l settle with each other to-morrow!" he said thickly,
pointing a puffy finger at Plank. "You'll find me at the Algonquin
Trust. Do you hear? That's where you'll settle this matter--in the
president's office!" He stood swaying and leering at Plank, repeating
loudly: "In Quarrier's office! Understand? That's where you'll settle
up! See?"

Leila, white face quivering, shrank as though he had struck her, and he
turned on her again, grinning: "As for you, you come home! And that'll
be about all for yours."

"Are you insane, to make a scene like this?" whispered Plank.

But Mortimer swung on him insultingly: "That's about all from you, too!"
he said. "Leila, are you coming?"

He stepped heavily toward her; but Plank's sudden crushing grip was on
his fat arm above the elbow, and he emitted a roar of surprise and pain.

"Don't touch him! Don't, in Heaven's name!" stammered Leila, as Plank,
releasing him, stepped back beside her chair. "Can't you see that I must
go with him! I--I must go." She cast one terrified glance around her,
where scores of strange faces met hers; and at every table people were
standing up to see better.

Plank, who had dropped Mortimer's arm as the latter emitted his bellow
of amazement, stepped toward him again, dropping his voice as he spoke:

"You go! Do you hear?" he said quietly. "I'll do what you ask me,
to-morrow! I will do what you ask, if you'll go now!"

"You come--do you hear!" snarled Mortimer, turning on his wife, who had
already risen. "If you don't I'll make a row here that you'll never hear
the end of as long as you live! And there'll be nothing to talk over in
Quarrier's office, if I do."

Leila looked at Plank, rose, and moved swiftly toward the veranda steps,
her head resolutely lowered, the burning shame flaming in her face.
Mortimer cast one triumphant glance at Plank, then waddled unsteadily
after his wife.

"Hold on," he growled; "I've a Mercedes here! I'll drive you back--wait!
Here it is! Here we are!" And to Quarrier's machinist he said: "You get
into the tonneau. I want to show Mrs. Mortimer what night-driving is. Do
you hear? I tell you I'm going to drive this machine and show you how!"

Leila scarcely heard him. She obeyed the impulse of his hand on her arm,
and mounted to the seat, staring straight ahead of her with dazed and
straining eyes that saw nothing.

Then Mortimer clambered to his seat, and, without an instant's warning,
opened up and seized the wheel.