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Claybrook suddenly laughed: "Some of the niggers down at the mill say this old hill is haunted." She clung to the hand-grip of her seat, her mind filled with a tangle of impressions, with a shrinking from the sepulchral depths below them, and an effort to recall in detail that vision of the city. "I have to shake it off before I can be any more good. It's like being moon-struck."
She paused, gave them all an uncertain smile, and then she started rapidly for the door. Old Mr. Mosby looked mildly surprised, then accepted the situation as one too complex for his muddled brain. And Joe, after a first flare of anger, followed her in silence, leaving Claybrook and Uncle Buzz to contest the honours after him.
And then Claybrook broke the silence. "How will you split commission with me if I take one of these cars?" He spoke heartily, as though he wished to be friendly and cheerful. Joe made no reply for a moment and when he did, his voice trembled just a little. "We're not allowed to make that kind of a deal." "Oh, I know that, and all that sort of thing. But they all do, just the same."
Irritation gave way to discouragement. The day's receipts had been slim indeed. Just then she noticed an automobile roll up to the curb outside, and a man got out. She saw him start for the door, and for a moment she pondered whether she would accomodate him or turn him away. He opened the door. It was Claybrook. "Hullo," he said, catching sight of her. "Afraid I'd be too late. Come take a ride."
After a while she fell asleep.... Two days later she met Claybrook again. Nothing had been decided. Maida had seemed utterly indifferent. "Perfectly satisfied with things as they are," she had said; there was a diabolical stubbornness in her manner. She made capital of her own inertia. She was as cool as if dealing with an entire stranger.
She felt like a little child helped out of a scrape. But all the mischief was not remedied. She at least could find other lodgings to-morrow. She would not wait another day. Thanks to Claybrook she was in off the street. Suppose she had had to spend the night on a park bench? Once that had had a humorous sound to it. Claybrook was a masterful person. He had made that clerk step around.
"Hum," muttered Claybrook, "Independent." And louder: "Two or three other concerns will allow me good money on my car." Joe made no reply. When they arrived at the garage again, the rain had about stopped and they drove in at the main entrance back into the general storage room. Joe stood holding the tonneau door open for them, a ludicrous object in his bedraggled clothes.
Turning away, he set off down the road, away from Bloomfield, and shortly he heard the motor start and the grind of wheels. He looked back. He saw her lean over as though to speak to Claybrook. And then he saw Claybrook turn his face toward hers. They were probably talking about him. He trudged on down the road, although he had no idea of where he was going.
Before she had been an inmate three hours she felt it and when Claybrook called that first evening, she had come rushing across the lobby to meet him, with a glad little cry of welcome. Immediately one of the little groups had ceased to function and had with one accord stared at her with grave eyes, and the blonde at the switchboard had lifted her head above the edge of the desk and peered over.
Arnold, someone had told him, could read a boy's character at a glance. At Easter 1841, my father visited the Diceys at Claybrook, and thence took his boy to see the great schoolmaster at Rugby. Fitzjames draws a little diagram to show how distinctly he remembers the scene.
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