Nothing But the Truth
by Frederic Stewart Isham · English · Gutenberg #43916 · 427,512 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Nothing But the Truth
Author: Frederic Stewart Isham
Release date: October 9, 2013 [eBook #43916]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH ***
NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH
By
FREDERIC S. ISHAM
Author of
The Strollers, Under the Rose,
The Social Buccaneer, Etc.
INDIANAPOLIS
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Copyright 1914
The Bobbs-Merrill Company
PRESS OF
BRAUNWORTH & CO.
BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS
BROOKLYN, N. Y.
Table of Contents
THE TEMERITY OF BOB
A TRY-OUT
AN INAUSPICIOUS BEGINNING
A CHAT ON THE LINKS
TRIVIALITIES
DINNER
VARYING VICISSITUDES
NEW COMPLICATIONS
ANOTHER SURPRISE
INTO BONDAGE
FISHING
JUST ONE THING AFTER ANOTHER
AN ENFORCED REST CURE
MUTINY
AN EXTRAORDINARY INTERVIEW
PLAYING WITH BOB
A GOOD DEAL OF GEE-GEE
A FORMIDABLE ADVERSARY
BOB FORGETS HIMSELF
HAND-READING
HEART OF STONE
A REAL BENEFACTOR
MAKING GOOD
AT THE PORTALS
NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH
CHAPTER I—THE TEMERITY OF BOB
“It can’t be done.”
“Of course, it can.”
“A man couldn’t survive the ordeal.”
“Could do it myself.”
The scene was the University Club. The talk spread over a good deal of
space, as talk will when pink cocktails, or “green gardens in a glass”
confront, or are in front of, the talkees. Dickie said it couldn’t be
done and Bob said it was possible and that he could do it. He might not
have felt such confidence had it not been for the verdant stimulation.
He could have done anything just then, so why not this particular feat
or stunt? And who was this temerarious one and what was he like?
As an excellent specimen of a masculine young animal, genus homo, Bob
Bennett was good to look on. Some of those young ladies who wave banners
when young men strain their backs and their arms and their legs in the
cause of learning, had, in the days of the not remote past, dubbed him,
sub rosa, the “blue-eyed Apollo.” Some of the fellows not so
euphemistically inclined had, however, during that same glorious period
found frequent occasion to refer to him less classically, if more
truthfully, as “that darn fool, Bob Bennett.” That was on account of a
streak of wildness in him, for he was a free bold creature, was Bob.
Conventional bars and gates chafed him. He may have looked like a
“blue-eyed Apollo,” but his spirit had the wings of a wild goose, than
which there are no faster birds—for a wild goose is the biplane of the
empyrean.
Now that Bob had ceased the chase for learning and was out in the wide
world, he should have acquired an additional sobriquet—that of
“Impecunious Bob.” It would have fitted his pecuniary condition very
nicely. Once he had had great expectations, but alas!—dad had just
“come a cropper.” They had sheared him on the street. The world in
general didn’t know about it yet, but Bob did.
“We’re broke, Bob,” said dad that very morning.
“That’s all right, Gov.,” said Bob. “Can you get up?”
“I can’t even procure a pair of crutches to hobble with,” answered dad.
“Never mind,” observed Bob magnanimously. “You’ve done pretty well by me
up to date. Don’t you worry or reproach yourself. I’m not going to heap
abuse on those gray hairs.”
“Thanks, Bob.” Coolly. “_I’m_ not worrying. You see, it’s up to you
now.”
“Me?” Bob stared.
“Yes. You see I believe in the Japanese method.”
“What’s that?” Uneasily.
“Duty of a child to support his parent, when said child is grown up!”
Bob whistled. “Say, Gov., do you mean it?”
“Gospel truth, Bob.”
Bob whistled again. “Not joking?”
“’Pon honor!” Cheerfully.
“I never did like the Japanese,” from Bob, sotto voce. “Blame lot of
heathens—that’s what they are!”
“I’ve got a dollar or two that I owe tucked away where no one can find
it except me,” went on dad, unmindful of Bob’s little soliloquy. “That
will have to last until you come to the rescue.”
“Gee! I’m glad you were thoughtful enough for that!” ejaculated the
young man. “Sure you can keep it hidden?”
“Burglars couldn’t find it,” said dad confidently, “let alone my
creditors—God bless them! But it won’t last long, Bob. Bear that in
mind. It’ll be a mighty short respite.”
“Oh, I’ll not forget it. If—if it’s not an impertinence, may I ask what
_you_ are going to do, dad?”
“I’m contemplating a fishing trip, first of all, and after that—quien
sabe? Some pleasure suitable to my retired condition will undoubtedly
suggest itself. I may take up the study of philosophy. Confucius has
always interested me. They say it takes forty years to read him and then
forty years to digest what you have read. The occupation would, no
doubt, prove adequate. But don’t concern yourself about that, dear boy.
I’ll get on. You owe me a large debt of gratitude. I’m thrusting a great
responsibility on you. It should be the making of you.” Bob had his
secret doubts. “Get out and hustle, dear boy. It’s up to you, now!” And
he spread out his hands in care-free fashion and smiled blandly. No
Buddha could have appeared more complacent—only instead of a lotus
flower, Bob’s dad held in his hand a long black weed, the puffing of
which seemed to afford a large measure of ecstatic satisfaction. “Go!”
He waved the free hand. “My blessing on your efforts.”
Bob started to go, and then he lingered. “Perhaps,” he said, “you can
tell me _what_ I am going to do?”
“Don’t know.” Cheerfully.
“What _can_ I do?” Hopelessly.
“Couldn’t say.”
“I don’t know _anything_.”
“Ha! ha!” Dad laughed, as if son had sprung a joke. “Well, that is a
condition experience will remove. Experience _and_ hard knocks,” he
added.
Bob swore softly. His head was humming. No heroic purpose to get out and
fight his way moved him. He didn’t care about shoveling earth, or
chopping down trees. He had no frenzied desire to brave the
sixty-below-zero temperature of the Klondike in a mad search for gold.
In a word, he didn’t feel at all like the heroes in the books who
conquer under almost impossible conditions in the vastnesses of the
“open,” and incidentally whallop a few herculean simple-minded sons of
nature, just to prove that breed is better than brawn.
“Of course, I could give you a little advice, Bob,” said the governor
softly. “If you should find hustling a bit arduous for one of your
luxurious nature, there’s an alternative. It is always open to a young
man upon whom nature has showered her favors.”
“Don’t know what you mean by that last,” growled Bob, who disliked
personalities. “But what is the alternative to hustling?”
“Get married,” said dad coolly.
Bob changed color. Dad watched him keenly.
“There’s always the matrimonial market for young men who have not
learned to specialize. I’ve known many such marriages to turn out
happily, too. Marrying right, my boy, is a practical, not a sentimental
business.”
Bob looked disgusted.
“There’s Miss Gwendoline Gerald, for example. Millions in her own name,
and—”
“Hold on, dad!” cried Bob. His face was flaming now. The blue eyes
gleamed almost fiercely.
“I knew you were acquainted,” observed dad softly, still studying him.
“Besides she’s a beautiful girl and—”
“Drop it, dad!” burst from Bob. “We’ve never had a quarrel, but—”
Suddenly he realized his attitude was actually menacing. And toward
dad—his own dad! “I beg your pardon, sir,” he muttered contritely. “I’m
afraid I am forgetting myself. But please turn the talk.”
“All right,” said dad. “I forgive you. I was only trying to elucidate
your position. But since it’s not to be the matrimonial market, it’ll
have to be a hustle, my boy. I’m too old to make another fortune. I’ve
done my bit and now I’m going to retire on my son. Sounds fair and
equitable, doesn’t it, Bob?”
“I’d hate to contradict you, sir,” the other answered moodily.
Dad walked up to him and laid an arm affectionately upon son’s broad
shoulders. “I’ve the utmost confidence in you, my boy,” he said, with a
bland smile.
“Thank you, sir,” replied Bob. He always preserved an attitude of filial
respect toward his one and only parent. But he tore himself away from
dad now as soon as he could. He wanted to think. The average hero,
thrust out into the world, has only a single load to carry. He has only
to earn a living for himself. Bob’s load was a double one and therefore
he would have to be a double hero. Mechanically he walked on and on,
cogitating upon his unenviable fate. Suddenly he stopped. He found
himself in front of the club. Bob went in. And there he met Dickie,
Clarence, Dan the doughty “commodore” and some others.
* * * * *
That Impecunious Bob should have said “It could be done” to Imperial
Dickie’s “It couldn’t” and have allowed himself to be drawn further into
the affair was, in itself, an impertinence. For Dickie was a person of
importance. He had a string of simoleons so long that a
newspaper-mathematician once computed if you spread them out, touching
one another, they would reach half around the world. Or was it twice
around? Anyhow, Dickie didn’t have to worry about hustling, the way Bob
did now. At the moment the latter was in a mood to contradict any one.
He felt reckless. He was ready for almost anything—short of an
imitation of that back-to-nature hero of a popular novel.
They had been going on about that “could” and “couldn’t” proposition for
some time when some one staked Bob. That some one was promptly “called”
by the “commodore”—as jolly a sea-dog as never trod a deck. Dan was a
land-commodore, but he was very popular at the Yacht Club, where
something besides waves seethed when he was around. He didn’t go often
to the University Club where he complained things were too pedagogic.
(No one else ever complained of that.) He liked to see the decks—or
floors—wave. Then he was in his element and would issue orders with the
blithe abandon of a son of Neptune. There was no delay in “clapping on
sail” when the commodore was at the helm. And if he said: “Clear the
decks for action,” there was action. When he did occasionally drift into
the University, he brought with him the flavor of the sea. Things at
once breezed up.
Well, the commodore called that some one quick.
“Five thousand he can’t do it.”
“For how long?” says Dickie.
“A week,” answered the commodore.
“Make it two.”
“Oh, very well.”
“Three, if you like!” from Bob, the stormy petrel.
They gazed at him admiringly.
“It isn’t the green garden talking, is it, Bob?” asked Clarence Van
Duzen whose sole occupation was being a director in a few
corporations—or, more strictly speaking, _not_ being one. It took
almost all Clarence’s time to “direct” his wife, or try to.
Bob looked at Clarence reproachfully. “No,” he said. “I’m still master
of all my thoughts.” Gloomily. “I couldn’t forget if I tried.”
“That’s all right, then,” said Dickie.
Then Clarence “took” some one else who staked Bob. And Dickie did
likewise. And there was some more talk. And then Bob staked himself.
“Little short of cash at the bank just now,” he observed. “But if you’ll
take my note—”
“Take your word if you want,” said the commodore.
“No; here’s my note.” He gave it—a large amount—payable in thirty
days. It was awful, but he did it. He hardly thought what he was doing.
Having the utmost confidence he would win, he didn’t stop to realize
what a large contract he was taking on. But Dan, Dickie, Clarence and
the others did.
“Of course, you can’t go away and hide,” said Dickie to Bob with sudden
suspicion.
“No; you can’t do that,” from Clarence. “Or get yourself arrested and
locked up for three weeks! That wouldn’t be fair, old chap.”
“Bob understands he’s got to go on in the even tenor of his way,” said
the commodore.
Bob nodded. “Just as if nothing had happened!” he observed. “I’ll not
seek, or I’ll not shirk. I’m on honor, you understand.”
“That’s good enough for me!” said Dickie. “Bob’s honest.”
“And me!” from Clarence.
“And me!” from half a dozen other good souls, including the non-aqueous
commodore.
“Gentlemen, I thank you,” said Bob, affected by this outburst of
confidence. “I thank you for this display of—this display—”
“Cut it!”
“Cork it up! And speaking of corks—”
“When does it begin?” interrupted Bob.
“When you walk out of here,”
“At the front door?”
“When your foot touches the sidewalk, son.” The commodore who was about
forty in years sometimes assumed the paternal.
“Never mind the ‘son.’” Bob shuddered. “One father at a time, please!”
And then hastily, not to seem ungracious: “I’ve got such a jolly good,
real dad, you understand—”
The commodore dropped the paternal. “Well, lads, here’s a bumper to
Bob,” he said.
“We see his finish.”
“No doubt of that.”
“To Bob! Good old Bob! Ho! ho!”
“Ha! ha!” said Bob funereally.
Then he got up.
“Going?”
“Might as well.”
The commodore drew out a watch.
“Twelve minutes after three p.m. Monday, the twelfth of September, in
the year of our Lord, 1813,” he said. “You are all witnesses of the time
the ball was opened?”
“We are.”
“Good-by, Bob.”
“Oh, let’s go with him a way!”
“_Might_ be interesting,” from Clarence sardonically.
“It might. Least we can do is to see him start on his way rejoicing.”
“That’s so. Come on.” Which they did.
Bob offered no objection. He didn’t much care at the time whether they
did or not. What would happen would. He braced himself for the
inevitable.
CHAPTER II—A TRY-OUT
To tell the truth—to blurt out nothing but the truth to every one, and
on every occasion, for three whole weeks—that’s what Bob had contracted
to do. From the point of view of the commodore and the others, the man
who tried to fill this contract would certainly be shot, or
electrocuted, or ridden out of town on a rail, or receive a coat of tar
and feathers. And Bob had such a wide circle of friends, too, which
would make his task the harder; the handsome dog was popular. He was
asked everywhere that was anywhere and he went, too. He would certainly
“get his.” The jovial commodore was delighted. He would have a whole lot
of fun at Bob’s expense. Wasn’t the latter the big boob, though? And
wouldn’t he be put through his paces? Really it promised to be
delicious. The commodore and the others went along with Bob just for a
little try-out.
At first nothing especially interesting happened. They walked without
meeting any one they were acquainted with. Transients! transients! where
did they all come from? Once on their progress down the avenue the hopes
of Bob’s friends rose high. A car they knew got held up on a side street
not far away from them. It was a gorgeous car and it had a gorgeous
occupant, but a grocery wagon was between them and it. The commodore
warbled blithely.
“Come on, Bob. Time for a word or two!”
But handsome Bob shook his head. “The ‘even tenor of his way,’” he
quoted. “I don’t ordinarily go popping in and out between wheels like a
rabbit. I’m not looking to commit suicide.”
“Oh, I only wanted to say: ‘How do you do,’” retorted the commodore
rather sulkily. “Or ‘May I tango with you at tea this afternoon, Mrs.
Ralston?’”
“Or observe: ‘How young she looks to-day, eh, Bob?’” murmured that young
gentleman suspiciously.
“Artful! Artful!” Clarence poked the commodore in the ribs. “Sly old
sea-dog!”
“Well, let’s move on,” yawned Dickie. “Nothing doing here.”
“Wait!” The commodore had an idea. “Hi, you young grocery lad, back up a
little, will you?”
“Wha’ for?” said the boy, aggressive at once. Babes are born in New York
with chips on their shoulders.
“As a matter of trifling accommodation, that is all,” answered the
commodore sweetly. “On the other side of you is a stately car and we
would hold conversation with—”
“Aw, gwan! Guess I got as much right to the street as it has.” And as a
display of his “rights,” he even touched up his horse a few inches, to
intervene more thoroughly.
“Perhaps now for half a dollar—” began the commodore, more
insinuatingly. Then he groaned: “Too late!” The policeman had lifted the
ban. The stately car turned into the avenue and was swallowed up amid a
myriad of more or less imposing vehicles. They had, however, received a
bow from the occupant. That was all there had been opportunity for.
Incidentally, the small boy had bestowed upon them his parting
compliments:
“Smart old guy! You think youse—” The rest was jumbled up or lost in
the usual cacophony of the thoroughfare.
“Too bad!” murmured the commodore. “But still these three weeks are
young.”
“‘Three weeks!’” observed Dickie. “Sounds like plagiarism!”
“Oh, Bob won’t have that kind of a ‘three weeks,’” snickered Clarence.
“Bob’s will be an expurgated edition,” from the commodore, recovering
his spirits.
“Maybe we ought to make it four?”
“Three will do,” said Bob, who wasn’t enjoying this chaffing. Every one
they approached he now eyed apprehensively.
But he was a joy-giver, if not receiver, for his tall handsome figure
attracted many admiring glances. His striking head with its blond
curls—they weren’t exactly curls, only his hair wasn’t straight, but
clung rather wavy-like to the bold contour of his head—his careless
stride, and that general effect of young masculinity—all this caused
sundry humble feminine hearts to go pit-a-pat. Bob’s progress, however,
was generally followed by pit-a-pats from shop-girls and bonnet-bearers.
Especially at the noon hour! Then Bob seemed to these humble toilers,
like dessert, after hard-boiled eggs, stale sandwiches and pickles.
But Bob was quite unaware of any approving glances cast after him. He
was thinking, and thinking hard. He wasn’t so sanguine now as he had
been when he had left the club. What might have happened at that street
corner appealed to him with sudden poignant force. Mrs. Ralston was of
the _creme de la creme_. She was determined to stay young. She pretended
to be thirty years or so younger than she was. In fact, she was rather a
ridiculous old lady who found it hard to conceal her age. Now what if
the commodore had found opportunity to ask that awful question? Bob
could have made only one reply and told the truth. The largeness of his
contract was becoming more apparent to him. He began to see himself now
from Dan’s standpoint. Incidentally, he was beginning to develop a great
dislike for that genial land-mariner.
“How about the Waldorf?” They had paused at the corner of Thirty-fourth
Street. “May find some one there,” suggested Clarence.
“In Peek-a-Boo Alley?” scornfully from Dickie.
“Oh, I heard there was a concert, or something upstairs,” said Clarence.
“In that you’ve-got-to-be-introduced room! And some of the real people
have to walk through to get to it.”
Accordingly they entered the Waldorf and the commodore hustled them up
and down and around, without, however, their encountering a single
“real” person. There were only people present—loads of them, not from
somewhere but from everywhere. They did the circuit several times, still
without catching sight of a real person.
“Whew! This _is_ a lonesome place!” breathed the commodore at last.
“Let’s depart!” disgustedly from Clarence. “Apologize for steering you
into these barren wastes!”
“What’s your hurry?” said Bob, with a little more bravado. Then suddenly
he forgot about those other three. His entranced gaze became focused on
one. He saw only her.
“Ha!” The commodore’s quick glance, following Bob’s, caught sight, too,
of that wonderful face in the distance—the stunning, glowing young
figure—that regal dream of just-budded girlhood—that superb vision in
a lovely afternoon gown! She was followed by one or two others. One
could only imagine her leading. There would, of course, always be
several at her either side and quite a number dangling behind. Her lips
were like the red rosebuds that swung negligently from her hand as she
floated through the crowd. Her eyes suggested veiled dreams amid the
confusion and hubbub of a topsyturvy world. She was like something
rhythmical precipitated amid chaos. A far-away impression of a smile
played around the corners of her proud lips.
The commodore precipitated himself in her direction. Bob put out a hand
as if to grasp him by the coat tails, but the other was already beyond
reach and Bob’s hand fell to his side. He stood passive. That was his
part. Only he wasn’t passive inwardly. His heart was beating wildly. He
could imagine himself with her and them—those others in her train—and
the conversation that would ensue, for he had no doubt of the
commodore’s intentions. Dan was an adept at rounding up people. Bob
could see himself at a table participating in the conversation—prepared
conversation, some of it! He could imagine the commodore leading little
rivulets of talk into certain channels for his benefit. Dan would see to
it that they would ask him (Bob) questions, embarrassing ones. That
“advice” dad had given him weighed on Bob like a nightmare.
Suppose—ghastly thought!—truth compelled him ever to speak of that?
And to her! A shiver ran down Bob’s backbone. Nearer she
drew—nearer—while Bob gazed as if fascinated, full of rapturous,
paradoxical dread. Now the commodore was almost upon her when—
Ah, what was that? An open elevator?—people going in?—She, too,—those
with her—Yes—click! a closed door! The radiant vision had vanished,
was going upward; Bob breathed again. Think of being even paradoxically
glad at witnessing _her_ disappear! Bob ceased now to think; stood as in
a trance.
“Why _do_ people go to concerts?” said the commodore in aggrieved tones.
“Some queen, that!”
“And got the rocks—or stocks!” from Dickie. “Owns about three of those
railroads that are going a-begging nowadays.”
“Wake up, Bobbie!” some one now addressed that abstracted individual.
Bob shook himself.
“Old friend of yours, Miss Gwendoline Gerald, I believe?” said the
commodore significantly.
“Yes; I’ve known Miss Gerald for some time,” said Bob coldly.
“‘Known for some time’—” mimicked the commodore. “Phlegmatic dog! Well,
what shall we do now?”
“Hang around until the concert’s over?” suggested Dickie.
“Hang around nothing!” said the commodore. “It’s one of those classical
high-jinks.” Disgustedly. “Lasts so late the sufferers haven’t time for
anything after it’s over. Just enough energy left to stagger to their
cars and fall over in a comatose condition.”
“Suppose we _could_ go to the bar?”
“Naughty! Naughty!” A sprightly voice interrupted.
The commodore wheeled. “Mrs. Ralston!” he exclaimed gladly.
It was the gorgeous lady of the gorgeous car.
“Just finished my shopping and thought I’d have a look in here,” she
said vivaciously.
“Concert, I suppose?” from the commodore, jubilantly.
“Yes. Dubussy. Don’t you adore Dubussy?” with schoolgirlish enthusiasm.
Though almost sixty, she had the manners of a “just-come-out.”
“Nothing like it,” lied the commodore.
“Ah, then you, too, are a modern?” gushed the lady.
“I’m so advanced,” said the commodore, “I can’t keep up with myself.”
