Then Mrs. Dunn bethought herself of a way
to make their exit less awkward and embarrassing.
"My heart!" she said, gasping, and with a clutch at her breast. "My
poor heart! I--I fear I'm going to have one of my attacks. Malcolm, your
arm--quick!"
With an expression of intense but patient suffering, and leaning heavily
upon her son's arm, she moved past Captain Elisha and from the room.
That evening the captain stood in the lower hall of the apartment house
at Central Park West, undecided what to do next. He wished more than
anything else in the world to go to his niece. He would have gone to her
before--had been dying to go, to soothe, to comfort, to tell her of his
love--but he was afraid. His conscience troubled him. Perhaps he had
been too brutal. Perhaps he shouldn't have acted as he did. Maybe
forcing the Dunn fleet to show its colors could have been done more
diplomatically. He had wanted her to see those colors for herself, to
actually see them. But he might have overdone it. He remembered how she
shrank from him and turned to her brother. She might hate him more than
ever now. If so, then the whole scheme under which he was working fell
to pieces.
He was worried about Steve, too. That young man would, naturally,
be furious with his sister for what he would consider her romantic
foolishness.
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