Page:The City of Masks (1918).djvu/165

Rh back of the car to see what, if any, damage Stuyvesant had done to the polished surface!

Mrs. Smith-Parvis advanced. Her eyes were blazing.

"You filthy brute!" she exclaimed.

Up to this instant. Miss Emsdale had not moved. She was very white and breathless. Now her eyes flashed ominously.

"Don't you dare call him a brute," she cried out.

Mrs. Smith-Parvis gasped, but was speechless in the face of this amazing defection. Stuyvesant opened his lips to speak, but observing that the traffic policeman at the Fifth Avenue corner was looking with some intensity at the little group, changed his mind and got into the automobile.

"Come on!" he called out. "Get in here, both of you. I'll attend to this fellow later on. Come on, I say!"

"How dare you speak to me in that manner?" flared Mrs. Smith-Parvis, turning from Trotter to the girl. "What do you mean. Miss Emsdale? Are you defending this—"

"Yes, I am defending him," cried Jane, passionately. "He—he didn't do half enough to him."

"Good girl!" murmured Trotter, radiant.

"That will do!" said Mrs. Smith-Parvis imperiously. "I shall not require your services after today, Miss Emsdale."

"Oh, good Lord, mother,—don't be a fool," cried Stuyvesant. "Let me straighten this thing out. I—"

"As you please, madam," said Jane, drawing herself up to her full height.