“In ten minutes, then.  If there’s no train I may ask your chauffeur to drive me into the city.”

“Why, to be sure!  Er—­what shall I tell Bob when he asks for you?”

“Use your own judgment, please.  You can handle drunken men better than I. And don’t trouble to send a maid to my room.  I’ll be down-stairs when the car comes.”

The hostess continued to demur feebly, but Lorelei cut short any further discussion, and, once behind her own locked door, she dressed with feverish haste.  Her only desire now was to escape from Fennellcourt and all its guests as quickly as possible.  Her thoughts concerning Bob at the moment were too much involved in anger at the Fennells and at Hayman to be quite coherent.

She was pacing the gloom of the porte-cochere when an automobile swung out from among the trees and swept the shadows flying with its brushes of flame.  As she directed the driver, from an open window behind her came a drunken shout; a burst of men’s laughter followed the car as it rolled away.

So that was the charmed circle to which she had aspired, those the people she had envied; behind her was that life to which she had sold herself, and this was the end of her dream of fine ladies and gallant gentlemen!  Lorelei scarcely knew whether to laugh or to cry.  As she stared out at the night shapes capering past she felt acute personal shame that she had been tricked into even a brief association with so vile a crew.  That uproar of men’s voices rang in her ears like a jeering farewell, and she realized that in all probability her flight would appear ridiculous to Bob’s friends.  Women like the kalsomined widow, the masculine matron, the jaded Wyeth girl, would echo that laughter and score her with their gossip on the morrow; the thought turned her mind bitterly toward Bob.  He had defiled her by bringing her into contact with those libertines.  He had left her defenseless against their insults and unprotected from the assaults of men he knew to be capable of anything.  He had told her to forget she was married and have a good time; he had refused her appeal for protection.  She asked herself dazedly what sort of a creature he could be.  Of a sudden the old life of the theater and the cafe seemed clean as opposed to the fetid existence behind her; even Jim, adventurer, crook, blackmailer that he was, appeared wholesome compared with men like Hayman and his brother-in-law.  Although Lorelei, under ordinary circumstances, was even-tempered, her anger, once aroused, was tenacious.  As she brooded over her humiliation her indignation at Bob began to take definite shape and purpose.

She reached the little apartment in the hushed hours before the dawn, and straightway began her packing.  Since Bob was doubtless in a drunken stupor which would last for hours, she did not hurry.