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Page 35
"Yes," gasped Mr. Schwab. "I'll sit still. I won't do
nothing."
"Good," muttered Winthrop.
A troubled voice that carried to the heart of Schwab a promise
of protection, said: "Mr. Schwab, would you be more
comfortable back here with me?"
Mr. Schwab turned two terrified eyes in the direction of the
voice. He saw the beautiful young lady regarding him kindly,
compassionately; with just a suspicion of a smile. Mr. Schwab
instantly scrambled to safety over the front seat into the
body of the car. Miss Forbes made way for the prisoner beside
her and he sank back with a nervous, apologetic sigh. The
alert young man was quick to follow the lead of the lady.
"You'll find caps and goggles in the boot, Schwab," he said
hospitably. "You had better put them on. We are going rather
fast now." He extended a magnificent case of pigskin, that
bloomed with fat black cigars. "Try one of these," said the
hospitable young man. The emotions that swept Mr. Schwab he
found difficult to pursue, but he raised his hat to the lady.
"May I, Miss?" he said.
"Certainly," said the lady.
There was a moment of delay while with fingers that slightly
trembled, Mr. Schwab selected an amazing green cap and lit his
cigar; and then the car swept forward, singing and humming
happily, and scattering the autumn leaves. The young lady
leaned toward him with a book in a leather cover. She placed
her finger on a twisting red line that trickled through a page
of type.
"We're just here," said the young lady, "and we ought to reach
home, which is just about there, in an hour."
"I see," said Schwab. But all he saw was a finger in a white
glove, and long eyelashes tangled in a gray veil.
For many minutes, or for all Schwab knew, for many miles, the
young lady pointed out to him the places along the Hudson, of
which he had read in the public school history, and quaint old
manor houses set in glorious lawns; and told him who lived in
them. Schwab knew the names as belonging to down-town
streets, and up-town clubs. He became nervously humble,
intensely polite, he felt he was being carried as an honored
guest into the very heart of the Four Hundred, and when the
car jogged slowly down the main street of Yonkers, although a
policeman stood idly within a yard of him, instead of
shrieking to him for help, "Izzy" Schwab looked at him
scornfully across the social gulf that separated them, with
all the intolerance he believed becoming in the upper classes.
"Those bicycle cops," he said confidentially to Miss Forbes,
"are too chesty."
The car turned in between stone pillars, and under an arch of
red and golden leaves, and swept up a long avenue to a house
of innumerable roofs. It was the grandest house Mr. Schwab
had ever entered, and when two young men in striped waistcoats
and many brass buttons ran down the stone steps and threw open
the door of the car, his heart fluttered between fear and
pleasure.
Lounging before an open fire in the hall were a number of
young men, who welcomed Winthrop delightedly and, to all of
whom Mr. Schwab was formally presented. As he was introduced
he held each by the hand and elbow and said impressively, and
much to the other's embarrassment, "WHAT name, please?"
Then one of the servants conducted him to a room opening on
the hall, from whence he heard stifled exclamations and
laughter, and some one saying "Hush." But "Izzy" Schwab did
not care. The slave in brass buttons was proffering him
ivory-backed hair-brushes, and obsequiously removing the dust
from his coat collar. Mr. Schwab explained to him that he was
not dressed for automobiling, as Mr. Winthrop had invited him
quite informally. The man was most charmingly sympathetic.
And when he returned to the hall every one received him with
the most genial, friendly interest. Would he play golf, or
tennis, or pool, or walk over the farm, or just look on? It
seemed the wish of each to be his escort. Never had he been
so popular.
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