It was Vard's secretary who interrupted us--a slinking chap called
Cornley, who burst in, as white as sweetbread, with the face of a
depositor who hears his bank has stopped payment. Miss Vard started up as
he entered, but caught herself together and dropped back into her chair.
Vard, who had taken out a cigarette, held the tip tranquilly to his fusee.
"You're here, thank God!" Cornley cried. "There's no time to be lost, Mr.
Vard. I've got a carriage waiting round the corner in Thirteenth Street--"
Vard looked at the tip of his cigarette.
"A carriage in Thirteenth Street? My good fellow, my own brougham is at
the door."
"I know, I know--but _they_'re there too, sir; or they will be, inside of
a minute. For God's sake, Mr. Vard, don't trifle!--There's a way out by
Thirteenth Street, I tell you"--
"Bardwell's myrmidons, eh?" said Vard. "Help me on with my overcoat,
Cornley, will you?"
Cornley's teeth chattered.
"Mr. Vard, your best friends ... Miss Vard, won't you speak to your
father?" He turned to me haggardly;--"We can get out by the back way?"
I nodded.
Vard stood towering--in some infernal way he seemed literally to rise to
the situation--one hand in the bosom of his coat, in the attitude of
patriotism in bronze. I glanced at his daughter: she hung on him with a
drowning look. Suddenly she straightened herself; there was something of
Vard in the way she faced her fears--a kind of primitive calm we drawing-
room folk don't have.
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