They laughed. “Ah, silly man!” said the lady’s eyes. Bob gazed at her
and the commodore enviously. Oh, to be able once more to prevaricate
like that! The commodore had never heard Dubussy in his life. Ragtime
and merry hornpipes were his limits. And Mrs. Ralston was going to the
concert, it is true, but to hear the music? Ah, no! Her box was a
fashionable rendezvous, and from it she could study modernity in hats.
Therein, at least, she was a modern of the moderns. She was so advanced,
the styles had fairly to trot, or turkey-trot, to keep up with her.
“Well,” she said, with that approving glance women usually bestowed upon
Bob, “I suppose I mustn’t detain you busy people after that remark I
overheard.”
“Oh, don’t hurry,” said the commodore hastily. “Between old friends—
But I say— By jove, you _are_ looking well. Never saw you looking so
young and charming. Never!” It was rather crudely done, but the
commodore could say things more bluntly than other people and “get away
with them.” He was rather a privileged character. Bob began to breathe
hard, having a foretaste of what was to follow. And Mrs. “Willie”
Ralston was Miss Gwendoline Gerald’s aunt! No doubt that young lady was
up in her aunt’s box at this moment.
“Never!” repeated the commodore. “Eh, Bob? Doesn’t look a day over
thirty,” with a jovial, freehearted sailor laugh. “Does she now?”
It had come. That first test! And the question had to be answered. The
lady was looking at Bob. They were all waiting. A fraction of a second,
or so, which seemed like a geological epoch, Bob hesitated. He had to
reply and yet being a gentleman, how could he? No matter what it cost
him, he would simply have to “lie like a gentleman.” He—
Suddenly an idea shot through his befuddled brain. Maybe Mrs. Ralston
wouldn’t know what he said, if he—? She had been numerous times to
France, of course, but she was not mentally a heavy-weight. Languages
might not be her forte. Presumably she had all she could do to chatter
in English. Bob didn’t know much French himself. He would take a chance
on her, however. He made a bow which was Chesterfieldian and
incidentally made answer, rattling it off with the swiftness of a
boulevardier.
“_Il me faut dire que, vraiment, Madame Ralston parait aussi agee
qu’elle l’est!_” (“I am obliged to say that Mrs. Ralston appears as old
as she is!”)
Then he straightened as if he had just delivered a stunning compliment.
“_Merci!_” The lady smiled. She also beamed. “How well you speak French,
Mr. Bennett!”
The commodore nearly exploded. _He_ understood French.
Bob expanded, beginning to breathe freely once more. “Language of
courtiers and diplomats!” he mumbled.
Mrs. Ralston shook an admonishing finger at him. “Flatterer!” she said,
and departed.
Whereupon the commodore leaned weakly against Dickie while Clarence sank
into a chair. First round for Bob!
* * * * *
The commodore was the first to recover. His voice was reproachful. “Was
_that_ quite fair?—that parleyvoo business? I don’t know about it’s
being allowed.”
“Why not?” calmly from Bob. “Is truth confined to one tongue?”
“But what about that ‘even tenor of your way’?” fenced the commodore.
“You don’t, as a usual thing, go around parleyvooing—”
“What about the even tenor of your own ways?” retorted Bob.
“Nothing said about _that_ when we—”
“No, but—how can _I_ go the even tenor, if _you_ don’t go yours?”
“Hum?” said the commodore.
“Don’t you see it’s not the even tenor?” persisted Bob. “But it’s your
fault if it isn’t.”
“Some logic in that,” observed Clarence.
“Maybe, we _have_ been a bit too previous,” conceded the commodore.
“That isn’t precisely the adjective I would use,” returned Bob. He found
himself thinking more clearly now. They had all, perhaps, been stepping
rather lightly when they had left the club. He should have thought of
this before. But Bob’s brain moved rather slowly sometimes and the
others had been too bent on having a good time to consider all the
ethics of the case. They showed themselves fair-minded enough now,
however.
“Bob’s right,” said the commodore sorrowfully. “Suppose we’ve got to
eliminate ourselves from his agreeable company for the next three weeks,
unless we just naturally happen to meet. We’ll miss a lot of fun, but I
guess it’s just got to be. What about that parleyvooing business though,
Bob?”
“That’s got to be eliminated, too!” from Dickie. “Why, he might tell the
truth in Chinese.”
“All right, fellows,” said Bob shortly. “You quit tagging and I’ll talk
United States.”
“Good. I’m off,” said the commodore. And he went. The others followed.
Bob was left alone. He found the solitude blessed and began to have
hopes once more. Why, he might even be permitted to enjoy a real lonely
three weeks, now that he had got rid of that trio. He drew out a cigar
and began to tell himself he _was_ enjoying himself when—
“Mr. Robert Bennett!” The voice of a page smote the air. It broke into
his reflections like a shock.
“Mr. Bennett!” again bawled the voice.
For the moment Bob was tempted to let him slip by, but conscience
wouldn’t let him. He lifted a finger.
“Message for Mr. Bennett,” said the urchin.
Bob took it. He experienced forebodings as he saw the dainty card and
inscription. He read it. Then he groaned. Would Mr. Robert Bennett join
Mrs. Ralston’s house-party at Tonkton? There were a few more words in
that impulsive lady’s characteristic, vivacious style. And then there
were two words in another handwriting that he knew. “Will you?” That
“Will you?” wasn’t signed. Bob stared at it. Would he? He had to. He was
in honor bound, because ordinarily he would have accepted with alacrity.
But a house-party for him, under present circumstances! He would be a
merry guest. Ye gods and little fishes! And then some! He gave a hollow
laugh, while the urchin gazed at him sympathetically. Evidently the
gentleman had received bad news.
CHAPTER III—AN INAUSPICIOUS BEGINNING
Mrs. Ralston’s house-parties were usually satisfactory affairs. She was
fond of people, especially young people, and more especially of young
men of the Apollo variety, though in a strictly proper, platonic and
critical sense. Indeed, her taste in the abstract, for animated
Praxiteles had, for well-nigh two-score of years, been unimpeachable. At
the big gatherings in her noble country mansion, there was always a
liberal sprinkling of decorative and animated objects of art of this
description. She liked to ornament her porches or her gardens with husky
and handsome young college athletes. She had an intuitive artistic taste
for stunning living-statuary, “dressed up,” of course. Bob came
distinctly in that category. So behold him then, one fine morning, on
the little sawed-off train that whisked common people—and sometimes a
few notables when their cars were otherwise engaged—countryward. Bob
had a big grip by his side, his golf sticks were in a rack and he had a
newspaper in his hand. The sunshine came in on him but his mood was not
sunny. An interview with dad just before leaving hadn’t improved his
spirits. He had found dad at the breakfast table examining a book of
artificial flies, on one hand, and a big reel on the other.
“Which shall it be, my son?” dad had greeted him cordially. “Trout or
tarpon?”
“I guess that’s for you to decide,” Robert had answered grumpily. Dad,
in his new role, was beginning to get on Bob’s nerves. Dad didn’t seem
to be at all concerned about his future. He shifted that weighty and
momentous subject just as lightly! He acted as if he hadn’t a care in
the world.
“Wish I _could_ make up my mind,” he said, like a boy in some doubt how
he can best put in his time when he plays hooky. “Minnows or whales?
I’ll toss up.” He did. “Whales win. By the way, how’s the hustling
coming on?”
“Don’t know.”
“Well, don’t put it off too long.” Cheerfully. “I guess I can worry
along for about three weeks.”
“Three weeks!” said Bob gloomily. Oh, that familiar sound!
“You wouldn’t have me stint myself, would you, my son?” Half
reproachfully. “You wouldn’t have dad deny himself anything?”
“No,” answered the other truthfully enough. As a matter of fact things
couldn’t be much worse, so he didn’t much care. Fortunately, dad didn’t
ask any questions or show any curiosity about that “hustling” business.
He seemed to take it for granted Bob would arise to the occasion and be
as indulgent a son as he had been an indulgent dad—for he had never
denied the boy anything. Bob softened when he thought of that. But
confound dad’s childlike faith in him, at this period of emergency. It
made Bob nervous. He had no faith in himself that way. Dad _did_ lift
his eyebrows just a little when Bob brought down his big grip.
“Week-end?” he hazarded.
“Whole week,” replied Bob in a melancholy tone.
“Whither?”
“Tonkton.”
Dad beamed. “Mrs. Ralston?”
“Yes.”
“Aunt of Miss Gwendoline Gerald, I believe?” With a quick penetrating
glance at Bob.
“Yes.”
“Sensible boy,” observed dad, still studying him.
“Oh, I’m not going for the reason you think,” said Bob quite savagely.
He was most unlike himself.
“Of course not.” Dad was conciliatory.
“I’m not. Think what you like.”
“Too much work to think,” yawned dad.
“But you _are_ thinking.” Resentfully.
“Have it your own way.”
Bob squared his shoulders. “You want to know really why I’m going to
Tonkton?”
“Have I ever tried to force your confidences, my son?”
“I’m going because I’ve got to. I can’t help myself.”
“Of course,” said dad. “Ta! ta! Enjoy yourself. See you in three weeks.”
“Three—!” But Bob didn’t finish. What was the use? Dad thought he was
going to Tonkton because Miss Gerald might be there.
As a matter of fact Bob’s one great wish now was that she wouldn’t be
there. He wanted, and yet didn’t want, to see her. What had he to hope
now? Why, he didn’t have a son, or not enough of them to count. He was
to all practical intents and purposes a pauper. Dad’s “going broke” had
changed his whole life. He had been reared in the lap of luxury, a
pampered son. He had never dreamed of being otherwise. And considering
himself a favored child of fortune, he had even dared entertain the
delirious hope of winning her—her, the goddess of his dreams.
But hope now was gone. Regrets were useless. He could no longer conceive
himself in the role of suitor. Why, there were few girls in the whole
land so overburdened with “rocks”—as Dickie called them! If only she
didn’t have those rocks—or stocks! “Impecunious Gwendoline!” How well
that would go with “Impecunious Bob!” If only her trustees would hit the
toboggan, the way dad did! But trustees don’t go tobogganing. They
eschew the smooth and slippery. They speculate in government bonds and
things that fluctuate about a point or so a century. No chance for quick
action there! On the contrary, the trustees were probably making those
millions grow. Bob heaved a sigh. Then he took something white from his
pocket and gazed at two words, ardently yet dubiously.
That “Will you?” of hers on Mrs. Ralston’s card exhilarated and at the
same time depressed him. It implied she, herself, did expect to be at
her aunt’s country place. He attached no other especial importance to
the “Will you?” An imperious young person in her exalted position could
command as she pleased. She could say “Will you?” or “You will” to
dozens of more or less callow youths, or young grown-ups, with impunity,
and none of said dozens would attach any undue flattering meaning to her
words. Miss Gerald found safety in numbers. She was as yet heart-free.
“Can you—aw!—tell me how far it is to Tonkton?” a voice behind here
interrupted his ruminations.
Bob hastily returned the card to his pocket, and glancing back, saw a
monocle. “Matter of ten miles or so,” he responded curtly. He didn’t
like monocles.
“Aw!” said the man.
Bob picked up his newspaper that he had laid down, and frowningly began
to glance over the head-lines. The man behind him glanced over them,
too.
“Another society robbery, I see,” the latter remarked. “No function
complete without them nowadays, I understand. Wonderful country,
America! Guests here always expect—aw!—to be robbed, I’ve been told.”
“Have the paper,” said Bob with cutting accents.
“Thanks awfully.” The man with the monocle took the paper as a matter of
course, seeming totally unaware of the sarcasm in Bob’s tone. At first,
Bob felt like kicking himself; the rustle of the paper in those alien
hands caused him to shuffle his feet with mild irritation. Then he
forgot all about the paper and the monocle man. His thoughts began once
more to go over and over the same old ground, until—
“T’nk’n!” The stentorian abbreviation of the conductor made Bob get up
with a start. Grabbing his grip—hardly any weight at all for his
muscular arm—in one hand, and his implements of the game in the other,
he swung down the aisle and on to the platform. A good many people got
off, for a small town nestled beneath the high rolling lands of the
country estates of the affluent. There were vehicles of all kinds at the
station, among them a number of cars, and in one of the latter Bob
recognized Mrs. Ralston’s chauffeur.
A moment he hesitated. He supposed he ought to step forward and get in,
for that was what he naturally would do. But he wanted to think; he
didn’t want to get to the house in a hurry. Still he had to do what he
naturally would do and he started to do it when some other people Bob
didn’t know—prospective guests, presumably, among them the man with the
monocle—got into the car and fairly filled it. That let Bob out nicely
and naturally. It gave him another breathing spell. He had got so he was
looking forward to these little breathing spells.
“Hack, sir?” said a voice.
“Not for me,” replied Bob. “But you can tote this up the hill,”
indicating the grip. “Ralston house.”
“Dollar and a half, sir,” said the man. “Same price if you go along,
too.”
“What?” It just occurred to Bob he hadn’t many dollars left, and of
course, tips would be expected up there, at the big house. It behooved
him, therefore, to be frugal. But to argue about a dollar and a
half!—he, a guest at the several million dollar house! On the other
hand, that dollar looked large to Bob at this moment. Imagine if he had
to earn a dollar and a half! He couldn’t at the moment tell how he would
do it.
“Hold on.” Bob took the grip away from the man. “Why, it’s outrageous,
such a tariff! Same price, with or without me, indeed! I tell you—”
Suddenly he stopped. He had an awful realization that he was acting a
part. That forced indignation of his was not the truth; that aloof kind
of an attitude wasn’t the truth, either.
“To tell you the truth,” said Bob, “I can’t afford it.”
“Can’t afford. Ha! ha!” That was a joke. One of Mrs. Ralston’s guests,
not afford—!
“No,” said Bob. “I’ve only got about fifteen dollars and a half to my
name. I guess you’re worth more than that yourself, aren’t you?” With
sudden respect in his tone.
“I guess I am,” said the man, grinning.
“Then, logically, I should be carrying your valise,” retorted Bob.
“Ha! ha! That’s good.” The fellow had been transporting the overflow of
Mrs. Ralston’s guests for years, but he had never met quite such an
eccentric one as this. He chuckled now as if it were the best joke.
“I’ll tell you what—I’ll take it for nothing, and leave it to you what
you give me!” Maybe, for a joke, he’d get a fifty—dollars, not cents.
These young millionaire men did perpetrate little funnyisms like that.
Why, one of them had once “beat him down” a quarter on his fare and then
given him ten dollars for a tip. “Ha! ha!” repeated the fellow,
surveying Bob’s elegant and faultless attire, “I’ll do it for nothing,
and you—”
Bob walked away carrying his grip. Here he was telling the truth and he
wasn’t believed. The man took him for one of those irresponsible merry
fellows. That was odd. Was it auspicious? Should he derive encouragement
therefrom? Maybe the others would only say “Ha! ha!” when he told the
truth. But though he tried to feel the fellow’s attitude was a good
omen, he didn’t succeed very well.
No use trying to deceive _himself_! Might as well get accustomed to that
truth-telling habit even in his own thoughts! That diabolical trio of
friends had seen plainer than he. _They_ had realized the dazzling
difficulties of the task confronting him. How they were laughing in
their sleeves now at “darn fool Bob!” Bob, a young Don Quixote, sallying
forth to attempt the impossible! The preposterous part of the whole
business was that his role _was_ preposterous. Why, he really and truly,
in his transformed condition, ought to be just like every one else. That
he was a unique exception—a figure alone in his glory, or ingloriously
alone—was a fine commentary on this old world, anyhow.
What an old humbug of a world it was, he thought, when, passing before
the one and only book-store the little village boasted of, he ran plump
into, or almost into, Miss Gwendoline Gerald.
She, at that moment, had just emerged from the shop with a supply of
popular magazines in her arms. A gracious expression immediately
softened the young lady’s lovely patrician features and she extended a
hand. As in a dream Bob looked at it, for the fraction of a second. It
was a beautiful, shapely and capable hand. It was also sunburned. It
looked like the hand of a young woman who would grasp what she wanted
and wave aside peremptorily what she didn’t want. It was a strong hand,
but it was also an adorable hand. It went with the proud but lovely
face. It supplemented the steady, direct violet eyes. The pink nails
gleamed like sea-shells. Bob set down the grip and took the hand. His
heart was going fast.
“Glad to see you,” said Miss Gwendoline.
Bob remained silent. He was glad and he wasn’t glad. That is to say, he
was deliriously glad and he knew he ought not to be. He found it
difficult to conceal the effect she had upon him. He dreaded, too, the
outcome of that meeting. So, how should he answer and yet tell the
truth? It was considerable of a “poser,” he concluded, as he strove to
collect his perturbed thoughts.
“Well, why don’t you say something?” she asked.
“Lovely clay,” observed Bob.
The violet eyes drilled into him slightly. Shades of Hebe! but she had a
fine figure! She looked great next to Bob. Maybe she knew it. Perhaps
that was why she was just a shade more friendly and gracious to him than
to some of the others. They two appeared so well together. He certainly
did set her off.
“Is that all you have to say?” asked Miss Gwendoline after a moment.
“Let me put those magazines in the trap for you?” said Bob, making a
desperate recovery and indicating the smart rig at the curb as he spoke.
“Thanks,” she answered. “Make yourself useful.” And gave them to him.
But there was now a slight reserve on her part. His manner had slightly
puzzled her. There was a constraint, or hold-offishness about him that
seemed to her rather a new symptom in him. What did it mean? Had he
misinterpreted her “Will you?” The violet eyes flashed slightly, then
she laughed. How ridiculous!
“There! You did it very well,” she commended him mockingly.
“Thanks,” said Bob awkwardly, and shifted. It would be better if she let
him go. Those awful things he might say?—that she might make him say?
But she showed no disposition to permit him to depart at once. She
lingered. People didn’t usually seek to terminate talks with her. As a
rule they just stuck and stuck around and it was hard to get rid of
them. Did she divine his uneasiness? Bob showed he certainly wasn’t
enjoying himself. The violet eyes grew more and more puzzled.
“What a brilliant conversationalist you are to-day, Mr. Bennett!” she
remarked with a trace of irony in her tones.
“Yes; I don’t feel very strong on the talk to-day,” answered Bob
truthfully.
Miss Gwendoline pondered a moment on this. She had seen young men
embarrassed before—especially when she was alone with them. Sometimes
her decidedly pronounced beauty had a disquieting effect on certain
sensitive young souls. Bob’s manner recalled the manner of one or two of
those others just before they indulged, or tried to indulge, in unusual
sentiments, or too close personalities. Miss Gerald’s long sweeping
lashes lowered ominously. Then they slowly lifted. She didn’t feel
to-day any inordinate endeavor or desire on Bob’s part to break down the
nice barriers of convention and to establish that more intimate and
magnetic atmosphere of a new relationship. Well, that was the way it
should be. It must be he was only stupid at the moment. That’s why he
acted strange and unlike himself.
Perhaps he had been up late the night before. Maybe he had a headache.
His handsome face was certainly very sober. There was a silent appeal to
her in that blond head, a little over half-a-head above hers. Miss
Gwendoline’s red lips softened. What a great, big, nice-looking boy he
was, after all! She let the lights of her eyes play on him more kindly.
She had always thought Bob a good sort. He was an excellent partner in
tennis and when it came to horses—they had certainly had some great
spurts together. She had tried to follow Bob but it had sometimes been
hard. His “jumps” were famous. What he couldn’t put a horse over, no one
else could. For the sake of these and a few kindred recollections, she
softened.
“I suppose men sometimes do feel that way the next day,” she observed
with tentative sympathy. One just had to forgive Bob. She knew a lot of
cleverer men who weren’t half so interesting on certain occasions.
Intellectual conversation isn’t everything. Even that soul-to-soul talk
of the higher faddists sometimes palled. “I suppose that’s why you’re
walking.”
“Why?” he repeated, puzzled.
“To dissipate that ‘tired feeling,’ I believe you call it?”
“But I’m not tired,” said Bob.
“Headachey, then?”
“No.” He wasn’t quite following the subtleties of her remarks.
“Then why _are_ you walking?” she persisted. “And with that?” Touching
his grip with the tip of her toe.
“Save hack fare,” answered Bob.
She smiled.
“Man wanted a dollar and a half,” he went on.
“And you objected?” Lightly.
“I did.”
Again she smiled. Bob saw she, too, thought it was a joke. And he
remembered how she knew of one or two occasions when he had just thrown
money to the winds—shoved it out of the window, as it were—orchids, by
the dozens, tips, two or three times too large, etc. Bob, with those
reckless eyes, object to a dollar and a half—or a hundred and fifty,
for that matter? Not he! If ever there had been a spendthrift!—
“Well, I’ll lend a hand to a poor, poverty-stricken wretch,” said Miss
Gerald, indulgently entering into the humor of the situation.
“What do you mean?” With new misgivings.
“Put them”—indicating the grip and the sticks—“in the trap,” she
commanded.
Bob did. He couldn’t do anything else. And then he assisted her in.
“Thanks for timely help!” he said more blithely, as he saw her slip on
her gloves and begin to gather up the reins with those firm capable
fingers. “And now—?” He started as if to go.
“Oh, you can get in, too.” Why shouldn’t he? There was room for two. She
spoke in a matter-of-fact manner.
“I—?” Bob hesitated. A long, long drive—unbounded opportunity for
chats, confidences!—and all at the beginning of his sojourn here? Dad’s
words—that horrid advice—burned on his brain like fire. He tried to
think of some excuse for not getting in. He might say he had to stop at
a drug store, or call up a man in New York on business by telephone,
or— But no! he couldn’t say any of those things. He was denied the
blissful privilege of other men.
“Well, why don’t you get in?” Miss Gerald spoke more sharply. “Don’t you
want to?”
