"But you?"
"It is I whom they want, not you. I won't subject you to the hazard of my
company."
Gently Lanyard lifted the hand from his sleeve, brushed it gallantly with
his lips, released it.
"Good-night!" he laughed, then stepped back, waved a hand to the
chauffeur--"Go!"
The taxicab shot away like a racing hound unleashed. With a sigh of relief
Lanyard gave himself wholly to the question of his own salvation.
The rank of waiting motor-cars offered no hope: all but one were private
town cars and limousines, operated by liveried drivers. A solitary roadster
at the head of the line tempted and was rejected; even though it had no
guardian chauffeur, something of which he could not be sure, he would
be overhauled before he could start the motor and get the knack of its
gear-shift mechanism. Even now Au Printemps was in frantic eruption, its
doors ejecting violently a man at each wild revolution.
Down Broadway an omnibus of the Fifth Avenue line lumbered, at no less
speed than twenty miles an hour, without passengers and sporting an
illuminated "Special" sign above the driver's seat.
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