rushed to the front of the house, to escape quietly by a rear
door from the basement kitchen, get into machines Dal had in
waiting, and lose ourselves as quickly as we could.

You can see how simple it was.

We were terribly excited, of course. Every one rushed madly for
motor coats and veils, and Dal shuffled the numbers so the people
going the same direction would have the same machine. We called
to each other as we dressed about Mamaroneck or Lakewood or
wherever we happened to have relatives. Everybody knew everybody
else, and his friends. The Mercer girls were going to cruise
until the trouble blew over, the Browns were going to Pinehurst,
and Jim was going to Africa to hunt, if he could get out of the
harbor.

Only the Harbison man seemed to have no plans; quite suddenly
with the world so near again, the world of country houses and
steam yachts and all the rest of it, he ceased to be one of us.
It was not his world at all. He stood back and watched the
kaleidoscope of our coats and veils, half-quizzically, but with
something in his face that I had not seen there before. If he had
not been so self-reliant and big, I would have said he was
lonely. Not that he was pathetic in any sense of the word. Of
course, he avoided me, which was natural and exactly what I
wished. Bella never was far from him and at the last she loaded
him with her jewel case and a muff and traveling bag and asked
him to her cousins' on Long Island. I felt sure he was going to
decline, when he glanced across at me.