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Page 103
"I myself will meet you at Finlake. It's three miles farther to the
quarry. If you are not on the noon train I will meet the night--"
"I--I cannot thank you, Doctor Cole." Kenny hung up, unaware that the
doctor was adding further detail.
Almost at once he unhooked the receiver and summoned the club central.
Afterward Pietro, who took his turn at the switchboard when the day
operator departed, spoke of the quiet curtness of his voice.
"Pietro? Mr. O'Neill speaking. I want you, at once, to look up the
earliest connecting train with Finlake, Pennsylvania, any road."
"Yes, sir," began Pietro. "What--" but the receiver had clicked into
place.
Kenny stared with a shudder at the withered fern, his face as white as
chalk.
A tearing hand seemed clinging to his brain.
In the face of this grief-stricken terror that quaked and burned in his
soul, etching unforgettable scars, the recollection of his unsteady
spurts of penance rose to mock him with their artificiality. His
remorse had been but a pale, theatric spree! And now in this forgetful
winter of his love, Fate had decoyed him into optimistic quietude only
to thrust savagely and deep. Remorse in the raw! Was it
punishment--punishment for the farcical penitent on the highway who had
smiled into a woman's soft eyes, forgetting--
He answered Pietro's ring with a throbbing sense of confusion in his
forehead.
The best connecting train and the earliest left the Pennsylvania
Terminal at eleven. It was now but five. How could he wait?
"Pietro," he said, "give me now Doctor Barrington's office. And tell
the operator to put me through to his private wire. It's urgent. I do
not want the nurse in the anteroom. When you ring for me I want Dr.
Barrington ready at the other end and I want you yourself, Pietro, to
be sure he's there."
Pietro, obeyed, amazed and loyal.
"Frank?" Hot relief surged in Kenny's heart at the chance ease of
connection. "Kenny speaking."
"Hello, Kenny. Nothing doing for me tonight, old man. I've got to
sleep."
"I need you, Frank. Brian has been injured--badly--in a quarry
explosion."
"Kenny!"
"A chance of skull fracture," said Kenny steadily. "That means?"
"A possible operation."
"Can you leave with me at eleven o'clock to-night, Pennsylvania
Terminal? It will mean at least two days. He's at Finlake,
Pennsylvania, barely conscious--in the hands of a country doctor."
The brilliant industrious young surgeon on the other end gasped and
whistled. He worked and played at heavy pressure.
"Kenny, old man," he said, "nothing is impossible. Almost this is.
But it's you and Brian and that's enough, I'll meet you at quarter of
eleven. I'll go--thoroughly prepared. Do you feel like telling me
more?"
"No."
Two receivers clicked and Kenny, remembering that he could not
definitely locate Joan until six, felt the tautness of his control slip
dangerously.
Eleven o'clock. . . . How could he wait? He paced the floor, his mind
in its chaotic desperation, numb and inelastic. With his glance upon
the psaltery stick, a dim notion of accounting filtered curiously into
his mind and became obsessional. He went shaking to Brian's room and
put the key of the chiffonier in his pocket. Thank God the studio was
in order, save a chair or two. Brian . . . would . . . be . . .
pleased. Kenny stared at the withered fern and blinked. An augury?
God forbid! Then he flung the bill-file with its heterogeneous
collection of receipted I.O.U.'s into his bulging suit case and called
up Simon Meyer.
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