Page:Bobbie, General Manager (1913).djvu/210

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
200
BOBBIE, GENERAL MANAGER

queer trembling voice, "Will you go to drive with me to-morrow afternoon at three, way off into the country, away from pergolas and cement pools, and people?"

I nodded, unable to speak.

"All right. I'll be here. Good night," he said gently, and turned abruptly and left me there alone in the garden.

I watched him hurry up the garden-steps and out of the gateway. He turned once and waved his hand to the pitiful little wind-blown creature he left behind in the bleak unbeautiful garden. I felt as if he had torn me from my moorings and that I must toss and drift in strange unknown seas until to-morrow at three.

I managed to gather my bundles together somehow, and come up here to the house. My cheeks were flaming when I opened the door. I left my packages in a chair in the hall and hurried up here to my room as quickly as I could. Once here I locked my door tight and threw off my things. "Oh, don't be silly; don't be absurd," I said, and buried my face in the dark of my arms on my desk. "It's just Dr. Maynard," I went on later, "and you know how you felt two years ago. Oh, be reasonable. Be calm." But all the time that I was talking sense to myself, I was feeling strong arms about my shoulders, and a kind of sinking, fainting, going-out feeling that people must experience when they lose consciousness, would steal over me so that I couldn't think.

Finally to put an end to my nonsense I opened a secret compartment and took out Robert Dwinnell's picture. He would cure me of my delusion; he would