The words came like a thunder-clap, though Miss Gwendoline’s voice was
honey sweet. Bob raised a tragic head. That monster, Truth!
“No,” he said.
An instant Miss Gwendoline looked at him, the violet eyes incredulous,
amused. Then a slight line appeared on her beautiful forehead and her
red lips parted a little as if she were going to say something, but
didn’t. Instead, they closed tight, the way rosebuds shut when the night
is unusually frosty. Her eyes became hard like diamonds.
“How charmingly frank!” she said. Then she drew up the reins and trailed
the tip of the whip caressingly along the back of her spirited cob. It
sprang forward. “Look out for the sun, Mr. Bennett,” she called back as
they dashed away. “It’s rather hot to-day.”
Bob stood and stared after her. What did she mean about the sun? Did she
think he had a touch of sunstroke, or brain-fever? It was an
inauspicious beginning, indeed. If he had only known what next was
coming!
CHAPTER IV—A CHAT ON THE LINKS
At the top of the hill, instead of following the winding road, Bob
started leisurely across the rolling green toward the big house whose
roof could be discerned in the distance above the trees. The day was
charming, but he was distinctly out of tune. There was a frown on his
brow. Fate had gone too far. He half-clenched his fists, for he was in a
fighting mood and wanted to retaliate—but how? At the edge of some
bushes he came upon a lady—no less a personage than the better-half of
the commodore, himself.
She was fair, fat and forty, or a little more. She was fooling with a
white ball, or rather it was fooling with her, for she didn’t seem to
like the place where it lay. She surveyed it from this side and then
from that. To the casual observer it looked just the same from whichever
point you viewed it. Once or twice the lady, evidently no expert, raised
her arm and then lowered it. But apparently, at last, she made up her
mind. She was just about to hit the little ball, though whether to top
or slice it will never be known, when Bob stepped up from behind the
bushes.
“Oh, Mr. Bennett!” He had obviously startled her.
“The same,” said Bob gloomily.
“That’s too bad of you,” she chided him, stepping back.
“What?”
“Why, I’d just got it all figured out in my mind how to do it.”
“Sorry,” said Bob. “I didn’t know you were behind the bushes or I
wouldn’t have come out on you like that. But maybe you’ll do even better
than you were going to. Hope so! Go ahead with your drive. Don’t mind
me.” His tone was depressed, if not sepulchral.
But the lady, being at that sociable age, showed now a perverse
disposition not to “go ahead.”
“Just get here?” she asked.
“Yes. Anything doing?”
“Not much. It’s been, in fact, rather slow. Mrs. Ralston says so
herself. So I am at liberty to make the same remark. Of course we’ve
done the usual things, but somehow there seems to be something lacking,”
rattled on the lady. “Maybe we need a few more convivial souls to stir
things up. Perhaps we’re waiting for some one, real good and lively, to
appear upon the scene. Does the description chance to fit you, Mr.
Bennett?” Archly.
“I think not,” said gloomy Bob.
“Well, that isn’t what Mrs. Ralston says about you, anyway,” observed
the commodore’s spouse.
“What does she say?”
“‘When Bob Bennett’s around, things begin to hum.’ So you see you have a
reputation to live up to.”
“I dare say. No doubt I’ll live up to it, all right.”
“It’s really up to you to stir things up.”
“I’ve begun.” Ominously.
“Have you? How lovely!”
This didn’t require an answer, for it wasn’t really a question. A white
ball went by them, a very pretty snoop, and pretty soon another lady and
a caddy loomed on their range of vision. The lady was thin and
spirituelle and she walked by with a stride. You would have said she had
taken lessons of a man. She looked neither to the right nor the left. At
the moment, she, at any rate, was not sociably inclined. That walk meant
business. She wasn’t one of those fussy beginners like the lady Bob was
talking with.
“Isn’t that Mrs. Clarence Van Duzen?” asked Bob.
“Yes. She, too, poor dear, has had to desert hubby. Exactions of
business! Clarence simply couldn’t get away. You see he’s director of so
many things. And poor, dear old Dan! So busy! Every day at the office!
So pressed with business.”
“Quite so,” said Bob absently. “I mean—” He stopped. He knew Dan wasn’t
pressed for business and Bob couldn’t utter even the suspicion of an
untruth now. “Didn’t exactly mean that!” he mumbled.
The lady regarded him quickly. His manner was just in the least strange.
But in a moment she thought no more about it.
“You didn’t happen to see Dan?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“At his office, I suppose?” Dan had written he hadn’t even had time for
his club; that it had been just work—work all the time.
“No.”
“Where, then?”
“At the club and some other places.” Reluctantly.
“Other places?” Lightly. Of course she hadn’t really believed quite all
Dan had written about that office confinement. “How dreadfully
ambiguous!” With a laugh. “What other places?”
Bob began to get uneasy. “Well, we went to a cabaret or two.” No
especial harm about that answer.
“Of course,” said the lady. “Why not?”
Bob felt relieved. He didn’t want to make trouble. He was too miserable
himself. He trusted that would end the talk and now regarded the
neglected ball suggestively.
“And then you went to still some other places?” went on the lady in that
same light, unoffended tone.
“Ye-es,” Bob had to admit.
“One of those roof gardens, perhaps, where they have entertainments?”
she suggested brightly.
Bob acknowledged they had gone to a roof garden. And again, and more
suggestively, he eyed the little white ball. But Mrs. Dan seemed to have
forgotten all about it.
“Roof gardens,” she said. “I adore roof gardens. They _are_ such a boon
to the people. I told dear Dan to be sure not to miss them. So nice to
think of him enjoying himself instead of moping away in a stuffy old
office.”
Bob gazed at her suspiciously. But she had such an open face! One of
those faces one can’t help trusting. Mrs. Dan was just the homely, plain
old-fashioned type. At least, so she seemed. Anyhow, it didn’t much
matter so far as Bob was concerned. He had to tell the truth. He hadn’t
sought this conversation. It was forced on him. He was only going the
“even tenor of his way.” He was, however, rather pleased that Mrs. Dan
did seem in some respects different from others of her sex. Bob didn’t,
of course, really know much about the sex.
“So you went to the roof garden—just you and Dan,” purred Mrs. Dan.
Bob didn’t answer. He hoped she hadn’t really put that as a question.
“Or _were_ you and Dan alone?” She made it a question now.
“No-a.”
“Who else were along?”
“Dickie—”
“And—?”
“Clarence.”
She gazed toward Mrs. Clarence, while a shade of anxiety appeared on
Bob’s face. In the distance Mrs. Clarence had paused to contemplate the
result of an unusually satisfactory display of skill. Mrs. Dan next
glanced sidewise at her caddy, but that young man seemed to have
relapsed into a condition of innocuous vacancy. He looked capable of
falling asleep standing. Certainly he wasn’t trying to overhear.
“Just you four men!” Mrs. Dan resumed her purring. “Or were you all
alone? No ladies along?”
While expecting, of course, the negative direct, she was studying Bob
and gleaning what she could, surreptitiously, or by inference. He had an
eloquent face which might tell her something his lips refused to reveal.
His answer almost took her breath away.
“Ye-es.”
He was sorry, but he had to say it. No way out of it! Mrs. Dan’s jaw
fell. What she might have said can only be conjectured, for at this
moment, luckily for Bob, there came an interruption.
“Tête-à-têting, instead of teeing!” broke in a jocular voice. The
speaker wore ecclesiastical garments; his imposing calves were encased
in episcopal gaiters. Mrs. Ralston always liked to dignify her
house-parties with a religious touch, and this particular bishop was
very popular with her. Bob inwardly blessed the good man for his
opportune appearance. He was a ponderous wag.
“Forgive interruption,” he went on, just as if Mrs. Dan who was
non-amatory had been engaged in a furious flirtation. “I’ll be hurrying
on.”
“Do,” said Mrs. Dan, matching his tone, and concealing any inward
exasperation that she might have felt.
“It’s I who will be hurrying on,” interposed Bob quickly. “You see, I’m
expected to arrive at the house,” he laughed.
“Looked as if you were having an interesting conversation,” persisted
the bishop waggishly.
“And so we were,” assented Mrs. Dan. She could have stamped with
vexation, but instead, she forced a smile. The dear tiresome bishop had
to be borne.
“Confess you find me de trop?” he went on, shaking a finger at Bob.
“On the contrary,” said Bob.
“Has to say that,” laughed the good man. He did love to poke fun (or
what he conceived “fun”) at “fair, fat and forty.” “I suppose you were
positively dee-lighted to be interrupted?”
“I was,” returned Bob truthfully.
“Ha! ha!” laughed the bishop.
Bob looked at him. The bishop thought he was joking, just as the hackman
had. Of course, no one could say such a thing as that seriously and in
the presence of the lady herself. People always didn’t believe truth
when they heard it. They thought telling the truth a form of crude
humor, and a spark of hope-a very small one—shot through Bob’s brain.
Perhaps they would continue to look upon him in the light of a joker. He
would be the little joker in the pack of cards and he might yet pull off
that “three weeks” without pulling down the house. Only—would Miss
Gerald look upon him as a joker? Intuition promptly told him she would
not. His thoughts reverted to that last meeting. Think of having told
her he didn’t want—His offense grew more awful unto himself every
moment. He ceased to remember Mrs. Dan, and saying something, he hardly
knew what, Bob walked on.
Miss Gwendoline Gerald was on the big veranda when he reached the house.
He would have thanked her humbly and with immense contrition for having
transferred his bag and clubs hither, but as he went by, that gracious,
stately young lady seemed not to see him. It was as if he had suddenly
become invisible. Her face didn’t even change; the proud contour
expressed neither contempt nor disdain; the perfectly formed lips didn’t
take a more pronounced curve or grow hard.
Bob felt himself shrink. He was like that man in the story book who
becomes invisible at times. The fiction man, however, attained this
convenient consummation through his own volition. Bob didn’t. She was
the magician and he wasn’t even a joker.
He managed to reach the front door without stumbling. A wild desire to
attract her attention by asking her if his luggage _had_ arrived safely,
he dismissed quickly. It wouldn’t do at all. It might imply a fear she
had dumped it out, en route. And if she hadn’t, such an inquiry would
only emphasize the fact that she had acted as expressman—or woman—and
for him!
He would go to his room at once, he told the footman. He didn’t mind a
few moments’ solitude. If so much could happen before his house-party
had begun—before he even got into the house—what might he not expect
later? In one of the upper halls he encountered the man with the
monocle.
“I say!” said this person. “What a jolly coincidence!”
“Think so?” said Bob. He didn’t find anything “jolly” about it. On
another occasion, he might have noticed that the eye behind the
“window-pane” was rather twinkling, but his perceptions were not
particularly keen at the present time.
In the room to which he had been assigned, Bob cast off a few garments.
Then he stopped with his shirt partly off. He wondered how Miss Gerald
would look the next time he saw her? Like a frozen Hebe, perhaps! Bob
removed the shirt and cast it viciously somewhere. Then he selected
another shirt—the first that came along, for why should he exercise
care to select? It matters little what an invisible man wears. _She_
wouldn’t see the extra stripe or the bigger dot. Stripes couldn’t rescue
him from insubstantiability. Colors, too, would make no difference.
Pea-green, yellow, or lavender—it was all one. Any old shirt would do.
And any old tie!
When he had finished dressing, he didn’t find any further excuse for
remaining in his room. He couldn’t consult his desires as to that. He
wasn’t asked there to be a hermit. He couldn’t imitate Timon of Athens,
Diogenes or any other of those wise old fellows who did the glorious
solitude act. Diogenes told the truth, mostly, but he could live in a
tub. He didn’t have to participate in house-parties. Whoever invented
house-parties, anyhow? They were such uncomfortable “social functions”
they must have been invented by the English. Why do people want to get
together? Bob could sympathize with Diogenes. Also, he could envy Timon
his howling wilderness! But personally he couldn’t even be a Robinson
Crusoe. Would there were no other company than clawless crabs and a goat
and a parrot! He would not be afraid to tell _them_ the truth.
He had to go down and he did. Nemesis lurked for him below. Had Bob
realized what was going to happen he would have skipped back to his
room. But, as it was, he assumed a bold front. He even said to himself,
“Cheer up; the worst is yet to come.” It was.
CHAPTER V—TRIVIALITIES
Luncheon came and went, but nothing actually tragic happened at it. Bob
didn’t make more than a dozen remarks that failed to add to his
popularity. He tried to be agreeable, because that was his nature. That
“even-tenor-of-his-way” condition made it incumbent on him—yes, made it
his sacred duty to be bright and amiable. So it was “Hence, loathed
Melancholy!” and a brave endeavor to be as jocund as the poet’s lines!
Only those little unfortunate moments—airy preludes to larger
misfortunes—had to occur, and just when he would flatter himself he was
not doing so badly.
For example, when Mrs. Augustus Ossenreich Vanderpool said: “Don’t you
adore dogs, Mr. Bennett?”
“No. I like them.” It became necessary to qualify that. “That is—not
the little kind.”
The lady stiffened. Her beribboned and perfumed five-thousand-dollar
toy-dogs were the idolized darlings of her heart. The children might be
relegated to the nursery but the canines had the run of the boudoir.
They rode with her when she went out in state while the French _bonne_
took the children for an airing. “And why are the ‘little kind’ excluded
from the realm of your approbation?” observed Mrs. Vanderpool coldly.
It was quite a contract to answer that. Bob wanted to be truthful; not
to say too much or too little; only just as much as he was in honor
bound to say. “I think people make too much fuss over them,” he answered
at last. That reply seemed quite adequate and he trusted the lady would
change the subject. But people had a way of not doing what he wanted
them to, lately.
“What do you call ‘too much fuss’?” pursued the lady persistently.
Bob explained as best he could. It was rather a thankless task and he
floundered a good deal as he went about it. He wasn’t going to be a bit
more disagreeable than he could help, only he couldn’t help being as
disagreeable as he had to be. The fact that Miss Gwendoline Gerald’s
starry eyes were on him with cold curiosity did not improve the lucidity
of his explanation. In the midst of it, she to whom he was talking,
seemed somehow to detach herself from him, gradually, not pointedly, for
he hardly knew just when or how she got away. She seemed just to float
off and to attach herself somewhere else—to the bishop or to a certain
judge Mrs. Ralston always asked to her house-parties that they might
have a judicial as well as an ecclesiastical touch—and Bob’s
explanation died on the thin air. He let it die. He didn’t have to speak
truth to vacancy.
Then he tangoed, but not with Miss Gwendoline Gerald. He positively
dared not approach that young lady. He didn’t tango because he wanted
to, but because some one set a big music-box going and he knew he was
expected to tango. He did it beautifully and the young lady was charmed.
She was a little dark thing, of the clinging variety, and Dickie had
gone with her some. Her father owned properties that would go well with
Dickie’s—there’d been some talk of consolidation, but it had never come
off. Papa was inclined to be stand-offish. Then Dickie began to get
attentive to the little dark thing, though nothing had yet come of that
either. Bob didn’t own any properties but the little dark thing didn’t
mind that. At tangoing, he was a dream. Properties can’t tango.
“You do it so well,” said the little dark thing breathlessly.
“Do I?” murmured Bob, thinking of a stately young goddess, now tangoing
with another fellow.
“Don’t you adore it?” went on the little dark thing, nestling as close
as was conventional and proper.
“I might,” observed Bob. That was almost as bad as the dog question. He
trusted the matter would end there.
She giggled happily. “Maybe you disapprove of modern dancing, Mr.
Bennett?”
“That depends,” said Bob gloomily. He meant it depended upon who was
“doing the modern” with the object of your fondest affections. If you
yourself were engaged in the arduous pastime with said object, you
would, naturally harbor no particular objections against said modern
tendencies, but if you weren’t?—
Bob tangoed more swiftly. His thoughts were so bitter he wanted to run
away from them. The irony of gliding rhythmically and poetically in
seeming joyous abandon of movement when his heart weighed a ton! If that
heaviness of heart were communicated to his legs, they would in reality
be as heavy as those of a deep-sea diver, weighted down for a ten-fathom
plunge.
And in thus trying to run away from his thoughts Bob whirled the little
dark thing quite madly. He couldn’t dance ungracefully if he tried and
the little dark thing had a soul for rhythm. It was as if he were trying
to run away with her. He fairly took away her breath. She was a panting
little dark thing on his broad breast now, but she didn’t ask him to
stop. The music-box ceased to be musical and that brought them to a
stop. The eyes of the little dark thing—her name was Dolly—sparkled,
and she gazed up at Bob with the respect one of her tender and
impressionable years has for a masculine whirlwind.
“You quite sweep one off one’s feet, Mr. Bennett,” she managed to
ejaculate.
At that moment Miss Gwendoline passed, a divine bud glowing on either
proud cheek. She caught the remark and looked at the maker of it. She
noted the sparkle in the eyes. The little dark thing was a wonder with
the men. She seemed to possess the knack—only second to Miss
Gwendoline, in that line—of converting them into “trailers.” Miss
Gwendoline, though, never tried to attain this result. Men became her
trailers without any effort on her part, while the little dark thing had
to exert herself, but it was agreeable work. She made Bob a trailer now,
temporarily. Miss Gwendoline turned her head slightly, with a gleam of
surprise to watch him trail. She had noticed that Bob had danced with
irresistible and almost pagan abandon. That argued enjoyment.
The little dark thing would “come in” ultimately for hundreds of
belching chimneys and glowing furnaces and noisy factories—quite a snug
if cacophonous legacy!—and Miss Gwendoline had only that day heard
rumors that Bob’s governor had fallen down and hurt himself on the
“street.” She, Miss Gwendoline, had not attached much importance to
those rumors. People were always having little mishaps in the “street,”
and then bobbing up richer than ever.
But now that rumor recurred to her more vividly in the light of Bob’s
trailing performance and the mad abandon of his tangoing. Of course, all
men are gamblers, or fortune-hunters, or something equally
reprehensible, at heart! Tendency of a cynical, selfish and
money-grabbing age! Miss Gwendoline was no moralist but she had lived in
a wise set, where people keep their eyes open and weigh things for just
what they are. Naturally a young man whose governor has gone on the
rocks (though only temporarily, perhaps), might think that belching
chimneys, though somewhat splotchy on the horizon and unpicturesque to
the eye, might be acceptable, in a first-aid-to-the-injured sense. But
Bob as a plain, ordinary fortune-hunter?— Somehow the role did not fit
him.
Besides, a fortune-hunter would not bruskly and unceremoniously have
refused _her_ invitation to ride in the trap. And at the recollection of
that affront, Miss Gwendoline’s violet eyes again gleamed, until for
sparkles they out-matched those of the little dark thing. However, she
held herself too high to be really resentful. It was impossible she
should resent anything so incomprehensible, she told herself. That would
lend dignity to the offense. Therefore she could only be mildly amused
by it. This was, no doubt, a properly lofty attitude, but was it a
genuine one? Was she not actually at heart, deeply resentful and
dreadfully offended? Pride being one of her marked characteristics, she
demanded a great deal and would not accept a little.
The sparkles died from the hard violet eyes. A more tentative expression
replaced that other look as her glance now passed meditatively over the
dark little thing. The latter had certainly a piquant bizarre
attraction. She looked as if she could be very intense, though she was
of that clinging-vine variety of young woman. She wore one of those
tango gowns which was odd, outre and a bit daring. It went with her
personality. At the same time her innocent expression seemed a mute,
almost pathetic little appeal to you _not_ to think it too daring.
As Miss Gerald studied the young lady, albeit without seeming to do so
and holding her own in a sprightly tango kind of talk, another thought
flashed into her mind. Bob might be genuinely and sentimentally smitten.
Why not? Men frequently fell in love with the little dark thing, and
afterward some of them said she had a “good deal of temperament.” Bob
might be on a temperament-investigating quest. At any rate, it was all
one to Miss Gerald. Life was a comedy. _N’est-ce-pas?_ What was it
Balzac called it? _La Comedie Humaine._
Meanwhile, other eyes than Miss Gerald’s were bent upon luckless Bob.
Mrs. Dan and Mrs. Clarence looked as if they would like to have a word
with him. Mrs. Dan even maneuvered in his direction at the conclusion of
the dance while Bob watched her with ill-concealed apprehension. He
detected, also, an uncanny interest in Mrs. Clarence’s eyes as that
masterful lady eyed him and Mrs. Dan from a distance. Mrs. Dan almost
got him when—the saints be praised!—Mrs. Ralston, herself, tripped
blithely up and annexed him. For the moment he was safe, but only for
the moment.
A reckless desire to end it all surged through Bob’s inmost being. If
only his hostess would say something demanding an answer that would
incur such disapprobation on her part, he would feel impelled, in the
natural order of events, to hasten his departure. Maybe then (and he
thrilled at the thought), she might even intimate in her chilliest
manner that his _immediate_ departure would be the logical sequence of
some truthful spasm she, herself, had forced from him? He couldn’t talk
French to Mrs. Ralston now; he was in honor bound not to. He would have
to speak right up in the King’s English—or Uncle Sam’s American.
Of course, such a consummation—Bob’s being practically _forced_ to take
his departure—was extremely unpleasant and awful to contemplate, yet
worse things could happen than that—a whole string of them, one right
after another!
However, he had no such luck as to be ordered forthwith off the
premises. He didn’t offend Mrs. Ralston at all. That lady was very nice
to him (or otherwise, from Bob’s present view-point) and did most of the
talking herself. Perhaps she considered that compliment (?) Bob had
bestowed upon her at the Waldorf sufficient to excuse him for a while
from further undue efforts at flattery. At any rate, she didn’t seem to
take it amiss that Bob didn’t say a lot more of equally nice things in
that Chesterfieldian manner and with such a perfect French accent.
