The Second Latchkey

								

"'Women ... being arrested ...'" That meant that if she plunged into the
fray she might be mistaken for a woman burglar, and arrested with the
guilty. Even if she lurked where she was, a prowling policeman might
suppose she sought concealment, and bag her as a militant.
Imagine what Mrs. Ellsworth would say--and do--if she were taken off to
jail!
Annesley's heart seemed to drop out of its place, to go "crossways," as
her old Irish nurse used to say a million years ago.
Without stopping to think again, or even to breathe, she flew back to the
hotel entrance, as a migrating bird follows its leader, and slipped
through the revolving door behind the fugitives.
"It's fate," she thought. "This must be a sign coming just when I'd
made up my mind."
Suddenly she was no longer afraid, though her heart was pounding under
the thin cloak. Fragrance of hot-house flowers and expensive perfume from
women's dresses intoxicated the girl as a glass of champagne forced upon
one who has never tasted wine flies to the head. She felt herself on the
tide of adventure, moving because she must; the soul which would have
fled, to return to Mrs. Ellsworth, was a coward not worthy to live in her
body.
She had room in her crowded mind to think how queer it was--and how queer
it would seem all the rest of her life in looking back--that she should
have the course of her existence changed because burglars had broken some
panes of glass in the Strand.
"Just because of them--creatures I'll never meet--I'm going to see this
through to the end," she said, flinging up her chin and looking entirely
unlike the Annesley Grayle Mrs. Ellsworth knew. "To the end!"
She thrilled at the word, which had as much of the unknown in it as
though it were the world's end she referred to, and she were jumping off.
"Will you please tell me where to leave my wrap?" she heard herself
inquiring of a footman as magnificent as, and far better dressed than,
the Apollo Belvedere. Her voice sounded natural. She was glad. This added
to her courage. It was wonderful to feel brave. Life was so deadly,
worse--so stuffy--at Mrs. Ellsworth's, that if she had ever been
normally brave like other girls, she had had the young splendour of her
courage crushed out.
The statue in gray plush and dark blue cloth came to life, and showed her
the cloak-room.
Other women were there, taking last, affectionate peeps at themselves
in the long mirrors. Annesley took a last peep at herself also, not an
affectionate but an anxious one. Compared with these visions, was she
(in Mrs. Ellsworth's cast-off clothes, made over in odd moments by the
wearer) so dowdy and second-hand that--that--a stranger would be ashamed
to----?
The question feared to finish itself.
"I do look like a lady, anyhow," the girl thought with defiance.
"That's what he--that seems to be the test."
Now she was in a hurry to get the ordeal over. Instead of hanging back