第18章

Miss Forbes, apparently as much interested in Mr.Schwab's answer as Winthrop, leaned forward.Winthrop raised his voice above the whir of flying wheels, the rushing wind and scattering pebbles.

"I asked you into this car," he shouted, "because I meant to keep you in it until I had you where you couldn't do any mischief.I told you I'd give you something better than the Journal would give you, and I am going to give you a happy day in the country.We're now on our way to this lady's house.You are my guest, and you can play golf, and bridge, and the piano, and eat and drink until the polls close, and after that you can go to the devil.If you jump out at this speed, you will break your neck.And, if I have to slow up for anything, and you try to get away, I'll go after you--it doesn't matter where it is--and break every bone in your body.""Yah! you can't!" shrieked Mr.Schwab."You can't do it!"The madness of the flying engines had got upon his nerves.

Their poison was surging in his veins.He knew he had only to touch his elbow against the elbow of Winthrop, and he could throw the three of them into eternity.He was travelling on air, uplifted, defiant, carried beyond himself.

"I can't do what?" asked Winthrop.

The words reached Schwab from an immeasurable distance, as from another planet, a calm, humdrum planet on which events moved in commonplace, orderly array.Without a jar, with no transition stage, instead of hurtling through space, Mr.

Schwab found himself luxuriously seated in a cushioned chair, motionless, at the side of a steep bank.For a mile before him stretched an empty road.And, beside him in the car, with arms folded calmly on the wheel there glared at him a grim, alert young man.

"I can't do what?" growled the young man.

A feeling of great loneliness fell upon "Izzy" Schwab.Where were now those officers, who in the police courts were at his beck and call? Where the numbered houses, the passing surface cars, the sweating multitudes of Eighth Avenue? In all the world he was alone, alone on an empty country road, with a grim, alert young man.

"When I asked you how you knew my name," said the young man, "Ithought you knew me as having won some races in Florida last winter.This is the car that won.I thought maybe you might have heard of me when I was captain of a football team at--a university.If you have any idea that you can jump from this car and not be killed, or, that I cannot pound you into a pulp, let me prove to you you're wrong--now.We're quite alone.Do you wish to get down?""No," shrieked Schwab, "I won't! He turned appealingly to the young lady."You're a witness," he cried."If he assaults me, he's liable.I haven't done nothing.""We're near Yonkers," said the young man, "and if you try to take advantage of my having to go slow through the town, you know now what will happen to you."Mr.Schwab having instantly planned on reaching Yonkers, to leap from the car into the arms of the village constable, with suspicious alacrity, assented.The young man regarded him doubtfully.

"I'm afraid I'll have to show you," said the young man.He laid two fingers on Mr.Schwab's wrist; looking at him, as he did so, steadily and thoughtfully, like a physician feeling a pulse.Mr.Schwab screamed.When he had seen policemen twist steel nippers on the wrists of prisoners, he had thought, when the prisoners shrieked and writhed, they were acting.

He now knew they were not.

"Now, will you promise?" demanded the grim young man.

"Yes," gasped Mr.Schwab."I'll sit still.I won't do nothing.""Good," muttered Winthrop.

A troubled voice that carried to the heart of Schwab a promise of protection, said: "Mr.Schwab, would you be more comfortable back here with me?"Mr.Schwab turned two terrified eyes in the direction of the voice.He saw the beautiful young lady regarding him kindly, compassionately; with just a suspicion of a smile.Mr.Schwab instantly scrambled to safety over the front seat into the body of the car.Miss Forbes made way for the prisoner beside her and he sank back with a nervous, apologetic sigh.The alert young man was quick to follow the lead of the lady.

"You'll find caps and goggles in the boot, Schwab," he said hospitably."You had better put them on.We are going rather fast now." He extended a magnificent case of pigskin, that bloomed with fat black cigars."Try one of these," said the hospitable young man.The emotions that swept Mr.Schwab he found difficult to pursue, but he raised his hat to the lady.

"May I, Miss?" he said.

"Certainly," said the lady.

There was a moment of delay while with fingers that slightly trembled, Mr.Schwab selected an amazing green cap and lit his cigar; and then the car swept forward, singing and humming happily, and scattering the autumn leaves.The young lady leaned toward him with a book in a leather cover.She placed her finger on a twisting red line that trickled through a page of type.

"We're just here," said the young lady, "and we ought to reach home, which is just about there, in an hour.""I see," said Schwab.But all he saw was a finger in a white glove, and long eyelashes tangled in a gray veil.

For many minutes, or for all Schwab knew, for many miles, the young lady pointed out to him the places along the Hudson, of which he had read in the public school history, and quaint old manor houses set in glorious lawns; and told him who lived in them.Schwab knew the names as belonging to down-town streets, and up-town clubs.He became nervously humble, intensely polite, he felt he was being carried as an honored guest into the very heart of the Four Hundred, and when the car jogged slowly down the main street of Yonkers, although a policeman stood idly within a yard of him, instead of shrieking to him for help, "Izzy" Schwab looked at him scornfully across the social gulf that separated them, with all the intolerance he believed becoming in the upper classes.