But he “got in bad” that afternoon with divers and sundry other guests
of Mrs. Ralston. Mrs. Augustus O. Vanderpool and Miss Gerald weren’t the
only ones who threw cold glances his way, for the faux pas he made—that
he _had_ to make—were something dreadful. For example, when some one
asked him what he thought of Miss Schermerhorn’s voice, he had to say
huskily what was in his mind:
“It is rather too strident, isn’t it?” No sugar-coating the truth! If he
had said anything else he would have been compromising with veracity; he
would not have spoken the thought born in his brain at the question. Of
course, some one repeated what he said to Miss Schermerhorn, who came
from one of the oldest families, was tall and angular, and cherished
fond illusions, or delusions, that she was an amateur nightingale. The
some one who repeated, had to repeat, because Miss Schermerhorn was her
dearest friend and confidante. Then Miss Schermerhorn came right up to
Bob and asked him if he had said it and he was obliged to answer that he
had. What she said, or thought, need not be repeated. She left poor Bob
feeling about as big as a caterpillar.
“How very tactful of Mr. Bennett!” was all Miss Gerald said, when Miss
Dolly related to her the little incident.
“That’s just what I adore in him!” gushed the temperamental little
thing. “He doesn’t seem to be afraid of saying anything to anybody. He’s
so delightfully frank!”
“Frank, certainly!” answered Miss Gerald icily.
“Anyhow, he’s a regular tango-king!” murmured Miss Dolly dreamily.
“I’m so glad _you_ approve of him, dear!” said Miss Gerald with an
enigmatic smile. Perhaps she implied the temperamental little thing
found herself in a class, all by herself, in this regard.
The latter flew over to Bob. If he was so “frank” and ingenuous about
Miss Schermerhorn, perhaps he would be equally so with other persons.
Miss Dolly asked him if he didn’t think the bishop’s sermons “just too
dear?” Bob did not. “Why not?” she persisted. Bob had just been reading
_The Outside of the Pot_. “Why not?” repeated Miss Dolly.
“Antediluvian!” groaned Bob, then turned a fiery red. The bishop,
standing on the other side of the doorway, had overheard. Maybe Miss
Dolly had known he stood there for she now giggled and fled. Bob wanted
to sink through the floor, but he couldn’t.
“So, sir, you think my sermons antediluvian?” said the bishop, with a
twinkle of the eye. _He_ never got mad, he was the best old man that way
that ever happened.
“Yes, sir,” replied Bob, by rote.
“Thank you,” said the bishop, and rubbed his nose. Then he eyed Bob
curiously. “Maybe you’re right,” he said. That made Bob feel awful, but
he couldn’t retract. The truth as he saw it!—He felt as if he were
chained to the wheel of fate—the truth as he saw it, though the heavens
fell!
“Of course, that’s only my poor insignificant opinion,” he murmured
miserably.
“Every man’s opinion is entitled to respect,” said the bishop.
“Yes, sir,” replied Bob, more miserably still.
The bishop continued to study him. “You interest me, Mr. Bennett.”
“Do I?” said Bob. “I’m rather interesting to myself just now.”
“You evidently agree with the author of _The Outside of the Pot_?”
“That’s it.” Weakly.
“Well, cheer up,” said the bishop, and walked away.
Later in the day the judge might have been heard to say to the bishop
that “that young Bennett cub is a good-for-nothing jackanapes”—from
which it might be inferred Bob had somehow managed to rub the judge’s
ermine the wrong way.
“Ha! ha!” laughed the bishop. “Did some one ask him what he thought of
judges?”
But the judge did not laugh. His frown was awful.
“Or was it about the ‘recall’? Or the relation of judges and
corporations?”
The judge looked stern as Jove. “Ass!” he muttered.
“Maybe he’s a progressive,” returned the bishop. “The world seems to be
changing. Ought we to change with it, I wonder?”
“I don’t,” snapped the judge. “If the world to-day is producing such
fatuous blockheads, give me the world as it was.”
“The trouble is,” said the bishop, again rubbing his nose, “can we get
it back? Hasn’t it left us behind and are we ever going to catch up?”
“Fudge!” said the judge. He and the bishop were such old friends, he
could take that liberty.
Another of the sterner sex—one of Mrs. Ralston’s guests—looked as if
he, too, could have said: “Fudge!” His lips fairly curled when he
regarded Bob. He specialized as a vivisectionist, and he was a great
authority. Now Bob loved the “under-dog” and was naturally kind and
sympathetic. He had been blessed—or cursed—with a very tender heart
for such a compact, well-put-up, six foot or so compound of hard-headed
masculinity. Miss Dolly—imp of mischief—again rather forced the talk.
It must be wonderful to cut things up and juggle with hind legs and
kidneys and brains and mix them all up with different animals, until a
poor little cat didn’t know if it had a dog’s brain or its own? And was
it true that sometimes the dogs me-owed, and when a cat started to purr
did it wag its tail instead? This was all right from Miss Dolly, but
when the conversation expanded and Bob was appealed to, it was
different. “Wouldn’t _you_ just love to mix up the different ‘parts’?”
asked Miss Dolly, and put a rabbit’s leg on a pussy, just to watch its
expression of surprise when it started to run and found itself only able
to jump, or half-jump? That got honest Bob—who couldn’t have carved up
a poor dumb beast, to save his life—fairly involved, and before he had
staggered from that conversational morass, he had offended Authority
about two dozen times. Indeed, Authority openly turned its back on him.
Authority found Bob impossible.
These are fair samples of a few of his experiences. And all the while he
had an uneasy presentiment that Mrs. Dan and Mrs. Clarence were waiting
to get him and have _their_ innings. Now, Mrs. Dan would bestow upon him
a too sweet smile between games of tennis; then Mrs. Clarence would
drift casually in his direction, but something would happen that would
prevent a heart-to-heart duologue, and she would as casually drift away
again. These hit-and-miss tactics, however, gradually got on Bob’s
nerves, and in consequence, he who was usually a star and a cracker jack
at the game, played abominable tennis that afternoon—thus enhancing his
unpopularity with divers partners who simply couldn’t understand why he
had fallen off so. Indeed, about every one he came in contact with was
profoundly dissatisfied or disgusted with Bob. Miss Gerald, who usually
played with him, now firmly but unostentatiously, avoided him, and
though Bob couldn’t blame her, of course, still the fact did not tend to
mitigate his melancholy.
How different in the past!—that glorious, never-to-be-forgotten past!
Then he had inwardly reveled and rejoiced in her lithe movements—for
with all her stateliness and proud carriage, she was like a young
panther for grace. Now as luckless Bob played with some one else, a
tantalizing college ditty floated through his brain: “I wonder who’s
kissing her now?”
Of course, no one was. She wasn’t that kind. Though some one, some day,
would! It was in the natural order of things bound to occur, and Bob, in
fancy, saw those disdainful red lips, with some one hovering over, as he
swung at a white ball and sent it—well, not where he should have.
“You are playing very badly, partner,” a reproving voice reminded him.
Bob muttered something. Confound that frivolous haunting song! He would
dismiss the dire and absurd possibility. Some one else was with her,
though, and that was sufficiently poignant. There were several of the
fellows tremendously smitten in that quarter. Fine, husky athletic
chaps, too! Some of them quite expert at wooing, no doubt, for devotees
of house-parties become educated and acquire finesse. They don’t have to
tell the truth all the time, but on the contrary, are privileged to
prevaricate in the most artistic manner. They can gaze into beautiful
eyes and swear that they have “never before,” and so on. They can
perform prodigies of prevarication and “get away” with them. Bob played
now even worse than before.
The sun got low at last, however, and wearily he retired to his room, to
change his garments for dinner. Incidentally, he surveyed himself in the
mirror with haunting earnestness of gaze. Had he grown perceptibly
older? He thought he could detect a few lines of care on his erstwhile
unsullied brow, and with a sigh, he turned away to array himself in the
customary black—or “glad rags”—which seemed now, however, but the
habiliments of woe. Then he descended to receive a new shock; he found
out that Mrs. Ralston had assigned Mrs. Dan to him, to take in to
dinner. Drearily Bob wondered if it were mere chance that he had drawn
Mrs. Dan for a dinner prize, or if Mrs. Dan herself had somehow brought
about that, to her, desired consummation. As he gave Mrs. Dan his arm he
saw Mrs. Clarence exchange glances with the commodore’s good lady. Mrs.
Ralston went in with the monocle man.
CHAPTER VI—DINNER
Mrs. Dan dallied with Bob, displaying all the artifices of an old
campaigner. Of course, she had no idea how easy it might be for her to
learn all she wanted to. She could not know he was like a barrel or
puncheon of information and that all she had to do was to pull the plug
and let information flow out. She regarded Bob more in the light of a
safety vault; the bishop’s interruption had put him on his guard and she
would have to get through those massive outer-doors of his reserve,
before she could force the many smaller doors to various boxes full of
startling facts.
It was a fine tableful of people, of which they were a part. Wealth,
beauty, brains and brawn were all there. An orchestra played somewhere.
Being paid performers you didn’t see them and as distance lends
enchantment to music, on most occasions, the result was admirable.
Delicate orchids everywhere charmed with their hues without exuding that
too obtrusive perfume of commoner flowers. Mrs. Ralston was an orchid
enthusiast and down on the Amazon she kept an orchid-hunter who,
whenever he found a new variety, sent her a cable.
So Mrs. Dan started on orchids with Bob. She hadn’t the slightest
interest in orchids, but she displayed a simulated interest that sounded
almost like real interest. Mrs. Dan hadn’t practised on society, or had
society practise on her, all these years for nothing. She could get that
simulated-interested tone going without any effort. But Bob’s attention
wandered, and he gazed toward Miss Gerald who occupied a place quite a
distance from him.
Mrs. Dan, failing to interest Bob on orchids, now took another tack. She
sailed a conversational course on caviar. Men usually like things to
eat, and to talk about them, especially such caviar as this. But Bob
eyed the almost priceless Malasol as if it were composed of plain,
ordinary fish-eggs. He didn’t even enthuse when he took a sip of Moselle
that matched the Malasol and had more “bouquet” than the flowers. So
Mrs. Dan, again altering her conversational course, sailed merrily
before the wind amid the breeze of general topics and gay light
persiflage. She was at her best now. There wasn’t anything she didn’t
know something about. She talked plays, operas and amusements which
gradually led her up to roof gardens. She took her time, though, before
laying the bowsprit of her desires straight in the real direction she
wished to go. She knew she could proceed cautiously and circumspectly,
that there was no need for hurry; the meal would be fairly prolonged.
Mrs. Ralston’s dinners were elaborate affairs; there might even be a few
professional entertainment features between courses.
“And speaking about roof gardens,” went on Mrs. Dan, looking any way
save at Bob, “I believe you were telling me, only this afternoon, how
you and dear Dan were finally driven to them as a last resort. Poor Dan!
So glad to hear he could get a breath of fresh air in that stuffy old
town! Just hated to think of him confined to some stuffy old office. Men
work too hard in our strenuous, bustling country, don’t you think so?
And then they break down prematurely. I’ve always told Dan,” she rattled
on, “to enjoy himself—innocently, of course.” She paused to take
breath. “Don’t you think men work too hard in America, Mr. Bennett?” she
repeated.
“Sometimes,” said Bob.
She gave him a quick look. Perhaps she was proceeding rather fast,
though Bob didn’t look on his guard. “As I told you, I adore roof
gardens. But you were telling me you men were not alone. What harm!” she
gurgled. “Some people,” talking fast, “are so prudish. I’m sure we’re
not put in the world to be that. Don’t you agree?”
“Of course,” said Bob absently. He didn’t like the way that fellow down
on the other side of the table was gazing into Miss Gwendoline’s eyes.
“I beg your pardon. I—I don’t think I caught that.”
“We were saying there were some wom—ladies with you,” said Mrs. Dan
quickly. Too quickly! She strove to curb her precipitancy. “You
remember? You told me?” Her voice trailed off, as if it were a matter of
little interest.
“Did I?” Bob caught himself up with a jerk. He felt now as if he were a
big fish being angled for, and gazed at her with sudden apprehension.
The lady’s, mien however, was reassuring.
“Of course,” she laughed. “Don’t you remember?”
“I believe I did say something of the kind.” Slowly. He had had to.
“Surely you don’t deny now?” she continued playfully.
“No.” He had not spared himself. He couldn’t spare Dan. The lady’s
manner seemed to say: “_I_ don’t care a little bit.” Anyhow, the evening
in question had passed innocently, if frivolously, enough. No harm would
come to Dan in consequence. And again Bob’s interest floated elsewhere.
He noticed Miss Gwendoline did not seem exactly averse to letting that
fellow by her side gaze into her eyes. Confound the fellow! He had one
of those open honest faces. A likable chap, too! One of the
Olympian-game brand! A weight-putter, or hammer-thrower, or something of
the kind. Bob could have heaved considerable of a sledge himself at that
moment.
“Of course, boys will be boys,” prattled Mrs. Dan at his side, just in
the least stridently. “I suppose you sat down and they just happened
along and sat down, too! You couldn’t very well refuse to let them,
could you? That wouldn’t have been very polite?” She hardly knew what
she was saying herself now. Though a conversational general, on most
occasions, her inward emotion was now running apace. It was almost
beating her judgment in the race. She tried to pull herself together.
“Why, in Paris, doing the sights at the Jardin or the Moulin Rouge, or
the Casino de Paris, every one takes it or them—these chance
acquaintances—as a matter of course. _Pour passer le temps!_ And why
not?” With a shrug and in her sprightliest manner. “So the ladies in
this instance, as you were saying, came right up, too, and—?”
She paused. That was crude—clumsy—even though she rattled it off as if
without thinking. She was losing all her finesse. But again, to her
surprise, the fish took the bait. She did not know Bob’s
predicament—that _he_ couldn’t finesse.
“Yes, they came up,” said Bob reluctantly, though pleased that Mrs. Dan
appeared such a good kind of fellow.
“Show-girls?” asked the lady quickly.
“Well—ah!—two of them were.”
“Two? And what were the others?”
Bob again regarded the lady apprehensively, but her expression was
eminently reassuring. It went with the music, the bright flowers and the
rest of the gay scene. Mrs. Dan’s smile was one of unadulterated
enjoyment; she didn’t seem displeased at all. Must be she wasn’t
displeased! Perhaps she was like some of those model French wives who
aren’t averse at all to having other ladies attentive to their husbands?
Mrs. Dan had lived in Paris and might have acquired with a real accent
an accompanying broad-mindedness of character. That might be what made
the dear old commodore act so happy most of the time, and so juvenile,
too! Mrs. Dan _looked_ broad-minded. She had a broad face and her figure
was broad—very! At the moment she seemed fairly to radiate
broad-mindedness and again Bob felt glad—on the commodore’s account. He
had nothing to feel glad about, himself, with that confounded
hammer-thrower—
“Who were the others, did you say?” repeated Mrs. Dan, in her most
broad-minded tone.
She seemed only talking to make conversation and looked away
unconcernedly as she spoke. Lucky for Dan she was broad-minded—that
they had once been expatriates together! Even if she hadn’t been,
however, Bob would have had to tell the truth.
“Who were the others?” he repeated absently, one eye on Miss Gerald.
“Oh, they were ‘ponies.’”
“‘Ponies,’” said the lady giving a slight start and then recovering. “I
beg your pardon, but—ah—do you happen to be referring to the
horse-show?”
“Not at all,” answered Bob. “The ponies I refer to,” wearily, “are not
equine.” These technical explanations were tiresome. At that moment he
was more concerned with the hammer-thrower, who had evidently just
hurled a witticism at Miss Gerald, for both were laughing. Would that
Bob could have caught the silvery sound of her voice! Would he had been
near enough! Across the table, the little dark thing threw him a few
consolatory glances. He had almost forgotten about her. Miss Dolly’s
temperamental eyes seemed to say “Drink to me only with thine eyes,” and
Bob responded recklessly to the invitation. The little dark thing seemed
the only one on earth who was good to him. He drank to her with his
eyes—without becoming intoxicated. Then she held a glass to her lips
and gazed at him over it. He held one to his and did likewise. He should
have become doubly intoxicated, but he didn’t. He set down his glass
mournfully. Miss Gerald noticed this sentimental little byplay, but what
Bob did was, of course, of no moment to her.
“Ponies, Mr. Bennett? And not equine?” Mrs. Dan with difficulty
succeeded in again riveting Bob’s wandering attention. “Ah, of course!”
Her accents rising frivolously. “How stupid of me!” Gaily. “You mean the
kind that do the dancing in the musical shows.” And Mrs. Dan glanced a
little furtively at her right.
But on that side the good bishop was still expounding earnestly to the
lady he had brought in. He was not in the least interested in what Mrs.
Dan and Bob were saying. He was too much concerned in what he was saying
himself. At Bob’s left sat the young lady who had been his partner at
tennis in the afternoon but she, obviously, took absolutely no interest
in Bob now. He had a vague recollection of having been forced to say
something in her hearing, earlier in the day, that had sounded almost as
bad as his tennis-playing had been. Truth, according to the
philosophers, is beautiful. Only it doesn’t seem to be! This young lady
had turned as much of the back of a bare “cold shoulder” on Bob at the
table as she could. In fact, she made it quite clear Mrs. Dan could have
the young man entirely to herself. So Mrs. Dan and Bob were really as
alone, for confidential conversational purposes, as if they had been
secluded in some retired cozy-corner.
“Two show-girls and two ponies!” Mrs. Dan went on blithely. “That made
one apiece.” With a laugh. “Who got the ponies?”
“Clarence got one.”
“And Dan?”
Bob nodded. He had to, it was in the contract. The lady laughed again
right gaily.
“Dan always did like the turf,” she breathed softly. “So fond of the
track, or anything equine.”
For the moment Bob became again almost suspicious of her, she was _such_
a “good fellow”! And Bob wasn’t revengeful; because he had suffered
himself he didn’t wish the commodore any harm. Of course it would be
rather a ghastly joke on the commodore if Mrs. Dan wasn’t such a “good
fellow” as she seemed. But Bob dismissed that contingency. He was
helpless, anyway. He was no more than a chip in a stream. The current of
Mrs. Dan’s questions carried him along.
“And what did the pony Dan got, look like?”
“I think she had reddish hair.”
“How lurid! I suppose you all had a few ponies with the ponies?”
Jocularly.
“Yes,” said the answering-machine.
“I suppose the ponies had names? They usually do,” she rattled on.
“Yes. They had names, of course.”
“What was Dan’s called?”
The orchestra was playing a little louder now—one of those wild
pieces—a rhapsody!
“Don’t know her real name.”
“Her stage name, then?”
“Not sure of that!” Doubtfully.
“But Dan _must_ have called her something?” With a gay little laugh.
“Yes.” Bob hesitated. In spite of that funereal feeling, he couldn’t
suppress a grin. “He called her Gee-gee.”
“Gee-gee!” almost shrieked the lady. Then she laughed harder than ever.
She was certainly a good actress. At that moment she caught Mrs.
Clarence Van Duzen’s eye; it was coldly questioning.
“And what did the pony Clarence got, look like?” Mrs. Dan had passed the
stage of analyzing or reasoning clearly. She didn’t even ask herself why
Bob wasn’t more evasive. She didn’t want to know whether it was that
“good-fellow” manner on her part that had really deceived him into
unbosoming the truth to her, or whether—well, he had been drinking too
much? He held himself soberly enough, it is true, but there are strong
men who look sober and can walk a chalk line, when they aren’t sober at
all. Bob might belong to that class. She thought she had detected
something on his breath when he passed on the links and he might have
been “hitting it up” pretty hard since, on the side, with some of the
men. In “vino veritas”! But whether “vino,” or denseness on his part,
she was sure of the “veritas.” Instinct told her she had heard the
truth.
“And Clarence’s pony—did she have red hair, too?” She put the question
in a different way, for Bob was hesitating again.
“No.”
“What was its hue?”
“Peroxide, I guess.” Gloomily.
“Is that all you remember?” Mrs. Dan now was plying questions
recklessly, regardlessly, as if Bob were on the witness-stand and she
were state prosecutor.
“About all. Oh!—her nose turned up and she had a freckle.”
“How interesting!” Mrs. Dan’s laugh was rather forced, and she and Mrs.
Clarence again exchanged glances, but Bob didn’t notice. “And what was
she called?” Breathing a little hard.
“Gid-up,” said Bob gravely.
“‘Gid-up’!” Again the lady almost had a paroxysm, but whether or not of
mirth, who shall say. “Gee-gee and Gid-up!” Her broad bosom rose and
fell.
“Telegram, sir!” At that moment Bob heard another voice at his elbow.
Across the table the man with the monocle was gazing at him curiously.
CHAPTER VII—VARYING VICISSITUDES
A footman had brought the message, which Bob now took and opened
mechanically. It was from the commodore.
“For heaven’s sake,” it ran, “return at once to New York Will explain.”
Bob eyed it gloomily. The commodore must have been considerably rattled
when he had sent that.
“Any answer, sir?” said the footman.
Bob shook his head. What could he answer? He couldn’t run away now; the
commodore ought to know that. Of all fool telegrams!—
“A business message, I suppose?” purred the lady at his side. “I trust
it is nothing very important, to call you away?”
“No, I shouldn’t call it important,” said Bob. “Quite unnecessary, I
should call it.”
He crumpled up the message and thrust it into his pocket. At that moment
one of Mrs. Ralston’s paid performers—a high-class monologist—began to
earn his fee. He was quite funny and soon had every one laughing. Bob
strove to forget his troubles and laugh too. Mrs. Dan couldn’t very well
talk to him now, and relieved from that lady’s pertinent prattle, he
gradually let that “dull-care grip” slip from his resistless fingers.
