During the first mile or two of the way I could hardly listen to Cantyre, to say nothing of making conversation. In spasmodic sentences between his spells of attention to the traffic he told me of his patient and where she lived; but as it was nothing I was obliged to register in my mind, I could give myself to the wonder of the occasion, in awe at the miracle which had restored me to something like my old place in the world at the very moment when I seemed farthest away from it. Here I was, with not a penny to my name and not two coats to my back, tooling along like a gentleman with a gentleman, and as a man with his friend. Moreover, here I was with a new revelation, a convincing revelation, of something I had long since ceased to believe—that in this world there was such a thing as active brotherly kindness.
I came out of these thoughts to find that we were following the avenue with part of which I had made myself so familiar ten days before. I began to ask myself if Cantyre had a motive in bringing me this way. The houses were thinning out. Vacant lots became frequent. I noted the southern limit of my pacings up and down on that strange midnight. Cantyre slowed the pace perceptibly. My heart thumped. If he accused me of anything, I was resolved to confess all.
As we passed one particular vacant lot, a tangle of nettle, fireweed, and blue succory, I noticed that Cantyre’s gaze roamed round about it, to the neglect of the machine. We had slowed down to perhaps ten miles an hour.
“Do you know whose house that is?” he asked, suddenly.
But I refused to betray myself before it was necessary.
The machine almost stopped. He looked the façade up and down, saying, as he did so: “It’s closed for the season. They left town a few days ago. Barry’s bought the old Hornblower place at Rosyth, Long Island.”
To my relief, we sped on again; but I was not long in learning the motive behind his interest.
Chiefly for the sake of not seeming dumb, I said, as we got into the country, “You and Ralph Coningsby are by way of being great friends, aren’t you?”
“No,” he replied, promptly. “I see him when I go to the club; not very often elsewhere. I know his sister, Elsie Coningsby, better. Not that I know her very well. She happens to be a great friend of—of a—of a great friend—or, rather, some one who was a great friend—of mine. That’s all.”