'I heard it fall.'
'No. Afterward?'
Alice shook her head. 'What do you mean?'
'I dunno,' Fred said uneasily. 'I thought ... it was upstairs.'
They were talking fast, almost in whispers. Now Innes stirred.
'Is ever3rthing in the car?' he said with sudden strength.
'You'd better rest,' warned Alice. 'Good heavens, that was an awful shock. I . . . I'm shaking.'
Fred kicked the metal lamp base.
'Doctor,' Alice said to him, aside, and he gave her a look and went swiftly away.
Alice wished afterward that she had not urged Innes back into the sitting room, but she did, and got him seated. She was afraid he might be sick again, but color had come back to his face and he looked somewhat better.
'What on earth'—Gertrude was holding her hand to her heart in the dooray—'crashed so? Innes, are you there?' She seemed to have lost her sure sense of her surroundings in the excitement.
'It was the lamp falling,' Alice said. 'It's all right. No one was hurt. Miss Whitlock.'
'What a dreadful crash!' she said.
'The lamp's broken.' Isabel stood beside her, edging, with her tendency to go sidewise, through ahead of her. Her complaining voice seemed to hold a little anger. 'Mama's big lamp from the upstairs table. I was in the kitchen. Josephine has gone out!'—as if this were outrage. 'What happened, Alice?'
'I really don't know. Miss Isabel,' Alice said shortly.
'Innes . . . ?'
Innes said, 'It didn't hit me. So it's aU right.'
'What's going on?' Maud's masculine tones broke in upon them. 'Say, who busted the lamp? It's all over the floor.'
Everybody shrugged.
Maud looked at Innes with her sly little eyes. 'You feeling better?' she said.
'I feel much better,' Innes said vigorously. 'A little shock like that seems to have been just what I needed. Where's Fred? I feel much stronger. We must go.'
'He . . .' Alice began and stopped, for Fred was back; and since he told her with a glance that he had missed the Doctor, she saw no reason to upset the Misses Whitlock again. 'Here he is, now. But are you sure you're all right, Innes?'
'Yes,' said Innes, 'I'm all right.'
Josephine came into view in the hall, wearing her coat, with a newspaper-wrapped package held across her body like a shield. Stie looked dazed.
'Where have you been?' wailed Isabel.
But Innes got jerkily up and blundered across the room.
''Good-by, Gertrude, Maud, Isabel. Thanks for everything. I'll write you. But remember'—he spoke rapidly as that he can be quite comfortable at this camp. And you will be with him, Miss Brennan.'
'Yes,' said Alice doubtfully. She felt unselfish devotion was being put upon her.
if to get this said before his strength failed—'about the accounts. I meant that. I'll send a man up from the office. He'll go over everything with you. Mind you show him everything. And I must have your powers of attorney. Thanks, agam. Good-by.'
Alice said, 'Good-by.' She smiled valiantly at Isabel and Maud. Gertrude's hand she pressed briefly. It was a sketchy leave-taking on her part, and although she seemed caught up in Innes's fervor to get away and therefore rushed and pressed by his hurry, the brevity of her farewells was her own idea.
She felt she'd had enough of the Whitlock sisters.
The Whitlock girls did not stand on the doorstep to wish their guests Godspeed. The tall front doors closed. The tall facade was a pale mask in the dark. Fred helped Innes into the tonneau and wrapped him well.
'The air in your face, sir?'
'Yes, that would be good.'
Fred turned down the window. Alice felt rather useless. ''Shall I sit in front?' she said, 'You want to be quiet, don't you, Innes?'
Innes seemed too exhatisted to do more than murmur consent. But it was consent. He seemed more himself, even in this collapsed state, than he had seemed at any time in his sisters' house. At least he was Innes Whitlock, who knew he didn't want to talk. There he had not been himself nor anything else, but a man looking for a role to act and not finding it.
The car moved away softly, a cradle on wheels for its master.
'She seems to be running sweet again,' Alice said. 'What was the matter with her, Fred?'
'You wouldn't know if I told you.''
