at your home and direct me to the nearest trolley to the city. I’ll send my man back for the car. It’ll be all right,” he added, reverting in his anxiety to the vernacular of his former life.
His worldly tone made its immediate impression. The stranger looked him over with increasing respect. This was a person from another world. He talked of his man as of a slave. The fur collar on the fine overcoat came under inspection. He didn’t often have fur-lined passengers in his tin Lizzie.
“That’s a fine warm coat you’ve got on,” he admired frankly. “Guess you paid a pretty penny for that?”
The young man became instantly alarmed. Now, when this man got home and read his evening paper with a description of that very overcoat, he would go to his telephone and call up the police station. He must get rid of that coat at all costs. If the man had it in his possession perhaps he would not be so ready to make known the location of the owner.
“Don’t remember what I paid,” he answered nonchalantly. “But it doesn’t matter. I have to get a new one. This one got all cut up in the wreck,” and he brought to view the long rip where the coat had caught on some barbed wire when he tried to climb a fence.
The stranger looked at the jagged tear sharply.
“My wife could mend that,” he said speculatively. “Ef you wantta stop at the house and leave it, she’ll darn it up so you won’t scarcely know it’s been tore. Then when you get your car fixed up,you can come along back and get your coat. I’ll loan you mine while you’re gone. That’s a mighty fine coat. I’d like to own one like it myself. Sorry you can’t remember the price. Now I paid twenty-seven fifty at a bargain sale fer this here one, and it’s a real good piece of cloth.”
Young Van Rensselaer stared in the dark. He did not know there were coats for twenty-seven fifty.
“Nice coat,” he said nonchalantly. “How’d you like to exchange? I’m going away tonight on a little trip, and I’m afraid I couldn’t take the time to come back, and I wouldn’t have time to wait to have it mended. I do hate to go with a torn coat, too.”
“H’m!” said the man with a catch in his breath as if he could not believe his ears, but he did not mean to let anybody know it. “But that wouldn’t be altogether fair. Your coat is lined with fur. It must have cost ‘most fifty dollars.”
“Oh, well, I’ve had it some time, you know, and your coat is new; that squares it all up. I’m satisfied if you are.”
“It’s a bargain!” said the man, stopping his car with alacrity, beginning to unbutton his overcoat. A bargain like that had better be taken up before the young gentleman retracted his offer.
Murray Van Rensselaer divested himself of his expensive coat and crawled into the harsh gray coat of the stranger, and said to himself eagerly, “Now I’m becoming a new man,” but he shivered as the car shot forward and the chill air struck through him. Fur lining did make a difference. It never occurred to him before that there were men who could not have fur coats when they needed them for comfort. And now he was one of those men! How astonishing!
The new owner of the fur coat decided that it would be wise not to take the strange young man to his house. He would drop him at the first garage, which was a mile and a half nearer than his home. Then if he thought better of his exchange, he could not possibly hunt him up and demand his coat back again. So the young man was let out in the night before a little garage on the outskirts of town, and the Ford disappeared into the darkness, its taillight winking cunningly and whisking out of sight at the first corner. No chance for that fur coat to ever meet up with its former owner again. And Murray Van Rensselaer stood shivering in the road, waiting till his companion was out of sight that he, too, might vanish in another direction. He had no use for a garage, and he groaned in his spirit over the thought of walking farther with those infernally tight shoes. He almost had a wild notion of taking them off and going barefoot for a while.
Then suddenly a brilliant headlight mounted the hill at the top of the road, and a motorcycle roared into view, heading straight toward him. He could see the brass buttons on the man’s uniform, and he dodged blindly out of the path of the light and ducked behind the garage in frantic haste, forgetful of his aching feet, and made great strides through the stubble of an old cornfield that seemed acres across, his heart beating wildly at the thought that perhaps the man with his overcoat had already stopped somewhere to telephone information about him. He was enveloped in panic once more and stumbled and fell and rose again regardless of the bruises and scratches, as if he were struggling for the victory in a football game. Only in this game his life was the stake.
A phrase that he had heard somewhere in his past came to his mind and haunted him. Like a chant it beat a rhythm in his brain as he dragged his weary body over miles of darkness.
“The mark of Cain!” it said. Over and over again: “The mark of Cain!”
CHAPTER VI
Grevet’s was a fine old marble mansion just off the avenue with its name in gold script and heavy silken draperies at the plate-glass windows. It had the air of having caught and imprisoned the atmosphere of the old aristocracy that used to inhabit that section of the city. The quiet distinction of the house seemed to give added dignity to the fine old street, where memories of other days still lingered to remind old residents of a time when only the four hundred trod the sacred precincts of those noble mansions.
Inside the wrought-iron grill-work of its outer entrance, the quiet distinction became more intense. No footstep sounded from the deep pile of imported carpets that covered the floors. Gray floors, lofty walls done in pearl and gray and cream. Upholstery of velvet toning with the walls and floor. And lightwonderful perfect lightsoftly diffused from the walls themselves, seemingly, making it clear as the morning, yet soft with the radiance of moonlight. A pot of daffodils in one window, just where the silken curtain was slightly drawn to the street. A crystal bowl of parma violets on a tiny table of teak wood. An exquisite cushion of needlepoint blindingly intricate in its delicate design and minute stitches. One rare painting of an old Greek temple against a southern sky and sea. That was Grevet’s.
And when you entered there was no one present at first. It was very still, like entering some secret hall of silence. You almost felt like an intruder unless you were of the favored ones who came often to have their wants supplied.
A period of overwhelming waiting, of hesitation lest you might have made a mistake after all, and then Madame, in a costume of stunning simplicity, would glance out from some inner sanctum, murmur a command, and out would come a slim attendant in black satin frock and hair, cut seemingly off the same piece of cloth, and demand your need, and later would come forth the mannequins and models wearing creations of distinction that would put the lily’s garb
