Free Babe by Joan Smith

past the saloon, with the ladies sitting before the grate, was the most dangerous step. It too was overcome, by remembering a side door, away from the butler.
    She ran a few hundred yards down the road, to prevent waiting for her ride right in front of Lady Graham’s house. She felt startlingly out of place on the common stage, wearing an evening outfit, but though the passengers stared as hard as they could, they none of them said anything. She got a cab to Fannie’s, and was admitted without using her own key. The small staff were not so surprised to see her as servants in a well-ordered house would be. Certainly it did not occur to any of them to notify her guardian. She had the footboy take a note around to Gentz, and sat awaiting his arrival.
    Within an hour he came, smiling his approval. “Excellent, Babe! You can’t keep a good girl down, eh?”
    She took his arm at once to go to his carriage, and outlined her adventure as they drove along. “The pièce de résistance will be when I waltz into Drury Lane on your arm,” she told him, with a triumphant smile.
    “That’s a bit heavy for me, my girl. I’ll end up in the Court of Twelve Paces with Clivedon. Charming as you are, I’m not ready to die for you. We’ll go to the Pantheon instead.”
    “No! It is for the pleasure of seeing his face when I enter that I have gone to all this bother.”
    “Have you considered what he will do in retribution?”
    “What more can he do? He has me locked up in a prison, with my carriage taken away. He can only send me home, and I wouldn’t mind that.”
    “He can do plenty to me.”
    “Pooh—he won’t challenge you to a duel. Are you afraid of him, Theo?” she asked.
    “Not in the least, but what is my reward for bringing him down on my head?”
    “Am I not reward enough?”
    “You would be, but one evening of your company is hardly sufficient. Marry me—that would be more than enough reward.”
    “I may have to,” she laughed recklessly, for she was beginning to wonder just what Clivedon would do.
    “You make it sound like a penance,” Gentz said, feigning offence.
    “You would suit me better than some I can think of,” she rallied, but said no more, in case he should begin to take her seriously.
    The delays involved at every step of her flight insured a tardy entrance to the theater, which was exactly what she wanted. It was no surreptitious sneaking in, unnoticed in the confusion, that she had in her mind, but a noisy entrance to create the maximum of disturbance and gain the most attention. The curtain was about to arise.
    That hush of anticipation that precedes the commencement of the drama had fallen over the hall when Theo held the door of his box for her. The rest of his party was already there, a minor Russian diplomat and a female of doubtful background. Both were older, somewhat tawdry persons, not even friends of Fannie, and completely unknown to Barbara. She scarcely glanced at them. Her mind was on Clivedon and her eyes on his box, whose location she knew well. In common with several other heads, his was turned to view her entrance. She walked to the front of Gentz’s box and remained standing a moment, to insure being seen, waving and nodding to a few friends, before turning to recognize Clivedon.
    His expression was hard to read, several yards away, but she could sense the tenseness of his posture. She raised a gloved hand and waved to him. He nodded his head almost imperceptibly, then turned away. She saw he was with his sister and her husband and another lady, not Angela. Someone asked at the last minute to replace herself, then. She had been expecting an immediate and violent reaction from him. She thought he would jump up at once and come to her, make a clamor, and drag her home.
    He sat immobile, gazing at the stage as the curtains drew open, with every appearance of interest in the play, while his blood thudded angrily in his ears and he considered what he should do. Whatever he did