Welcoming the mocking goddess of the cap and bells, he yielded to the
infectious humor and before long forgot the telegram and everything save
that crop of near-new stories.
But when the dinner was finally over, he found himself, again wrapped in
deep gloom, wandering alone on the broad balcony. He didn’t just know
how he came to be out there all alone—whether he drifted away from
people or whether they drifted away from him. Anyhow he wasn’t burdened
with any one’s company. He entertained a vague recollection that several
people had turned their backs on him. So if he was forced to lead a
hermit’s life it wasn’t his fault. Probably old Diogenes hadn’t _wanted_
to live in that tub; people had made him. They wouldn’t stand him in a
house. There wasn’t room for him and any one else in the biggest house
ever built. So the only place where truth could find that real, cozy,
homey feeling was _alone_ in a tub. And things weren’t any better
to-day. Nice commentary on our boasted “advanced civilization!”
Bob felt as if he were the most-alone man in the world! Why, he was so
lonesome, he wasn’t even acquainted with himself. This was only his
“double” walking here. He knew now what that German poet was driving at
in those _Der Doppleganger_ verses. His “double” was alone. Where was
he?—the real he—the original ego? Hanged if he knew! He looked up at
the moon, but it couldn’t tell him. At the same time, in spite of that
new impersonal relationship he had established toward himself, he felt
he ought to be immensely relieved in one respect. There would be no
“cozy-cornering” for him that evening. He had the whole wide world to
himself. He could be a wandering Jew as well as a _Doppleganger_, if he
wanted to.
He made out now two shadows, or figures, in the moonlight. Mrs. Dan and
Mrs. Clarence were walking and talking together, but somehow he wasn’t
at all curious about them. His mental faculties seemed numbed, as if his
brain were way off somewhere—between the earth and the moon, perhaps.
Then he heard the purring of a car, which seemed way off, too. He saw
Mrs. Dan and Mrs. Clarence get into the car and heard Mrs. Dan murmur
something about the village and the telegraph office, and the car slid
downward. Bob watched its rear light receding this way and that, like a
will-o’-the-wisp, or a lonesome firefly, until it disappeared on the
winding road. A cool breeze touched him without cooling his brow. Bob
threw away a cigar. What’s the use of smoking when you don’t taste the
weed?
He wondered what he should do now? Go to bed, or—? It was too early for
bed. He wouldn’t go to bed at that hour, if he kept to that
even-tenor-of-his-way condition. He hadn’t violated any condition, so
far. Those fellows who had inveigled him into this wild and woolly
moving-picture kind of an impossible freak performance would have to
concede that. There could be no ground for complaint that he wasn’t
living up to the letter and spirit of his agreement, even at the
sacrifice of his most sacred feelings. Yes, by yonder gracious lady of
the glorious moon! He wondered where _his_ gracious lady was now and
what she was doing? Of course, the hammer-thrower was with her.
“Are you meditating on your loneliness, Mr. Bennett?” said a
well-remembered voice. The tones were even and composed. They were also
distantly cold. Bob wheeled. Stars of a starry night! It was she.
* * * * *
She came right up and spoke to him—the pariah—the abhorred of many!
His heart gave a thump and he could feel its hammering as his glowing
eyes met the beautiful icy ones.
“How did you get rid of him?” he breathed hoarsely.
“Him?” said Miss Gwendoline Gerald, in a tone whose stillness should
have warned Bob.
“That sledge-hammer man? That weight-putter? That Olympian village
blacksmith, I mean? The fellow with the open honest face?”
“I don’t believe I understand,” observed the young lady, straight and
proud as a wonderful princess in the moonlight. Bob gazed at her in
rapture. Talk about the shoulders of that girl who had given him the
cold shoulder at the dinner-table!—Miss Gwendoline’s shoulders were a
thousand times superior; they would cause any sculptor to rave. Their
plastic beauty was that of the purest marble in that pure light. And
that pure, perfect face, likewise bathed in the celestial flood of
light—until now, never had he quite realized what he had lost, in
losing her.
“But never mind about explaining,” went on the vision, apropos of Bob’s
Olympian, village-blacksmith remark. “I didn’t come to discuss
generalities.”
“Of course not,” assented Bob eagerly.
The music from the house now sounded suspiciously like a trot. Miss
Gerald saw, though indistinctly, a face look out of the door. It might
have been the little dark thing peering around for Bob, for she was
quite capable of doing that. Bob didn’t notice her—if it were she. He
had eyes for but one. He was worshiping in that distant, eager, hungry,
lost-soul kind of a way. Miss Gerald’s glance returned to Bob.
“Will you be so good as to take a turn or two about the garden with me?”
she said in a calm, if hard and matter-of-fact tone. A number of people
were now approaching from the other end of the broad, partially-enclosed
space and Miss Gerald had observed them.
“Will I?” Bob’s accents expressed more eloquently than words how he felt
about complying with that request. Would a man dying of thirst drink a
goblet of cool, sparkling spring-water? Would a miser refuse gold? Or a
canine a bone? “Will I?” repeated Bob, ecstatically, and threw back his
shoulders. Thus men go forth to conquer. He did not realize how unique
he was at the moment, for he was quite swept away. The girl cast on him
a quick enigmatic glance, then led the way.
Sometimes his eyes turned to the stars and sometimes toward her as they
moved along. In the latter instance, they were almost proprietary, as if
he knew she ought to belong to him, though she never would. The stars
seemed to say she was made for him, the breeze to whisper it. Of course,
he hadn’t really any right to act “proprietary”; it was taking a certain
poetic license with the situation. Once Miss Gerald caught that
proprietary look and into the still depths of her own gaze sprang an
expression of wonder. But it didn’t linger; her eyes became once more
coldly, proudly assured.
Bob didn’t ask whither she was leading him, or what fate had in store
for him. Sufficient unto the present moment was the happiness thereof! A
fool’s paradise is better than no paradise at all. He didn’t stop now to
consider that he might be playing with verity when he hugged to his
breast an illusory joy.
She didn’t talk at first, but he didn’t find anything to complain of in
that. It was blissful enough just to swing along silently at her side.
He didn’t have to bother about the truth-proposition when she didn’t say
anything. He could yield to a quiet unadulterated joy in the stillness.
If denied, temporarily, the music of her voice, he was, at least,
privileged to visualize her, as she walked along the narrow path with
the freedom and grace of a young goddess, or one of Diana’s lithe forest
attendants. The vision, at length, stopped at the verge of a terrace
where stood an Italian-looking little summer-house, or shelter. No one
was in it, and she entered. They wouldn’t be disturbed here.
She leaned on a marble balustrade and for a moment looked down upon the
shadowy tree-tops. The moonlight glinted a rounded white arm. Bob
breathed deep. It was a spot for lovers. But there was still no
love-light in Miss Gerald’s eyes. They met the gaze of Bob, who hadn’t
yet come out of that paradoxical trance, with cold contemplation.
“Do you know what people are beginning to say about you, Mr. Bennett?”
began the vision, with considerable decision in her tones.
“No,” said Bob.
“Some of them are wondering—well, if you are mentally quite all right.”
“Are they?” It was more the silvery sound of her voice than what people
were saying that interested Bob.
“The judge and Mrs. Vanderpool have agreed that you aren’t. People are a
little divided in the matter.”
“Indeed?” observed Bob. Of course if people were “divided,” that would
make it more interesting for them. Give them something to talk about!
“The doctor agrees with the judge and Mrs. Vanderpool, but the bishop
seems inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt,” went on Miss
Gerald, her silvery tones as tranquil and cold as moonlight on the still
surface of an inland sea. “He said something about inherited
eccentricities, probably just beginning to crop out. Or suggested it
might be—well, a pose.”
“Very nice of the bishop!” muttered Bob. “Benefit of the doubt? Quite
so! Fine old chap!”
“Is that all you have to say?” said Miss Gerald, a faint note of scorn
in her voice now. As she spoke she leaned slightly toward him. The
moonlight touched the golden hair.
“Maybe he felt he had to differ,” remarked Bob, intent on the golden
hair (it wasn’t golden out here, of course) and the stars beyond. “He
might not really differ at heart, but he had to seem broad and
charitable. Ecclesiastical obligation, or habit, don’t you see!”
“I don’t quite see,” said the girl, though her bright eyes looked
capable of seeing a great deal.
“No?” murmured Bob. Some of that paradoxical happiness seemed to be
fading from him. He couldn’t hold it; it seemed as elusive as moonshine.
If only she would stand there silently and let him continue to worship
her, like that devout lover in the song—in “distant reverence.” It
wasn’t surely quite consistent for a goddess to be so practical and
matter-of-fact.
“There are others who agree with the doctor and the judge and Mrs.
Vanderpool,” continued the girl.
“You mean about my having a screw loose?”
“Exactly.” Crisply. “And some of them have consulted me.”
“And what did you say?” Quickly.
“I’m afraid I couldn’t enlighten them. I believe I suggested that sun
theory—although it really wasn’t blistering hot to-day, and you,” with
inimitable irony, “look capable of standing a little sunshine.”
“Yes, I feel as if I could stand a whole lot,” said Bob gloomily.
“Also I said,” unmindful of this last remark, “there is sometimes a
method in eccentricity, or madness. Lord Stanfield agreed with me. He
said he found you an ‘interesting young man.’”
“Did he? Confound his impudence!” That monocle-man certainly did ruffle
Bob.
“You forget he’s an old friend of my aunt’s.” Severely. “As I was
saying, Lord Stanfield found you ‘interesting,’ and we agreed there
might be a method,” studying him closely, “but when we came to search
for one, we couldn’t find it.”
She didn’t ask a question, so he didn’t have to reply.
“Mr. Bennett, why did you answer me like that down in the village?”
Bob hung his head. He felt worse than a boy detected stealing apples.
“Had to,” he muttered desperately.
“Why?” There was no mercy in that still pitiless voice.
Bob took another long breath. “Please don’t ask me,” he pleaded after an
ominous pause. That wasn’t not telling the truth; it was only
temporizing.
The violet eyes gleamed dangerously. “I’m just a little bit curious,”
said the girl in the same annihilating tone. “In the light of subsequent
proceedings, you will understand! And as Mrs. Ralston’s niece! Aunt
doesn’t quite realize things yet. The others have spared her feelings. I
haven’t, of course, gone to her. Aunt and I never ‘talk over’ our
guests.” Proudly.
That made Bob wince. He looked at her with quite helpless eyes. “Maybe
she will order me off the premises before long,” he said eagerly. “I
have already been considering the possibility of it. Believe me,”
earnestly, “it would be the best way. Can’t you see
I’m—dangerous—positively dangerous? I’m worse than a socialist—an
anarchist! Why, a Russian nihilist couldn’t make half the trouble in the
world that I can. I’m a regular walking disturber. Disaster follows in
my path.” Bitterly. “Some people look upon me as worse than the black
plague. Now if your aunt would only turn me out? You see I can’t go
unless she does. Got to think of that even-tenor-of-my-way! But if she
would only quietly intimate—or set the dog on me—”
The girl gazed at him more steadily. “I wonder if the judge and the
doctor and Mrs. Vanderpool aren’t right, after all?” she observed
slowly. “Let me look in your eyes, Mr. Bennett.” Bob did. Miss Gerald
had heard that one could always tell crazy people by their eyes. She
intended to sift this matter to the bottom and therefore proceeded with
characteristic directness. Folk that were—well, “off,” she had been
told, invariably showed that they were that, by a peculiar glitter.
Miss Gerald gazed a few moments critically, steadily and with unswerving
intention. Bob withstood that look with mingled wretchedness and
rapture. He began to forget that they were just the eyes of a would-be
expert on a mental matter, and his own eyes, looking deeper and deeper
in those wonderful violet depths (he stood so she got the benefit of the
moonlight) began to gleam with that old, old gleam Miss Gerald could
remember in the past. Bob had never _talked_ love in those blissful days
of yore, but he had looked it.
“I don’t see any signs of insanity,” said the girl at length with cold
assurance. That gleam wasn’t a glitter. Nothing crazy about it! She had
seen it too often in other men’s eyes, as well as in Bob’s—not perhaps
to such a marked degree in other men’s eyes,-but sufficiently so that
she was fairly familiar with it. “You look normal enough to me.”
“Thank you,” said Bob gratefully.
“And that’s just why”—a slight frown on the smooth fine brow—“I don’t
understand. Of course, a man not normal, might have answered as you did
me (I’m not thinking of it as a personal matter, you will understand).”
“Oh, I understand that,” returned Bob. “I’m just a problem, not a
person.” She made him quite realize that. She made it perfectly and
unmistakably apparent that he was, unto her, as some example in
trigonometry, or geometry, or algebra, and she wanted to find the
“solution.” He was an “X”—the unknown quantity. The expression on her
patrician features was entirely scholastic and calculating. Bob now felt
the ardor of his gaze becoming cold as moonlight. This wasn’t a lovers’
bower; it was only a _palestra_, or an observatory.
“You haven’t answered me yet,” she said.
No diverting her from her purpose! She was certainly persistent.
“You insist I shall tell you why I didn’t want to see you?”
She looked at him quickly. “That isn’t what I asked, Mr. Bennett. I
asked you to explain that remark in the village.”
“Same thing!” he murmured. “And it’s rather hard to explain, but if I’ve
got to—?” He looked at her. On her face was the look of proud
unyielding insistence. “Of course, I’ve got to tell you the truth,” said
Bob, and his tone now was dead and dull. “In the first place, dad’s
busted, clean down and out, and—well, I thought I wouldn’t see you any
more.”
“I fail to see the connection.” Her tones were as metallic as a voice
like hers could make them.
“It’s like this!” said Bob, ruffling his hair. Here was a fine romantic
way to make an avowal. “You see I was in love with you,” he observed,
looking the other way and addressing one of the furthermost stars of the
heaven. “And—and—when a fellow’s in love—and he can’t—ah!—well, you
know—ask the girl—you understand?”
“Very vaguely,” said Miss Gerald. Bob’s explanation, so far, was one of
those explanations that didn’t explain. If he had so heroically made up
his mind not to see her, he could have stayed away, of course, from the
Ralston house. He couldn’t explain how he was bound to accept the
invitation to come, on account of being in “honor bound” to that
confounded commodore, et al., to do so. There were bound to be loose
ends to his explanation. Besides, those other awfully unpleasant things
that had happened? He had to tell the truth, but he couldn’t tell why he
was telling the truth. That had been the understanding.
Miss Gerald, at this point, began to display some of those alert and
analytical qualities of mind that had made her father one of the great
railroad men of his day. For an instant she had turned her head slightly
at Bob’s avowal—who shall say why? It may be she had felt the blood
rush swiftly to her face, but if so a moment later she looked at him
with that same icy calm. One hand had tightened on the cold balustrade,
but Bob hadn’t noticed that. She plied him now with a number of
questions. She kept him on the gridiron and while he wriggled and
twisted she stirred up the coals, displaying all the ability of an
expert stoker. He was supersensitive about seeing her and yet as a free
agent (she thought him that) he _had_ seen her. From her point of view,
his mental processes were hopelessly illogical—worse than that. Yet she
knew he was possessed of a tolerable mentality and a good-enough
judgment for one who had in his composition a slight touch of
recklessness.
“I give it up,” she said at length wearily.
“Do you? Oh, thank you!” exclaimed Bob gratefully. “And if your aunt
orders me from the place—”
“But why can’t you just go, if you want to? I’m sure no one will detain
you.” Haughtily.
“Can’t explain, only it’s impossible. Like Prometheus bound to the rock
for vultures to peck at, unless—”
“How intelligible! And what a happy simile—under the circumstances!”
with far-reaching scorn. “What if I should tell my aunt that her guest
compared himself to—?”
“That’s the idea!” returned Bob enthusiastically. “Tell her that! Then,
by jove, she would—Promise me! Please!”
“Of course,” said the girl slowly, “my diagnosis must be wrong.” Or
perhaps she meant that she had lost faith in that glitter-theory.
“If you only _could_ understand!” burst from Bob explosively. It was
nature calling out, protesting against such a weight of anguish.
But Miss Gerald did not respond. A statue could not have appeared more
unaffected and unsympathetic. She had half turned as if to go; then she
changed her mind and lingered. It annoyed her to feel she had been
baffled, for she was a young woman who liked to drive right to the heart
of things. Her father had been called a “czar” in his world, and she had
inherited, with other of his traits, certain imperious qualities. So for
a moment or two she stood thinking.
An automobile from the village went by them and proceeded to the house.
It contained Mrs. Dan and Mrs. Clarence returning from the telegraph
office, but Bob hardly saw it, or was aware who were its occupants. Miss
Gerald absorbed him to the exclusion of all else now. He had no mind for
other storms that might be gathering. Suddenly the girl turned on him
with abrupt swiftness.
CHAPTER VIII—NEW COMPLICATIONS
“Is your father’s embarrassment serious?” she asked.
Bob looked startled. He didn’t like the way she had shifted the
conversation. “Pretty bad,” he answered.
“I believe, though, it’s customary for men on the ‘street’ not to stay
‘downed,’ as they say?”
“Don’t know as it’s an invariable rule,” returned Bob evasively. Then
realizing it wouldn’t do to be evasive: “As a matter of fact, I don’t
believe I’m very well posted as to that,” he added.
“What does your father say?” she asked abruptly.
Bob would much rather not have talked about that with her. But—“Dad
says there is no hope,” he had to say.
Miss Gerald was silent for a moment. As a child she remembered a very
gloomy period in her own father’s career—when the “street” had him
“cornered.” She remembered the funereal atmosphere of the big old
house—the depression on nearly every one’s face—how everything had
seemed permeated with impending tragedy. She remembered how her father
looked at her, a great gloomy ghost of himself with somber burning eyes.
She remembered how seared and seamed his strong and massive face had
become in but a few days. But that was long ago and he had long since
left her for good. The vivid impression, however, of that gloomy period
during her childhood remained with her. It had always haunted her,
though her father had not been “downed” in the end. He had emerged from
the storm stronger than ever.
The girl shot a sidewise look at Bob, standing now with his arms folded
like Hamlet. Perhaps he had come from such a funereal house as she,
herself, so well remembered? Had dad’s trouble, or tragedy, weighed on
him unduly? Had it made him—for the moment—just slightly
irresponsible? Miss Gerald, as has been intimated, had frankly liked Bob
as an outdoor companion, or an indoor one, too, sometimes, for that
matter. He was one of the few men, for example, she would “trot” with.
He could “trot” in an eminently respectful manner, being possessed of an
innate refinement, or chivalry, which certainly seemed good to her,
after some of those other wild Terpsichorean performances of myriad
masculine manikins in the mad world of Milliondom.
“I suppose your father has taken his trouble much to heart?” Miss Gerald
now observed.
“Not a bit.”
“No?” In surprise.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Said he looked to me to keep him in affluence the rest of his days.”
“To you?”
“That’s right.”
“But how?—What are you going to do?”
“Hustle.”
“At what?”
“Don’t know. Got to find out.”
“What did you plan doing, when at college?”
“Nothing.”
“Is it”—Miss Gerald got back to where she had been before—“the sense
of awful responsibility,” with slight sarcasm, “that has turned your
brain?”
“I’m not crazy.”
“No?” She remembered that most people in asylums say that.
“Though I may be in a matter of three weeks,” Bob added, more to himself
than to her.
“Why three weeks?”
“Well, if I don’t—just shouldn’t happen to go crazy during that time,
I’ll be all right, after that.”
“Why do you allow a specified period for your mental deterioration?”
“_I_ didn’t allow it.”
“Who did?”
“Can’t tell you.”
Miss Gerald pondered on this answer. It would seem as if Bob had
“hallucinations,” if nothing worse. He was possessed of the idea, no
doubt, that he would go crazy within three weeks. He didn’t realize that
the “deterioration,” she referred to, might have already begun. He
looked normal enough, though, had the most normal-looking eyes. Could it
be that he was acting? And if he was acting, why was he? That seemed
incomprehensible. Anyhow, it couldn’t be a sense of responsibility that
had “upset” Bob. She became sure of that now. He played a losing game
with too much dash and brilliancy! Hadn’t she seen him at polo—hadn’t
she held her breath and thrilled when he had “sailed in” and with
irresistible vim snatched victory out of defeat? No; Bob wasn’t a
“quitter.”
“So your father looks to you to support him?”
“So he said. The governor’s a bit of a joker though, you know. He may be
only putting up a bluff to try me out.”
“What did he advise you to do?”
Bob shivered. “Matrimonial market.”
“You mean—?”
“Heiress.” Succinctly.
“Any particular one?”
“Dad did mention a name.”
“Not—?” She looked at him.
“Yes.”
An awful pause.
“Now you know why I didn’t want to see you,” said Bob, in that even
fatalistic voice. “First place, I wouldn’t ask you to marry me, if you
were the last girl in the world! Second place, I was afraid if I saw
you, some of these things dad said to try me, would be bound to pop out.
You mustn’t think badly of dad, Miss Gerald. As I’ve said, he didn’t
mean a word of it. He was only sizing me up. Don’t I know that twinkle
in his eye? Just wanted to see if I’m as lazy and good-for-nothing as
some chaps brought up with the silver spoon. Why, he’d—honestly, dad
would just kick me, if I took his advice. Why, if I went back home
to-morrow,” went on Bob, warming to the subject, “and told him we were
engaged”—the girl moved slightly—“and were going to be married right
off”—the girl moved again—“why—why, old as I am, dad would take off
his coat and give me a good trouncing. That’s the kind of a man dad is.
