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Updated: April 30, 2025
He crossed over and turned the knob, admitting a man standing upon the threshold. "Is this Mr. Starratt?" the stranger began. Fred nodded. "Well, I'm sorry to bring bad news, but there's been a nasty accident. Mr. Hilmer's car went over a bank near Montara this afternoon... Mrs. Hilmer was hurt pretty badly, but everybody else is fairly well off... Your wife asked me to drop in and see you.
Of course, if Fred could interest Hilmer... Perhaps she could help things along in some way ... with a chance remark to Mrs. Hilmer. Would it be better to cast the seed more directly?... If she could only manage to run across Hilmer she wouldn't want to seem to be putting in her oar... Would it be very dreadful if she were to think up some excuse and go beard the lion in his den?
Not by any chance would he give a prompt and emphatic refusal... The more she thought about it the more enticing the prospect became. She felt sure that if Hilmer didn't approve of her charity he would say so frankly, perhaps disagreeably. And if he didn't think much of her husband's venture he would be equally direct. She rather wanted to know what he did think about Fred Starratt.
Deep within him he found two opposing currents struggling for mastery one an overwhelming tide of disillusionment, the other a faith in things hitherto withheld. Against the uncloaked figures of Helen Starratt and Hilmer loomed Ginger and Monet. Did life always yield compensations, if one had the wit to discern them?
"Why ... on what grounds?" She waved a bit of carbon paper in the air. "How should I know? I didn't ask him!" Her contemptuous indifference irritated him. "You ought to have waited until I got back... You've probably got everything mixed up... It takes experience to map out a big schedule like that." "Hilmer showed me what to do," she retorted, calmly. "Then he's been over here?"
"I don't suppose you saw my wife, by any chance," he ventured. "No... Fact is, she's in bed... Hilmer said the news completely bowled her over... That's another reason you've got to buck up for her sake, you know!" It ended in Watson putting up the bail money and their departing in a yellow taxicab for an obscure hotel in Ellis Street.
I drove the car that helped rescue them... Don't be alarmed; Mrs. Starratt isn't hurt beyond a tough shaking up. But she feels she ought to stay with Mrs. Hilmer under the circumstances." Fred tried to appear calm. "Oh yes, of course ... naturally... And how about Hilmer himself?" The man shrugged. "He's pretty fair. So far a broken arm is all they've found wrong with him."
Indifference, amazement, opposition nothing seemed able to sway her from her purpose. In the end he had been too touched by her attitude to put his foot down firmly against the move... She got on well with Hilmer, too, he noticed.
Fred had decided to forgo his soliciting and stay indoors instead. Hilmer greeted him with biting raillery. "Well, I should think this was a good day to bag a prospective customer," he flung out as he laid his umbrella aside. "Or is business swamping you?" Fred tossed back a trite rejoinder. Helen went on pounding her machine ... she did not even lift her eyes.
Starratt replied, coldly. "But that's neither here nor there. What's done is done. But I don't want any more of it. I'm playing a square game. I was ready to throw Hilmer overboard rather than compromise, and I'll " "Do the same thing to me, I suppose!" Brauer challenged. Fred looked at him steadily. "Precisely," he answered.
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