Page:Dangerous Business (1927).pdf/135

 Shortly before eleven a cab came, not summoned by Di, but sent. The cab, as Ellen saw from the window, was empty; no escort offered himself to accompany her to the affair planned, to-night, to counteract and overwhelm Lida Rountree's sudden and successful incursion into the contest for the Metten account; and Ellen, desperately in need of a new point of protest, seized on this.

Di laughed at her. "I know the driver," she said, and kissed Ellen good-night. "Look here," she added, "you've been wrong every time before. You're wrong now. I can take care of myself." So she escaped.

She did know the driver; and she sank into a corner of the cab without a word to him. He had his orders, in obedience to which he sped along the snowbound boulevard, soon reaching a region where brilliant display lights flooded show windows of gowns, negligées, hats, slippers, jewels.

Di stared and desired; Di drew back, shivering a little. A new, splendid limousine, with liveried chauffeur, passed and Di imagined Jay Rountree and his bride in it—that rich girl who had to kick in and kill a big fat order which Diana Dewitt had got without having to give too much for it.

The cab halted at a corner and a rotund townsman, jowled and smiling, rat-tatted playfully upon the window before, jerking open the door, he bundled in.

"How's my dandy Di-light?" Jello greeted Diana, smothering her slim hand in the grasp of his large, soft fingers as he bulged in the seat beside her.

"How's my snappy little Sammarino?" flattered Di, in return, smiling at him but trying not to see his fat face.