Page:The Breath of Scandal (1922).djvu/293

 he was, rushing toward her,—Billy who believed he had owned her, who could think of her in no way but as his.

"Oh, I get it," Marjorie heard Clara's voice, correcting her first comment on Billy's entrance. "He's a friend of yours."

Marjorie appealed to Rinderfeld, but never taking her eyes off Billy. "You've got to help me, I guess."

"Yes; humor him," said Rinderfeld steadily. "Don't try to run, whatever you do."

"No," said Marjorie; and she was aware that Rinderfeld was motioning to some one—to whom and for what purpose, she did not see. There was a wholeness of forgetfulness of himself about Billy, a blindness and deafness and selflessness of joy and relief at his having found her which, for that moment, made her unable to feel the presence of any one else. No one but Billy could have put himself under so; and she had forgotten how he could, for her. He called her name again; and she whispered in dismay to herself, "Billy, oh, Billy." Then she went weaker and shrank. "How can he possibly, possibly understand?" And though at one instant she would have risen and cried out to the staring, smiling men and girls about that this man who so burst in was coming for her and coming so because he could not care for himself at all in comparison with her, and there was no other man like him, yet at the next instant she would have hidden from him, if she could. Not because she was ashamed before him or for him before them, but because she had nothing for him; when he reached her, she could only sit there.

And now he reached her. "Marjorie, Marjorie!"

"Billy," she said. "Sit down."