I see it all now.”
He really believed he did—and for the first time. He felt he had solved
the mystery of dad’s manner and conduct. It _had_ been a mystery, but
the solution had come to him like an inspiration. Dad wanted to see
whether he would arise to the occasion. He had told him he didn’t
believe he was worth his salt just to see his backbone stiffen. He had
alluded to that other way of repairing the “busted family credit” just
to observe the effect on Bob. And how dad must have chuckled inwardly at
Bob’s response! Why, they’d almost had a scene, he and good old dad. Bob
could smile at it now—if he could smile at anything. He certainly had
been a numskull. Dad, pulling in fish somewhere, was probably still
chuckling to himself, and wondering how Bob would work out the problem.
“Dad was always just like that when I was a boy,” he confided to Miss
Gerald, now standing more than ever like a marble lady in the moonlight.
“He would propose the contrariest things! Always trying and testing me.
Guess that’s why he acted so happy when he went broke. Thought it would
make a man of me! By jove, that’s it! Why, he was as care-free as a boy
with a new top!”
“Was he, indeed?” said Miss Gerald, studying Mr. Robert Bennett with
eyes that looked very deep now, beneath the imperious brows. “How nice!”
Oh, that tone was distant. It might have been wafted from one who stood
on an iceberg.
“Isn’t it?” Bob heaved a sigh. “I’m not afraid of you any more,” he
said, “now that I’ve got that off my chest.”
Again Miss Gerald shivered slightly, but whether at the slang or not,
was not apparent.
“You can’t frighten me any more,” said Bob.
“But why,” said Miss Gerald, “did you tell me, at all, of dad’s—as you
call him—charming suggestion?”
“Had to. Didn’t you ask me?” In faint surprise. Then he remembered she
didn’t know he _had_ to tell the truth. That made him look rather
foolish—or “imbecile,” in the light of all those other proceedings.
Miss Gerald’s brow contracted once more. Again she might be asking
herself if Master Robert was acting? Was this but gigantic, bombastic,
Quixotic “posing” after all? It was too extraordinary to speak of such
things as he had spoken of, to her! Did he only want to appear
different? Did he seek to combine Apollo with Bernard Shaw in his
attitude toward society? Or had he been reading Chesterton and was he
but striving to present in his own personality a futurist’s effect of
upside-downness? Miss Gerald felt now the way she had at the modernists’
exhibition, when she had gazed and gazed at what was apparently a load
of wood falling down-stairs, and some one had told her to find the lady.
It was about as difficult to-night to find the real Mr. Bennett—the
happy-go-lucky Bob Bennett of last month or last week—as it had been to
find that lady where appeared only chaotic kindling wood.
Miss Gerald let the cool air fan her brow for a few moments. This young
man was, at least, exhilarating. She felt a little dizzy. Meanwhile Bob
looked at her with that sad silly smile.
“You can’t ask me any questions that will disconcert me now,” he
boasted.
Miss Gerald looked at him squarely. “Will you marry me?” she said.
It was a coup. Her father had been capable of just such coups as that.
He would hit the enemy in the most unexpected manner in the most
unexpected quarter, and thus overwhelm his foes. Miss Gerald might not
mean it; she, most likely, only said it. Under the circumstances, to get
at the truth herself, she was justified in saying almost anything. If he
were but posing, she would prick the bubble of his pretense. If those
grandiloquent, and, to her, totally unnecessary protestations didn’t
mean anything, she wished to know it. He would never, never marry
her,—wouldn’t he? Or, possibly, her question was but part of a plan, or
general campaign, on her part, to test his sanity? Six persons—real
competents, too!—had affirmed that he wasn’t “just right.” Be that as
it may, Miss Gerald dropped this bomb in Master Bob’s camp and waited
the effect with mien serene.
Her query worked the expected havoc, all right. Bob’s jaw fell. Then his
eyes began to flash with a new fierce love-light. He couldn’t help it.
Marry her?—Great Scott!—She, asking him, if he would? He felt his
pulses beating faster and the blood pumping in his veins. His arms went
out—very eager, strong, primitive arms they looked—that cave-man kind!
Arms that seize resistless maidens and enfold them, willy-nilly! Miss
Gerald really should have felt much alarmed, especially as there was so
much doubt as to Bob’s sanity. It’s bad enough to be alone with an
ordinary crazy man, but a crazy man who is in love with one? That is
calculated to be a rather unusual and thrilling experience.
However, though Miss Gerald may have entertained a few secret fears and
possible regrets for her own somewhat mad precipitancy, she managed to
maintain a fair semblance of composure. She had the courage to “stand
by” the coup. She was like a tall lily that seems to hold itself
unafraid before the breaking of the tempest. She did not even draw back,
though she threw her head back slightly. And in her eyes was a
challenge. Not a love challenge, though Bob could not discern that! His
own gaze was too blurred.
Miss Gerald suddenly drew in her breath quickly, as one who felt she
would need her courage now. Almost had Bob, in that moment of
forgetfulness, drawn her into his arms and so completed the paradoxical
picture of himself, when the impulse was abruptly arrested. He seemed
suddenly to awaken to a saner comprehension of the requirements of the
moment. His arms fell to his side.
“That’s a joke, of course,” he said hoarsely.
“And if it wasn’t?” she challenged him. There was mockery now in her
eyes, and her figure had relaxed.
“You affirm it isn’t?”
“I said _if_ it wasn’t?”
“I guess you win,” said Bob wearily. These extremes of emotion were
wearing on the system.
“You mean you wouldn’t, even if I had really, actually—?”
“I mean you certainly do know how to ‘even up’ with a chap. When he
doesn’t dare dream of heaven, you suddenly pretend to fling open the
golden gates and invite him to enter.”
“Like St. Peter,” said the girl.
“Ah, you _are_ laughing,” said Bob bitterly, and dropped his head. Her
assurance was regal. “As if it wasn’t hard enough, anyway, to get you
out of my darn-fool head,” he murmured reproachfully.
“Then you reject me?” said the girl, moving toward the entrance. “Good!
I mean, bad! So humiliating to have been rejected! Good night, Mr.
Bennett. No—it isn’t necessary for you to accompany me to the house. I
really couldn’t think of troubling you after your unkind refusal to—”
Bob groaned. “I say, there is always your aunt, you know, who can ask me
to vacate the—” he called out.
“I’ll think about it,” said the lady. A faint perfume was wafted past
him and the vision vanished. Bob sank down on the cold marble seat.
* * * * *
He remained thus for some time, oblivious to the world, when another
car, en route from the village to the house, purred past him, spitting
viciously, however, between purrs. Bob didn’t even look around.
Spit!—spit!—purr!—purr!—Its two lights were like the eyes of some
monster pussy-cat, on the war-path for trouble. Spit!—it seemed in a
horribly vicious mood. More “spits” than “purrs,” now! Then the car
stopped, though it was some distance from the house.
“Curse this old rattletrap!” said a man’s voice.
“Oh, I guess no one’ll pay any attention to it,” spoke another occupant.
“Besides, it was the only one to be had at the station, and we had to
get here quick.”
“You bet! The quicker, the better,” observed a third man.
They all got out, not far from where Bob sat in the dark gazing into a
void, but he did not notice. Cars might come, and cars might go, for all
of him. He was dimly aware of the sound of voices but he had no interest
in guests, newly-arrived or otherwise. One of the trio paid the driver
of the car and it purred back, somewhat less viciously, from whence it
came.
“Better separate when we get near the house and approach it carefully,”
said the first speaker in low tense tones. “We’ve got to get hold of him
without anybody knowing it.”
“That’s right. Wouldn’t do to let _them_”—with significant
accent—“know what we’ve come for,” said the second man. The trio were
quite out of ear-shot of Bob, by now.
“Hope it’ll turn out all right,” spoke the third anxiously. “Why, in
heaven’s name, didn’t we think of this in the first place?”
“Can’t think of every contingency!” answered the first speaker
viciously. “Our plan now is to get hold of one of the servants. A nice
fat tip, and then—Come on! No time to waste!”
As they made their way up the driveway to the house Bob looked drearily
around. His eyes noted and mechanically followed the trio of dark forms.
He saw them stop near the house; then he observed one approach a side
window and peer in. A moment later another approached another window and
peered in.
“That’s funny!” thought Bob, without any particular emotion. At the same
time, he recalled that a band of burglars had been going about, looting
country-houses. Perhaps these fellows were after a few hundred thousand
dollars’ worth of jewels? There might be half a million dollars’ worth
of jewelry sprinkled about among Mrs. Ralston’s guests. But what did it
matter? The presence of these intruders seemed too trifling a matter to
think about now, and Bob sank into another reverie.
How long he remained thus, he did not know. The laughter and talk of a
number of guests, coming out the front way (end of a “trot,” probably)
aroused him and Bob got up.
As he did so, he fancied he saw again the three men he had noticed, then
forgotten, slip around toward the back of the house. Throughout the
gardens, the moonlight made clear spots on the ground where the bright
rays sifted through the foliage or shone down between the trees, and
they had to skip across one of these bright places to get around
somewhere behind the big mansion. Undoubtedly, the appearance from the
house of the guests who wanted to cool off had startled the intruders
and inspired a desire to make themselves less conspicuous for the time
being. Bob entertained a vague impression that the conduct of the trio
was rather crude and amateurish, though that didn’t worry him. He didn’t
care whether they were full-fledged yeggmen of the smoothest class, or
only bungling artists, a discredit to their profession. He dismissed
consideration of them as quickly again as he had done before.
A yawn escaped his lips, and it rather surprised him that a
broken-hearted man could yawn. He looked at his watch, holding it in the
moonlight, and saw that it was late enough now so that he could retire
if he wished, without violating, to any great degree, that
even-tenor-of-his-way clause. Accordingly Bob got up and walked toward
the house. A side door was open and he went in that way and up to his
room. He was glad he didn’t encounter any one—that is, any one he had
to speak to. The monocle-man drifted by him somewhere, but Bob didn’t
have to pay much attention to him. He could imagine the superior way in
which the Britisher had informed Miss Gerald that he found him (Bob) an
“interesting young man.” The monocle-man and the bishop seemed to agree
on that point.
Undressing hastily, Bob flung himself into bed. He had gone through so
much he was tired and scarcely had he touched the sheets when the
welcoming arms of Morpheus claimed him. His sleep was sound—very sound!
In fact, it was so sound that something occurred and he didn’t know it.
It occurred again—several times—and still he did not know it. Another
interval!—a long one! Bob yet slept the sleep of the overwrought. His
fagged brain was trying to readjust itself. He could have slept right
through to the dawn, but this was not to be. Long before the glowing god
made its appearance in the east, Bob was rudely yanked from the arms of
Morpheus.
CHAPTER IX—ANOTHER SURPRISE
Three men were in his room and Bob found himself sitting up in bed and
blinking at them. The lights they had turned on seemed rather bright.
“Hello!” said Bob.
“Hello yourself!” said the commodore in a low but nasty manner. “And not
so loud!”
“Some sleeper, you are!” spoke Dickie in a savage whisper.
“Believe he heard, all right!” came Clarence’s hushed, unamiable tones.
“Perverse beast, and pretended not to!”
Bob hugged his knees with his arms. “You’ve torn your pants,” he
observed to the commodore.
“Never you mind _that_” as guardedly, though no more pleasantly than
before.
“Oh, all right,” said Bob meekly. He didn’t ask any questions, nor did
he exhibit any curiosity. There couldn’t anything happen now that would
make matters much worse. But in that, he was “reckoning without his
host.”
“Got in the window, of course,” he observed in a low unconcerned tone,
as if their coming and being there after midnight was the most natural
occurrence in the world. “Not so hard to get in, with that balcony out
there. All you had to do was to ‘shin up’ and then there’s that trellis
to help. Good strong trellis, too. Regular Jacob’s ladder! Easiest thing
for burglars! Thought you _were_ burglars,” he added contemplatively.
“You mean you saw us?” snapped the commodore, almost forgetting his
caution. His expression matched his tone. He was no longer the jovial
sailorman; he wore now a regular Dick Deadeye look. To Bob’s
comprehensive glance he appeared like a fragment in a revival of
_Pinafore_.
“Oh, I didn’t know it was you,” said Bob.
“Where were you?”
“Summer-house.”
“Think of that,” murmured the commodore, disgustedly. “Bird at hand, and
we didn’t know it. Fool of a bird had to hop away and make us all this
trouble!”
“I told you I thought you were burglars,” observed Bob patiently. He
didn’t care how they abused him or what names they called him.
That disagreeable look on Dan’s face was replaced by a startled one.
“Good gracious, man”—only that wasn’t the expression he used—“I hope
you haven’t told any one you saw burglars prowling around? Nice for us
if you did!” As he spoke he gazed anxiously toward the window, before
which they had taken the precaution to draw a heavy drape after
entering.
“No, I didn’t tell a soul.”
“But—I don’t understand why you didn’t when you thought—?”
“I ought to have spoken, I suppose,” said Bob with a melancholy smile.
“But it didn’t seem very important and—I guess I forgot. These little
jewel robberies are getting to be such commonplace occurrences!”
The commodore stared at him. Then he touched his forehead. “A lot of
trouble you’ve made for us,” he said, speaking in that low tense voice,
while Clarence and Dickie looked on in mad and reproachful fashion.
“Bribed a servant to tell you to slip out! Told him to whisper that we
were waiting in the garden and simply had to see you at once! Didn’t you
hear him rap on your door?”
“No,” answered Bob sorrowfully.
“Heavens, man! believe you’d sleep through an earthquake and cyclone
combined! Servant came back and told us he’d tapped on your door as
loudly as he dared. Was afraid he’d arouse the whole house if he knocked
louder. When you leave a ‘call’ at the hotels, how do they manage? Break
down the door with an ax?”
Bob overlooked the sarcasm. The commodore might have thumped him with an
ax, at the moment, and he wouldn’t have protested very hard. He murmured
a contrite apology.
“Get my telegram?” said the commodore.
“Yes. What _could_ you have been thinking about when you sent it? How
could I leave when I had to stay? Thought you must have been sailing
pretty close in the wind at the yacht club, when you dashed it off!
Could just feel your main-sail fluttering.”
The commodore swore softly but effectively. Clarence and Dickie murmured
something, too. Bob hugged his knees closer. Being so unhappy himself,
he couldn’t but feel a dull sympathy when he saw any one else put out.
“See here,” said the commodore, “what’s the situation? We never dreamed,
of course, that you would come here. Have you been talking with Mrs. Dan
and Mrs. Clarence? Dickie’s been conjuring all kinds of awful things you
might have told them, if they cornered you and you got that
truth-telling stunt going. Dickie’s got an imagination. Too confounded
much imagination!” Here the commodore wiped his brow. That was quite a
bad tear in his pants but he appeared oblivious to it. “Maybe you would
have thought it a capital way to turn the tables on us poor chaps?” he
went on, stabbing Bob with a baleful look. “Perhaps you came here on
purpose?”
“No,” said Bob, “I couldn’t have done that, of course, owing to the
conditions.” And he related what had happened to bring him there.
Dan groaned. “Why, it was we, ourselves, who steered him right up
against her at the Waldorf. It was we who got him asked down here. I
suppose you’ve been chuckling ever since you came?” Turning on Bob, with
a correct imitation of Mr. Deadeye, at his grouchiest moment.
“No,” said Bob, speaking to immeasurable distance, “I haven’t done any
chuckling since I came here. Nary a chuckle!”
“Let’s get down to brass tacks,” interrupted Dickie, “and learn if our
worst apprehensions are realized. There’s a girl down here I think a lot
of and I’d like to know if, by any chance, any conversation you may have
had with her turned on me. I allude to Miss Dolly—”
“Hold on,” said the commodore. “That’s not very important. Suppose she
should have found out a few things about you? You aren’t married. It’s
different in the case of married men, like Clarence and me here. We’ll
dismiss Miss Dolly, if you please, for the present—”
“I really haven’t said anything to Miss Dolly about you,” said Bob to
Dickie. “Your name hasn’t been mentioned between us.” He was glad he
could reassure one of them, at least. He wouldn’t have had Dickie so
sorrowful as himself for the world.
That young man looked immensely relieved. It may be he experienced new
hope of leading the temperamental young thing to the altar, and
incidentally consummating a consolidation of competing chimneys,
conveniently contiguous. “Thanks, old chap,” he said, and shook Bob’s
hand heartily.
“But what about us?” whispered the commodore sibilantly. “Have you
talked with Mrs. Clarence or Mrs. Dan to any great extent?”
“I haven’t had hardly a word with Mrs. Clarence,” answered Bob,
whereupon Clarence began to “throw out his chest,” the way Dickie had
done.
The commodore shifted uneasily, seeming to find difficulty in continuing
the conversation. He moved back and forth once or twice, but realizing
he was making a slight noise, stood still again, and looked down at Bob.
“Talk much with Mrs. Dan?” he at length asked nervously.
“I did have a little conversation with Mrs. Dan,” Bob was forced to
reply. “Or, I should say, to be strictly truthful, rather a long
conversation. You see, I took her in to dinner.”
The commodore showed signs of weakness. He seemed to have very
indecisive legs all of a sudden. “Talk about me?” he managed to
ejaculate.
“Some. I’m not certain just how much.”
“What—what was said?”
“I can’t remember all. It’s very confused. I’ve had a lot of
conversations, you see, and most of them awfully unpleasant. I remember,
though, that Mrs. Dan impressed me as a very broad-minded lady. Said she
had lived in Paris, and was not a bit jealous.”
“What!” Dan was breathing hard.
“Said she always wanted you to have the best kind of a time.”
“Did she say that?” asked the commodore. “And you believed it? Go on.”
In a choked voice. “Did you tell her about that cabaret evening?”
“I believe it was mentioned, incidentally.”
“Say _I_ was there?” put in Clarence quickly. He was losing that
“chestiness.”
“I rather think I did. I—what is that?” Bob looked toward the window.
There was a sound below at the foot of the balcony. Some one turned out
the light in the room and Bob strode to the window and looked out. “It’s
a dog,” he said. “He’s snuffing around at the foot.”
“He’s doing more than snuffing,” observed the commodore apprehensively,
as at that moment a bark smote the air. They stood motionless and
silent. The dog stopped barking, but went on snuffing. Maybe it would go
away after a moment, and they waited. Dickie and the commodore had
thrashed out that question of dogs. With so many guests around, they had
figured that, of course, they would be dog-safe. Didn’t they look like
guests? How could a dog tell the difference between them and a guest? It
is true, they hadn’t been expecting so much trouble as they had been put
to, to find Bob. They had, in that little balcony-climbing feat, rather
exceeded what they had expected to be called on to do. In their
impatience, they had acted somewhat impetuously, but it had looked just
as easy, after the servant had pointed out the room and told them Bob
was in, as certain sounds from his bed indubitably indicated.
They couldn’t very well enter the house as self-invited guests, though
they, of course, would have been made welcome. They couldn’t very well
say they had all changed their minds about those original invitations
which had naturally included husbands as well as wives. After all three
had declined to come on account of business, it would certainly look
like collusion, if all three found they hadn’t had urgent business, at
all, in town. If anything untoward or disastrous had happened in the
conversational line, with Bob as the Demon God, Truth, their sudden
entrance upon the stage of festivities, would seem to partake of inner
perturbation; it might even appear to be a united and concentrated case
of triple guilty conscience. This, obviously, must be avoided at any
cost. How they had heard Bob was here at the Ralston house, matters not.
Naturally they had kept tab on his movements, where he went and what he
did being of some moment to them.
The dog barked again. Thereupon, a window opened and they knew that some
one had been aroused.
“He’s looking out. It’s the monocle-chap,” whispered Bob.
“Who’s he?”
“One of Mrs. Ralston’s importations. Belonged to that Anglo-English
colony when she did that little emigration act in dear old London.”
“Hang it, we’ve got to get out,” whispered the commodore nervously. No
matter what had been said; no matter what the Demon God of Truth had
done, it was incumbent on them not to remain longer, with that dog
looking up toward Bob’s window and making that spasmodic racket. Some
one might get up and go out and see footprints, or a disturbed trellis.
The commodore forgot a certain desperate business proposition, apropos
of that confounded wager, he had come to put to Bob. That infernal dog
got on his nerves and put that other matter, which would settle this
truth-telling stunt at once, right out of his mind.
It was all very well, however, to say they “had to get out,” but it was
another matter to tell how they were going to do it. They couldn’t
descend the way they had come, and meet doggie. Bob arose to the
occasion.
“I can let you into the hall and show you downstairs, to that side door
on the other side of the house. You can take one of my golf sticks, just
as a safeguard, but I think you’ll be able to circumvent the jolly
little barker without being obliged to use it.”
“What kind of a dog is it?” whispered the commodore who had a pronounced
aversion to canines.
“Looked like a smallish dog. Might be a bull.”
“Better give us each a club,” suggested Clarence in a weak voice.
Which Bob did. The dog renewed the vocal performance, and— “Hurry,”
whispered the commodore. “Find means to communicate with you to-morrow,
Mr. Bennett.” Bob didn’t resent the formality of this designation, which
implied to what depths he had fallen in good old Dan’s estimation. “Can
we get down-stairs without any one hearing us?”
Bob thought they could. Anyhow, they would have to try, so he opened the
door softly and led the way. Fortunately, the house was solidly built
and not creaky. They attained down-stairs safely, and at last reached
the side door without causing any disturbance. Bob unfastened the door,
the key turned noiselessly and they looked out. There was no sign of any
living thing on lawn or garden on this side of the house.
