You and your father will have my
car," she concluded, "Mr. Brainard and Dick will ride in Dick's car,
and Mr. Hunt will take me."
And as she ordered, so was it.
For fifteen minutes--perhaps half an hour--after it rolled away from
the Grantham Hotel there was absolute stillness in Miss Sherwood's
limousine, which she had assigned to Maggie and her father. Maggie was
near emotional collapse from what she had been through; and now she
was sitting tight in one corner, away from the dark shadow in the
other corner that was her newly discovered father who had cared for
her so much that he had sought to erase from her mind all knowledge of
his existence. She wanted to say something--do something; she was torn
with a poignant hunger. But she was so filled with pulsing desires and
fears that she was impotent to express any of the million things
within her.
And so they rode on, dark shadows, almost half the width of the deeply
cushioned seat between them. Thus they had ridden along Jackson
Avenue, almost into Flushing, when the silence was broken by the first
words of the journey. They were husky words, yearning and afraid of
their own sound, and were spoken by Maggie's father.
"I--I don't know what to call you. Will--will Maggie do?"
"Yes," she whispered.
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