Page:That Royle Girl (Balmer).pdf/303

 had an absurd impulse to strike down Oliver's hand. Outwardly he controlled himself, but he was become again unwarrantably excited.

"I'll have a statement to-morrow," he replied.

"I want it to-night," insisted Oliver.

"I won't give it to-night," Calvin refused, with his stubborn mind severed, it seemed, from his extraordinary emotion, which warmed him with satisfaction when Oliver released the Royle girl's arm. Yet his mind kept control, for he wanted to replace Oliver's hand with his own and take her to his protection; and he did not, but simply said to her, "We'll go home now."

She addressed to him the first word she had spoken since she had told him of her identification of Baretta. "How?" she asked.

"Come outside," bid Calvin, and he felt that she accompanied him rather than Oliver.

The moonlit area before the pylons had been abandoned during the last minutes; no motor car or other vehicle was visible in either direction upon the road; the couples who had been stranded were walking on the snowy cement toward the city.

"You can't hoof it," said Oliver, gallantly, glancing down at the Royle girl's small dancing slippers.

"Why not?" she inquired. "They are."

"You can't," said Calvin, quickly, with far more emphasis than Oliver, and, realizing that he offered no alternative, he set off on his own scrutiny of the sheds where Oliver had found the frozen flivvers, and there he came upon a short, stocky man unlocking one of the cars.

The fellow looked about and bent to crank and prime as Calvin approached, and he was rewarded by a few explosions, which soon had the engine running. He raced it loudly, and in the noise said, "I'm Neski, Mr. Clarke."

"Hm," said Calvin, peering closer, and recognized him