“Out you go quickly,” murmured Bob, glancing apprehensively over his
shoulder. His position was not a particularly agreeable one. Suppose one
of the servants, on an investigating tour as to the cause of doggie’s
perturbation, should chance upon him (Bob) showing three men out of the
house in that secret manner at this time of night?
But before disappearing into the night, the commodore took time to
whisper: “Was Gee-gee’s name mentioned?”
“I fear so,” said Bob sadly.
The commodore wasted another second or two to tell Bob fiercely what he
thought of him and how they would “fix” him on the morrow, after which
he sprang out and darted away like a rabbit.
Bob wanted to call out that they were welcome to “fix” him, but he was
afraid that others beside Dan might hear him, so he closed and locked
the door carefully and stood there alone in the great hall, in his
dressing-gown. Then he sat down in a dark corner and listened. Better
wait until all was quiet, he told himself, before retracing his steps to
his room. The dog seemed to have stopped barking altogether now and soon
any persons it might have awakened would be asleep again. His trio of
visitors must be well on their way to the village by this time, he
thought. He was sorry the commodore seemed to feel so bad. And
Clarence?—poor Clarence! That last look of his haunted Bob. Anyhow, he
was pleased Dickie had, so far, escaped his (Bob’s) devastating touch.
How long he sat there he did not know. Probably only a few moments. A
big clock ticked near by, which was the only sound now to be heard.
Suddenly it occurred to him that he had better return to his room, and
wearily he arose. Up-stairs it seemed darker than it had been when he
had left his room. He had the dim lights in the great hall below to
guide him then. Now it was a little more difficult. However, after
traversing without mishap a few gloomy corridors—he realized what a big
house it really was—he reached, at last, his room near the end of one
of the upper halls and entered.
He had a vague idea he had left his door partly ajar, but he wasn’t
sure; probably he hadn’t, for it was now closed; or maybe a draft of air
had closed it. Groping his way in the dark for his bed, he ran against a
chair. This ruffled his temper somewhat as the sharp edge had come in
contact with that sensitive part of the anatomy, known as the shin-bone.
He felt for his bed, but it wasn’t there where it ought to be. He must
have got turned around coming in. His fingers ran over a dresser. Some
of the articles on it seemed strange to him. He thought he heard a
rustle and stood still, with senses alert, experiencing a regular
burglar-feeling at the moment. He hadn’t become so ossified to emotion
as he had supposed. But everything was now as silent as the grave. Again
his hand swept out, to learn where he was, and again his fingers swept
over the dresser. What were all those confounded things? He didn’t know
he had left so much loose junk lying around. And where was that
confounded switch-button?
At that moment some one else found it, for the room became suddenly
flooded with light. Bob started back, and as he did so, something fell
from the dresser to the floor. He stared toward the bed in amazement and
horror. Some one, with the clothes drawn up about her, was sitting up.
Bob wasn’t the only one who had a surprise that night. The
temperamental, little dark thing was treated to one, too. Above the
white counterpane, she stared at Bob.
CHAPTER X—INTO BONDAGE
She continued to stare for some moments, while he stood frozen to the
spot. Then the young lady’s face changed. Fear, startled wonder, gave
way to an expression of growing comprehension and into her eyes came
such an excited look.
“You!” said Miss Dolly in a thrilling whisper. And then—“Pick it up,
please.”
Instead of picking anything up—he didn’t know what—Bob was about to
rush for the door, when— “Stop! Or I’ll scream,” exclaimed Miss Dolly.
“I’ll scream so loud I’ll wake every one in the house.”
Bob stopped. In his eyes was an agony of contrition and shame. Miss
Dolly, however, seemed quite self-possessed. She might have been
frightened at first, but she was no longer that. Her temperamental,
somewhat childish face wore a thrill of pleasurable anticipation. “Now
pick it up,” she repeated.
“What?” stammered Bob in a shrinking voice.
“The brooch, to be sure. Didn’t you drop it?”
“I?” said Bob, drawing his dressing-gown closer about him. They were
speaking in stage whispers.
“Of course. Wasn’t it what you came for?”
“Came for? Great heavens!—Do you think?—”
“Think?” said Miss Dolly. “I know.”
Bob looked at her. Her face appeared elf-like, uncannily wise. But for
all her outward calm, her eyes were great big, excited eyes. His
horrified glance turned quickly from them to regard a gleaming diamond
and pearl brooch on the rug. “Jumping Je-hoshaphat! You don’t think
I’m—”
“One of those thrilling society-highwaymen, or social buccaneers?” said
Miss Dolly. “Of course, and I’m so glad it happened like this. I
wouldn’t have missed it for the world. Really, I’ve always wanted to
meet one of those popular heroes. And now to think my dream has come
true! It’s just like a play, isn’t it?”
“It is not,” replied Bob savagely. This was too much. It was just about
the last straw. “I—” Then he stopped. Suppose any one should hear him?
Miss Dolly’s temperamental and comprehensive eyes read his thought.
“I don’t think there’s any danger,” she purred soothingly. “You see
there’s a bathroom on one side of the room and a brick wall on the
other. I wouldn’t be surprised if all the rooms are separated by brick
partitions,” she confided to him. “Mrs. Ralston likes everything
perfect—sound-proof, fire-proof, and all that.”
“See here,” said Bob. “I was just wandering around—couldn’t
sleep—and—and I came in here, quite by mistake. Thought it was my own
room!” With some vehemence.
Miss Dolly shook her head reprovingly, and her temperamental hair flowed
all about her over the white counterpane. She knew it must look very
becoming, it was such wonderful hair—that is, for dark hair. Bob
preferred light. Not that he was thinking of hair, now! “Can’t you do
better than that?” asked the temperamental young thing.
“Better than what?” queried Bob ill-naturedly. He was beginning to feel
real snappy.
“Invent a better whopper, I mean?”
“It isn’t a whopper, and—and I positively refuse to stay here any
longer. Positively!”
“Oh, no; not positively,” said Miss Dolly, nodding a wise young head.
“You’re going to stay, unless—you know the alternative. Since I’m
destined to be a heroine, I want a regular play-scene. I don’t want my
part cut down to nothing. Don’t you love thief-plays, Mr. Bennett? It’s
such fun to see people running around, not knowing who _is_ the thief.
I’m sure I feel quite privileged, in this instance.”
Bob growled beneath his breath. He was handsome enough certainly for a
matinee hero. He was tall and lithe and had such clean-cut features. The
temperamental young thing regarded him with thrilling approval. He
entirely realized her ideal of a social burglar. It seemed almost too
good to be true.
“I knew you were different from other men,” she said. “Something told me
from the very first; perhaps it was the way you tangoed. I expected you
would ask me to trot, but you didn’t.” Reprovingly. “Suppose you were
otherwise engaged?” Glancing toward the brooch.
“Not the way you think!” said Bob gloomily, looking more striking than
ever in that melancholy pose. It seemed to harmonize with a
crime-stained career.
“Of course,” murmured Dolly, “it was you who got Mrs. Templeton
Blenfield’s wonderful emeralds?”
“It was not,” answered Bob curtly.
“You were at that costume ball where she lost them?”
“Suppose I was?” he snapped. Yes, snapped! There is a limit to human
endurance.
“And you were at Mrs. Benton Briscoe’s when a tiara mysteriously
disappeared?”
“Well, I’m hanged!” said Bob, staring at her.
“Oh, I hope not—that is, I hope you won’t be, some day,” answered
Dolly. “Are you going to ‘fess up?’ You’d better. Maybe I won’t betray
you—yet. Maybe I won’t at all, if you’re real nice.”
“Oh!” said Bob. Whereupon she smiled at him sweetly, just as if to say
it was nice and exciting to have a great, big, bold (and wildly
handsome) society-highwayman in her power. Why, she could send him to
jail, if she wanted to. She had but to lift a little finger and he would
have to jump. The consciousness of guilty knowledge and power she
possessed made her glow all over. She didn’t really know though, yet,
whether she would be kind or severe.
“Do you operate alone, or with accomplices?” she asked, after a few
moments’ pleasurable anticipations.
“I beg pardon?” Bob was again gazing uneasily toward the door.
“Got any pals?” She tried to talk the way they do in the thief-books.
“No, I haven’t,” snapped Bob. That truth pact made it necessary to
answer the most silly questions.
“Well, I didn’t know but you had,” murmured the temperamental young
thing. “I heard a dog barking and that made me think you might have
them. You’re sure you didn’t let anybody into the house?”
“I didn’t.”
Miss Dolly snuggled herself together more cozily. She seemed about to
ask some more questions. Perhaps she would want to know if he had let
anybody out, and then he would have to tell her—
“Look here,” said Bob desperately. “Maybe it hasn’t occurred to you,
but—this—this isn’t exactly proper. Me here, like this, and you—”
“Oh, I’m not afraid,” answered Miss Dolly with wonderful assurance. “I
can quite take care of myself.”
“But—but—” more desperately—“if I should be discovered?—Can’t you
see, for your own sake—?”
“My own sake?” The big innocent eyes opened wider. “In that case, of
course, I’d tell them the truth.”
“The truth!” How he hated the word! “You mean that I—?” Glancing toward
the brooch.
“Of course!” Tranquilly.
Bob tried to consider. He could see what would happen to him, if they
were interrupted. It certainly was a most preposterous conversation,
anyhow. Besides, it wasn’t the place or the time for a conversation of
any kind. He had just about made up his mind that he would go, whether
she screamed or not, and take the consequences, however disagreeable
they might be, when—
“Well, trot along,” said Miss Dolly graciously. “I suppose you’ve got a
lot of work to do to-night and it’s rather unkind to detain you. Only
pick up the brooch before you go.” He obeyed. “Now put it on the dresser
and leave it there. Hard to do that, isn’t it?”
“No, it isn’t.” Savagely.
“Well, you can go now. By the way, Mrs. Vanderpool has a big
bronze-colored diamond surrounded by wonderful pink pearls. It’s an
antique and—would adorn a connoisseur’s collection.”
“But I tell you I am not—”
“My! How stupid, to keep on saying that! But, of course, you must really
be very clever. Society-highwaymen always are. Good night. So glad I was
thinking of something else and forgot to lock the door!”
Bob went to the door and she considerately waited until he had reached
it; then she put out a hand and pushed a convenient button which shut
off the light. Bob opened the door but closed it quickly again. He
fancied he saw some one out there in the hall, a shadowy form in the
distance, but was not absolutely sure.
“Aren’t you gone?” said the temperamental young thing.
“S-sh!” said Bob.
For some moments there was silence, thrilling enough, even for her. Then
Bob gently opened the door once more, though very slightly, and peered
out of the tiniest crack, but he failed to see any one now, so concluded
he must have been mistaken. The shadows were most deceptive. Anyhow,
there was more danger in staying than in going, so he slid out and
closed the door. At the same moment he heard a very faint click. It
seemed to come from the other side of the hall. He didn’t like that, he
told himself, and waited to make sure no one was about. The ensuing
silence reassured him somewhat; and the “click,” he argued, might have
come from the door he himself had closed.
The temperamental young thing, holding her breath, heard him now move
softly but swiftly away. She listened, nothing happened. Then she
stretched her young form luxuriously and pondered on the delirious
secret that was all hers. A secret that made Bob her slave! Abjectly her
slave! Like the servant of the lamp! She could compel him to turn
somersaults if she wanted to.
Bob awoke with a slight headache, which, however, didn’t surprise him
any. He only wondered his head didn’t ache more. People came down to
breakfast almost any time, and sometimes they didn’t come down at all
but sipped coffee in their rooms, continental-fashion. It was late when
Bob got up, so a goodly number of the guests—the exceptions including
Mrs. Dan and Mrs. Clarence—were down by the time he sauntered into the
big sun-room, where breakfast was served to all with American appetites.
The temperamental little thing managed accidentally (?) to encounter him
at the doorway before he got into the room with the others. He shivered
slightly when he saw her, though she looked most attractive in her
rather bizarre way. Bob gazed beyond her, however, to a vision in the
window. “Vision!” That just described what Miss Gwendoline looked like,
with the sunlight on her and making an aureole of her glorious fair
hair. Of course one could put an adjective or two, before the
“vision”—such as “beautiful,” or something even stronger—without being
accused of extravagance.
The little dark thing, uttering some platitude, followed Bob’s look, but
she didn’t appear jealous. She hadn’t quite decided how much latitude to
give Bob. That young gentleman noticed that the hammer-thrower, looking
like one of those stalwart, masculine tea-passers in an English novel,
was not far from Miss Gwendoline. His big fingers could apparently
handle delicate china as well as mighty iron balls or sledges. He
comported himself as if his college education had included a course at
Tuller’s in Oxford Street, in London, where six-foot guardsmen are
taught to maneuver among spindle-legged tables and to perform almost
impossible feats without damage to crockery.
Miss Dolly now maneuvered so as to draw Bob aside in the hall to have a
word or two before he got to bacon and eggs. What she said didn’t
improve his appetite.
“I’m so disappointed in you,” she began in a low voice.
He asked why, though not because he really cared to know.
“After that hint of mine!” she explained reproachfully. “About Mrs.
Vanderpool’s bronze diamond, I mean!”
“I fear I do not understand you,” said Bob coldly.
She bent nearer. “Of course I thought it would disappear,” she murmured.
“I expected you to execute one of those clever coups, and so I went
purposely to Mrs. Vanderpool’s room on some pretext this morning to
learn if it was gone. But it wasn’t. I cleverly led the conversation up
to it and she showed it to me.”
“Great Scott!” he exclaimed. “Did you think she wouldn’t have it to show
you? That it had found its way to my pockets?”
“Of course,” she answered. “And you _are_ quite sure you haven’t it,
after all?” she asked suspiciously.
“How could I, when you saw—”
“Oh, you might have substituted a counterfeit brooch just like it for—”
Bob groaned. “You certainly have absorbed those plays,” he remarked.
“I expected a whole lot of things would be gone,” she went on, “and,
apparently,” with disappointment, “no one has missed anything. It’s
quite tame. Did you get discouraged because you failed to land the
‘loot’—is that the word?—in my case? And did you then just go
prosaically to bed?”
“I certainly went to bed, though there was nothing prosaic about the
procedure.”
“And yet what a dull night it must have been for you!”
“I shouldn’t call it that.”
“No?” She shifted the conversation. “Who do you suppose has come? Dickie
Donnelly. Said he had arrived in town on some business and took
advantage of the opportunity to make a little call on me. Incidentally,
he seems interested in you. Said he would make it a point to see you
after you got down. He’s out on the veranda smoking now, I guess. He
wanted to talk to me but I made an excuse to shoo him away. He isn’t
half so exciting as you are, you know. I’m quite positive now I couldn’t
marry him and annex his old chimneys to ours, for all the world.
Chimneys are such commonplace means to a livelihood, Mr. Bennett, don’t
you think? They are so ugly and dependable. Not at all romantic and
precarious! They just smoke and you get richer. There isn’t a single
thrill in a whole forest of chimneys. But I mustn’t really keep you from
your breakfast any longer,” she added with sudden sedulousness. “I’ve
quite planned what we’re going to do to-day.”
“You have?” With a slight accent on the first word.
“Yes,” she assured him quietly. “So run along now.”
The slave, glad to get away, started to obey, when—“One moment!” said
Miss Dolly as if seized with an afterthought. “Dickie asked about you so
particularly that it occurred to me that— Well, do you think he harbors
any suspicions?”
“Suspicions?”
“Yes; do you imagine he, too, by any chance, may have guessed—you
know?” And Dolly again drew closer, her eyes beaming with new
excitement.
Bob looked disagreeable, but he had to reply. “I’m sure he doesn’t think
what you do,” he answered ill-humoredly.
Dolly looked relieved, but still slightly dubious. She didn’t appear to
notice that lack of appreciation in Bob’s manner for her interest in his
welfare. “Well, you’d better see him,” she said in the tone of one who
had already established herself to the post of secret adviser. “He’s
bent on an interview with you. Says it’s business. And speaking about
business, what business could he possibly have in that dinky little
town? Unless he wanted to buy the whole village! His conduct is, to say
the least, slightly mysterious. Dickie may prove a factor to be reckoned
with.”
“That’s true enough,” assented Bob, and went in to breakfast.
The temperamental little thing gazed after him approvingly; she quite
gloried in her big burglar. It was so nice to know something no one else
knew, to be a little wiser than all the rest of the world, including the
police and the detective force! Bob must be terribly resourceful and
subtle, to have deceived them all so thoroughly. He only seemed a little
dense at times, just to keep up the deception. It was a part of the
role. He wouldn’t even let her, who knew his secret, see under the
surface and she liked him all the better for his reticence. It lent
piquancy to the situation and added zest to the game. Dickie’s manner
had certainly seemed to her unduly sober. He appeared to have something
on his mind, though of course he was awfully eager and joyous about
seeing her.
At the breakfast-table Bob only dallied with his hot rolls and took but
a few gulps of coffee. The monocle-man who sat near by noticed that want
of appetite.
“Don’t seem very keen for your feed this morning,” he observed
jocularly.
“No, not over-peckish,” answered Bob.
“Why not? You look—aw—fit enough!” Reaching for one of those racks for
unbuttered toast which Mrs. Ralston had brought home with her from
London.
“Headache, for one thing,” returned Bob. It was the truth, or part of
the truth. No one looked sympathetic, however. In fact, with the
exception of the monocle-man (Mrs. Ralston hadn’t yet come down), every
one in there made it apparent he or she desired as little as possible of
Mr. Bennett’s society. Bob soon got up, casting a last bitter glance at
Miss Gerald who seemed quite contented with her stalwart, honest-looking
hammer-thrower. And why not? His character, Bob reflected, was
unimpeachable. He looked so good and honest and so utterly wholesome
that Bob, who himself was tainted with suspicion, wanted to get out of
his presence. So Bob went out to the porch, to hunt up Dickie and
ascertain what was the matter with him?
It didn’t take Bob long to learn what was worrying Dickie. He was
carrying the weight of a new and tremendous responsibility. He had now
become an emissary, a friend in need, to Clarence and the commodore, who
certainly needed one at this moment. It seemed that Mrs. Clarence and
Mrs. Dan had set detectives searching for Gee-gee and Gid-up and they
had succeeded in locating one of the pair, partly by a freckle and a
turned-up nose. The detectives must have worked fast. They were assisted
by the fact that foolish Clarence had kept up an innocent and Platonic
friendship with “Gee-gee’s” chum, after that momentous evening when Bob
had been along. Now when a young man begins to hang around the vicinity
of a stage door in a big car, he is apt to make himself a subject for
remark and to become known, especially to the door-keeper who takes a
fatherly interest in his Shetland herd. As Gid-up and Gee-gee were
inseparable, it was but a step to place one by the other.
Detectives, Dickie informed Bob, had already interviewed the ladies.
They may have offered them money in exchange for information. Mrs. Dan
was very rich in her own name. She could outbid the commodore. Gid-up
might hesitate or refuse to supply or manufacture information for filthy
lucre, but Gee-gee was known to be ambitious. She longed to soar. And
here was a means to that end. Quite a legitimate and customary one!
“Why, that girl would do anything to get herself talked about,” said
Dickie sadly, thinking of Dan, and incidentally, too, of Clarence.
“She’d manufacture information by the car-load. Out of a little,
teeny-weeny remnant of truth, she’d build a magnificent divorce case.
Think of the glorious publicity! Why, Gee-gee and one of the
manager-chaps would sit up nights to see how many columns they could
fill each day in the press. They’d make poor old Dan out worse than
Nero. They’d picture him as a monster. They’d give him claws. And
Clarence would come crawling after him like a slimy snake. Incidentally,
they’d throw in a few weeps for Gee-gee. And then some more for Gid-up!
Why, man, when I think of the mischief you’ve done—”
“Me?” said Bob miserably, almost overwhelmed by this pathetic picture
Dickie had drawn. “But it wasn’t! It was Truth.” Dickie snorted. “What
do you want me to do? Commit suicide? Annihilate truth? That would be
one way of doing it. I’m sure I shouldn’t much mind. Shall I poison
Truth or blow its brains out? Or shall I take it down to the lake and
jump in with it? Do you think it has made _me_ very happy? What am I?
What have I become? Where is my good name?” He was thinking of what the
temperamental little thing considered him. “Say, do I look like a
criminal?” he demanded, confronting Dickie. The latter stared, then
shrugged. Of course, if Bob wanted to rave—? “Or a crazy man? Do I look
crazy?” he continued almost fiercely. “Well, there are people in there,”
indicating the house, “who think I am.” Dickie started slightly and
looked thoughtful. “You ask the judge, or the doctor, or—a lot of
others. Ask Miss Gwendoline Gerald,” he concluded bitterly.
Dickie shifted a leg. “It might not be a bad idea,” he said in a
peculiar tone, whose accent Bob didn’t notice, however. For some moments
the two young men sat moodily and silently side by side.
“Where are Dan and Clarence now?” asked Bob in a dull tone, after a
while.
“Gone to New York. Hustled there early this morning after some hurry-up
messages gave an inkling of what was going on. I’m to do my best at this
end. Keep my eyes on Mrs. Dan and Mrs. Clarence, and incidentally, learn
and do what I can.”
As he spoke Dickie tapped his leg with his cane; at the same time he
bestowed another of those peculiar looks on Bob. Just then a young lady
stepped from the house and came toward them. She was in the trimmest
attire—for shooting or fishing—and looked extraordinarily trim,
herself. A footman followed with two light rods and a basket.
“Come on,” she said lightly to Bob. “Might as well get started. It’s
almost noon.”
“Started?” he stammered, staring at her.
“Yes, on that fishing excursion we planned.”
“We?” he repeated in the same tone. And then— “All right!” he said. It
occurred to him, if he went off somewhere alone, with the temperamental
young thing, he wouldn’t, at any rate, have to bob against a score or so
of other people throughout the day. Better one than a crowd! “I’m
ready,” he added, taking the rods and small basket.
“But, I say—” Dickie had arisen. There was a new look in his eyes—of
disappointment, surprise—perhaps apprehension, too! “I say—” he
repeated, looking darkly toward Bob.
The temperamental young thing threw him a smile. “Sorry, Dickie, but a
previous engagement.—You know how it is!”
“I can imagine,” thought Dickie ominously, watching them disappear. Then
his glance shifted viciously toward the house, and there was a look of
stern determination in his eyes. As he mingled with others of the guests
a few moments later, however, his expression had become one of studied
amiability. Dickie was deep. His grievance now was as great as Dan’s or
Clarence’s.
CHAPTER XI—FISHING
They had an afternoon of it, Bob and Dolly. Bob made himself useful, if
not agreeable. He was a willing though not altogether cheerful slave.
But the girl did not appear to mind that. She had spirits enough for
both of them and ordered Bob around royally. She was nice to him, but
she wanted him to know that he was her property, as much hers as if she
had bought him at one of those old human auction sales. Only hers was a
white slave!
She had the grandest time. She made him help her across the stream on a
number of unnecessary occasions, holding the slave’s hand, so that she
wouldn’t slip on the slippery stones. And once she had him carry her
across. She had to, because there weren’t any stones, slippery or
otherwise, she could avail herself of, at that particular spot. It is
true she might have gone on a little farther and found some slippery
stones that would have served her purpose, but she pretended not to know
about them. Besides, what is the use of being a despot and having a
private slave, all to yourself, if you don’t use him and make him work?
Mr. Bennett wasn’t only a slave either, he was a romantic hero, as well,
and in the books, heroes always carry the heroines across streams. Miss
Dolly experienced a real bookish feeling when Bob carried her. He fully
realized the popular ideal, he had such strong arms. True, he didn’t
breathe on her neck, or in her ear, and he grasped her rather gingerly,
but she found no fault over that. Her great big hero was a modest hero.
But he was very manly and masculine, too.
He had plunged right in the stream, shoes and all, in spite of her
suggestion that he had better take them off. But what cared he for wet
feet? Might cause pneumonia, of course; but pneumonia had no terrors for
Bob! She smiled at his precipitancy, while secretly approving of it. The
act partook of a large gallantry. It reminded her of Sir Walter Raleigh
and that cloak episode. Miss Dolly nestled very cozily, en route, with a
warm young arm flung carelessly over a broad masculine shoulder and her
eyes were dreamy, the way heroines’ eyes are in the books. She was not
thinking of chimneys.
On the other side, she sat down, and imperiously—mistresses of slaves
are always imperious—bade him take off her shoes. It was doubly
exciting to vary the role of heroine with that of capricious
slave-mistress. Of course, she might just as well have taken off her
shoes on the other side and walked over but she never dreamed of doing
that. After the slave had taken off her shoes, she herself removed her
stockings, while the slave (seemingly cold and impassive as Angelo’s
marble Greek slave) looked away. Then she dabbled her tiny white feet in
the cold stream. She was thinking of that Undine heroine. Dabbling her
feet, also made her feel bookish. Only in the books the heroes (or
slaves) gaze adoringly at said feet. Hers were worth gazing at, but Bob
didn’t seem to have eyes. Never mind! She told herself she liked that
cold Anglo-Saxon phlegm (what an ugly word!) in a man. She saw in it a
foil to her own temperamental disposition.
Having dabbled briefly, she held out a tiny foot and the slave dried it
with his handkerchief, looking very handsome as he knelt before her.
Then she put out the other and he repeated the operation. Then she put
on her shoes and stockings. Then she remembered they had come ostensibly
to fish and began whipping the stream spasmodically, while he did the
same mechanically. They caught one or two speckled beauties, or Bob did.
She couldn’t land hers. They always got tangled in something which she
thought very cute of them. She didn’t feel annoyed at all when they got
away, but just laughed as if it were the best kind of a joke, while Bob
looked at her amazed. She called _that_“sport.”
Then she made him build a “cunning little fire” on a rock and clean the
fish and cook them and set them before her. She graciously let him sit
by her side and partake of a few overdone titbits and a sandwich or two
they had brought in the basket. But she also made him jump up every once
in a while to do something, finding plenty of pretexts to keep him busy.
In fact, she had never been more waited upon in her life, which was just
what she wanted. Bob, however, didn’t complain, for the minutes and
hours went by and she asked no embarrassing questions. She didn’t make
herself disagreeable in that respect, and as long as she didn’t, he
didn’t mind helping her over rocks, or toting her. At least, this was a
respite. His headache wasn’t quite so bad; the fresh air seemed to have
helped it.
As for her thinking him one of those high-class society-burglars, or
social buccaneers, it didn’t so much matter to him, after all. He was
getting rather accustomed to the idea. Of course, she would be terribly
disappointed if she ever found out he wasn’t one, but there didn’t seem
much chance of his ever clearing himself, in her mind, of that unjust
suspicion. At least, he reflected moodily, he was capable of making one
person in the world not positively miserable. Last night when he had
parted from Dickie, he had found a small grain of the same kind of
comfort, in the fact the he (or truth) had not harmed Dickie. But to-day
Dickie had appeared saddened by Dan’s and Clarence’s troubles. Then,
too, Bob had been obliged to walk off, right in front of Dickie’s eyes
with the temperamental young thing whom Dickie wanted to marry the worst
way. And here he (Bob) was helping her over stones, “toting” frizzling
trout for her, and performing a hundred other little services which
should, by right, have been Dickie’s pleasure and privilege to perform.
Bob murmured a few idle regrets about Dickie, but Miss Dolly dismissed
them—and Dickie—peremptorily. She was sitting now, leaning against a
tree and the slave, by command, was lying at her feet.
“Did you know,” she said dreamily, “I am a new woman?”
He didn’t know it. He never would have dreamed it, and he told her so.
“Yes,” she observed, “I marched in the parade to Washington. That is, I
started, went a mile or two, and then got tired. But I marched there, in
principle, don’t you see? I think women should throw off their shackles.
Don’t you?” Bob might have replied he didn’t know that Miss Dolly ever
had had any shackles to throw off, but she didn’t give him time to
reply. “I read a book the other day wherein the women do the proposing,”
she went on. “It’s on an island and the women are ‘superwomen.’ All
women are ‘super’ nowadays.” She regarded him tentatively. Her glance
was appraising. “Do you know of any reason why women should _not_ do the
proposing, Mr. Bennett?”
“Can’t say that I do,” answered Bob gloomily, feeling as if some one had
suddenly laid a cold hand on his breast, right over where the heart is.
Her words had caused his thoughts to fly back to another. She might not
be proposing to the hammer-thrower at that moment in that “super”
fashion, but the chances were that the hammer-thrower was proposing to
her. He didn’t look like a chap that would delay matters. He would
strike while the iron was hot.
The temperamental young thing eyed Bob and then she eyed a
dreamy-looking cloud. She let the fingers of one hand stray idly in
Bob’s hair as he lay with his head in the grass.
“It tries hard to curl, doesn’t it?” she remarked irrelevantly.
“What?” said Bob absently, his mind about two miles and a half away.
“Your hair. You’ve got lovely hair.” Bob looked disgusted. “It started
to curl and then changed its mind, didn’t it?” she giggled.
Bob muttered disagreeably.
“I suppose you were one of those curly-headed little boys?” went on the
temperamental young thing.
“I don’t know whether I was or not,” he snapped. He was getting back
into that snappy mood. Then it struck him this might not be quite the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, for he added sulkily;
“Maybe I was.”
“I can just see you,” said the temperamental young thing in a far-off
voice. “Nursie must have thought you a darling.”
The slave again muttered ominously. He wished the temperamental little
thing would take her fingers away. They trailed now idly over an ear.
“You’re tickling,” said Bob ill-naturedly.
She stopped trailing and patted instead—very gently and carelessly—as
if she were patting a big Newfoundland dog which she owned all by
herself. That pat expressed a sense of ownership.
“I’m wondering,” she said, “whether it would make things nicer, if I did
propose and we became engaged?”
“Oh,” said Bob satirically, “you’re wondering that, are you?”
“Yes.” More tentative pats.
“And what do you suppose I’d say?” he demanded. He was feeling more and
more grouchy all the time. He didn’t want any of that “superwoman”
business. He had already had one proposal. What mockery! A proposal! He
heard again that other “Will you marry me?” and looked once more, in
fancy, into the starry, enigmatical violet eyes. He experienced anew
that surging sensation in his veins. And he awoke again to the hollow
jest of those words! He felt, indeed, a moderately vivid duplication of
all his emotions of the night before. The temperamental young thing’s
voice recalled him from the poignant recollections of the painful past
into the dreary and monotonous present.
“Why, you actually blushed, just now,” she said accusingly.
“Did I?” growled Bob, looking grudgingly into dark eyes where a moment
before, in imagination, there had been starry violet ones.
“Yes, you did. And”—her voice taking a tenderer accent—“it was
becoming, too.”
“Rush of blood to the head,” he retorted shortly. “Comes from lying like
this.”
“What would you say if I did?” she demanded, reverting to that other
topic. “Propose, I mean? Would you accept? Would you take me—I mean,
shyly suffer me,” with a giggle, “to take you into my arms?”
“Quit joshing!” growled Bob.
“Answer. Would you?”
“No.”
“No?” Bending over him more closely. For a “super,” she was certainly
wonderfully attractive in her slim young way at that moment. Not many of
the inferior sex would have acted quite so stonily as Bob acted. He
didn’t show any more emotion when she bent over than one of those
prostrate stone Pharaohs, or Rameses, which lie around with immovable
features on the sands of Egypt. “You see you couldn’t help it,” the
super-temperamental young thing assured him, confidentially.
“Ouch!” said Bob, for she was tickling again. He wished she would keep
those trailing fingers in her lap. They felt like a fly perambulating
his brow or walking around his ear.
“You’d just have to accept me,” she added.
“Oh, you mean on account of that silly burglar business?”
“Of course. You left two or three thumb-prints in the room.”
“I did?” That _was_ incriminating. No getting around thumb-prints! He
felt as if the temperamental little thing was weaving a mesh around him.
In addition to being a “super,” she was a Lady of Shalott.
Dolly thrilled with a sense of her power. She could play with poor Bob
as a cat with a mouse; she could let him go so far and then put out her
claws and draw him back.
“Besides, I found out you didn’t quite tell me the truth about those
accomplices of yours,” she went on triumphantly. “You said there weren’t
any, and when I went out and looked around where the dog barked, I found
footprints. They led to the trellis, right up into your room. The
trellis, too, showed some person, or persons, had climbed up, for some
of the boughs were broken. Deny now, if you can, you had visitors last
night,” she challenged him.
Bob didn’t deny; he lay there helpless.
“Of course,” she said with another giggle, “I might let you say you’ll
think it over. I might not press you too hard at once for an answer. I
don’t want you to reply: ‘This is so sudden,’ or anything like that.”
She got up suddenly with a little delirious laugh. “But I simply can’t
wait. You look so handsome when you’re cross. Besides, it will be so
exciting to be engaged to a—a—”
“Society-burglar—” grimly.
“That’s it. I’ve never been engaged to a burglar before!”
“But you have been engaged?”
“Oh, yes. Lots of times. But not like this. This feels as if it might
lead—”
“To the altar?” Satirically.
“Yes.”
“But suppose I got caught?—that is, if I really enjoyed the distinction
of being a burglar which I am not?”
“Then, of course, I never knew—you deceived me—poor innocent!—as well
as the rest of the world. And there would be columns and columns in the
papers. And some people would pity me, but most people would envy me.
And I’d visit you in jail with a handkerchief to my eyes and be
snap-shotted that way. And I’d sit in a dark corner in the court,
looking pale and interesting. And the lady reporters would interview me
and they’d publish my picture with yours—‘Handsome Bob, the swell
society yeggman. Member of one of the oldest families, etc.’ And—and—”
“Great Scott!” cried Bob. She had that publicity-bee worse than Gee-gee.
In another moment she’d be setting the day. “Shall we—ah!—retrace our
steps?”
It was getting late. The hours had gone by somehow and as she offered no
objections, they “retraced.” For some time now she was silent. Perhaps
she was imagining herself too happy for words. Once or twice she cast a
sidelong glance shyly at Bob. It was the look of a capricious
slave-owner metamorphosed, through the power of love, into a yielding
and dependent young maiden. Bob was supposed to be the brutal conqueror.
Meanwhile that young man strode along unheedingly. He didn’t mind any
little branches or bushes that happened to stand in his way and plowed
right through them. It would have been the same, if he had met that
historic bramble bush. A thousand scratches, more or less, wouldn’t
count.
“You can put your arm around me now,” she observed, with another musical
but detestable giggle, as they passed through a grove, not very far from
the house. “It is quite customary here, you know.”
He didn’t know, but he obeyed. What else could he do?
“Now say something.” Her voice had once more that ownership accent.
“What do you want me to say?” None too graciously.
“The usual thing! Those three words that make the world go around.”
“But I don’t.” Even a worm will turn.
“You will.” Softly.
“I won’t.”
“Oh, yes, you will.” More softly. Then with a sigh: “This is the place.
Under this oak, carved all over with hearts and things. Do it.”
“What?” He looked down on lips red as cherries.
“Are you going to?”
“And if I don’t?” he challenged her.
“Finger-prints!” she said. “Footmarks!”
“Oh, well! Confound it.” And he did—the way a bird pecks at a cherry.
She straightened with another giggle. “Our first!” she said.
“Hope you’re satisfied,” he remarked grudgingly.
“It will do for a beginning. Oh, dear! some one saw us!” He looked
around with a start, his unresponsive arm slipping from about a pliant
waist.
“I don’t see any one.”
“He’s dodged behind a tree. I think it was Dickie. And—yes, there are
one or two other men. They—they seem to be dodging, too.” Bob saw them
now. One, he was sure, was the commodore.
“Funny performance, isn’t it?” he said, with a sickly smile.
“Perhaps—?” She looked at him with genuine awe in the temperamental
eyes. He read her thought; she thought—believed they had “come for
him.” She appeared positively startled, and—yes, sedulous! Maybe, she
was discovering in herself a little bit of that “really, truly” feeling.
“Oh!” she said. “They mustn’t—”
“Don’t you worry,” he reassured her. “I think I can safely promise you
they won’t do what you expect them to.”
“You mean,” joyously, “you have a way to circumvent them?” She was sure
now he had; the aristocratic burglars always have. He would probably
have a long and varied career before him yet.
“I mean just what I say. But I think they want to talk with me? Indeed,
I’m quite sure they do. They are coming up now. Perhaps you’d better
leave me to deal with them.”
“You—you are sure they have no evidence to—?”
“Land me in jail? Positively. I assure you, on my honor, you are the
only living person who, by any stretch of the imagination, could offer
damaging testimony against me, along that line.”
He spoke so confidently she felt it was the truth. “I believe you,” she
said. She wanted to say more, befitting the thrill of the moment, but
she had no time. Dickie and two others were approaching. It might be
best if he met them alone. So she slipped away and walked toward the
house. It would be quite exciting enough afterward, she told herself, to
find out what happened. It wasn’t until she got almost to the house,
that she remembered she ought to have asked Bob for a ring. Of course,
he would have a goodly supply of them. Would it make her _particeps
criminis_ though, if she wore one of his rings? Then she concluded it
wouldn’t, because she was innocent of intention. She didn’t know. She
wondered, also, if she should announce her “engagement” right off, or
wait a day or two. She decided to wait a day or two. But she told Miss
Gwendoline Gerald what a lovely time she and Mr. Bennett had had
together, fishing. And Miss Gerald smiled a cryptic smile.
Meanwhile Bob had met Dan and Dickie and Clarence.
CHAPTER XII—JUST ONE THING AFTER ANOTHER
It was far from a pleasant meeting. Dickie looked about as amiable as a
wind or thunder demon, in front of a Japanese temple. That oscillatory
performance beneath the “kissing-oak,” as the noble tree was called, had
been almost too much for Dickie. He seemed to have trouble in
articulating.
“You’re a nice one, aren’t you?” he managed at length to say, and his
tones were like the splutter of a defective motor. “You ought to be
given a leather medal.”
“Could I help it?” said Bob wearily. And then because he was too much of
a gentleman to vouchsafe information incriminating a lady: “Usual place!
Customary thing! Blame it on the oak! Ha! ha!” This wasn’t evading the
truth; it was simply facetiousness. Might as well meet this trio of
dodging brigands with a smiling face! Dickie’s vocal motor failed to
explode, even spasmodically; that reply seemed to have extinguished him.
But the commodore awoke to vivacity.
“Let us try to meet this situation calmly,” he said, red as a
turkey-cock. “But let us walk as we talk,” taking Bob’s arm and leading
that young man unresistingly down a path to the driveway to the village.
“I shouldn’t by any chance want to encounter Mrs. Dan just yet,” he
explained. “So if you don’t mind, we’ll get away from here, while I
explain.”
Bob didn’t mind. He saw no guile in the commodore’s manner or words. Nor
did he observe how Clarence looked at Dickie. The twilight shadows were
beginning to fall.
“Briefly,” went on the commodore, as he steered them out of the woods,
“our worst fears have been realized. Negotiations with Gee-gee are in
progress. Divorce papers will probably follow.” Clarence on the other
side of Dickie made a sound. “All this is your work.” The commodore
seemed about to become savage, but he restrained himself. “No use
speaking about that. Also, it is too late for us to call the wager off
and pay up. Mischief’s done now.”
“Why not make a clean breast of everything?” suggested Bob. “Say it was
a wager, and—”
“A truth-telling stunt? That _would_ help a lot.” Contemptuously.
Dickie muttered: “Bonehead!”
“I mean, you can say there wasn’t any harm,” said Bob desperately. “That
it was all open and innocent!”
“Much good my saying that would do!” snorted Dan. “You don’t know Mrs.
Dan.”
“Or Mrs. Clarence,” said Clarence weakly.
Bob hung his head.
“We’ve thought of one little expedient that may help,” observed Dan,
still speaking with difficulty. “While such influences as we could
summon are at work on the New York end, we’ve got to square matters
here. We’ve got to account for your—your—” here the commodore nearly
choked—“extraordinary revelations.”
“But how,” said Bob patiently, “can you ‘account’ for them? I suppose
you mean to make me out a liar?”
“Exactly,” from the commodore coolly.
“I don’t mind,” returned Bob wearily, “as long as it will help you out
and I’m not one. Only _I_ can’t say those things aren’t true.”
“You don’t have to,” said Dan succinctly. “There’s an easier way than
that. No one would believe you, anyway, now.”
“That’s true.” Gloomily.
“All we need,” went on Dan, brightening a bit, “is your cooperation.”
“What can I do?”
“You don’t do anything. We do what is to be done. You just come along.”
“We take you into custody,” interposed Clarence.
“Lock you up!” exploded Dickie once more. “And a good job.”
“Lock me up?” Bob gazed at them, bewildered. Had the temperamental
little thing “peached,” after all? Impossible! And yet if she hadn’t,
how could Dan and Dickie and Clarence know he was a burglar—or rather,
that a combination of unlucky circumstances made him seem one? Perhaps
that kiss was a signal for them to step forward and take him. History
was full of such kisses. And yet he would have sworn she was not that
kind.
“You’re to come along without making a fuss,” said the commodore
significantly.
“But I don’t want to come along. This is going too far,” remonstrated
Bob. “I’ve a decided objection to being locked up as a burglar.”
“Burglar!” exclaimed Dan.
“Don’t know how you found out! Appearances may be against me, but,”
stopping in the road, “if you want me to go along, you’ve got to make
me.”
The trio looked at one another. “Maybe, he really is—” suggested
Dickie, touching his forehead.
“Too much truth!” said Clarence with a sneer. “Feel half that way,
myself!”
“Would be all the better for us, if it were really so,” observed Dan.
And to Bob: “You think that we think you’re a burglar?”
“Don’t you? Didn’t you say something about locking me up?”
“But not in a jail.”
Bob stared. “What then?”
“A sanatorium.”
“Sanatorium?”
“For the insane.”
“You mean—?”
“You’re crazy,” said Dan. “That’s the ticket. Dickie found out, up at
Mrs. Ralston’s.”
“Oh, Dickie did?” said Bob, looking at that young gentleman with
lowering brows.
“You bet I did,” returned Dickie. “I put in a good day,” viciously,
“while you were fishing.”
“Yes,” corroborated the commodore, “Dickie found a dozen people who
think you’re dottie on the crumpet, all right.”
Bob folded his arms, still regarding Dickie. “You know what I’ve a mind
to do to you?”
“Hold on!” said Dan hastily. “This matter’s got to be handled tactfully.
We can’t, any one of us, give way to our personal feelings, however much
we may want to. Let’s be businesslike. Eh, Clarence? Businesslike.”
“Sure,” said Clarence faintly.
But Dickie, standing behind the commodore and Clarence, said something
about tact being a waste of time in some cases. He said it in such a
sneering nasty way that Bob breathed deep.
“I’ve simply got to spank that little rooster,” he muttered.
But again the commodore smoothed things over. “Shut up, Dickie,” he said
angrily. “You’ll spoil all. I’m sure Bob wants to help us out, if he
can. He knows it’s really up to him, to do so. Bob’s a good sport.” It
was an awful effort for the commodore to appear nice and amiable, but he
managed to, for the moment. “You will help us out, won’t you?” he added,
placing velvety fingers on Bob’s arm.
But Bob with a vigorous swing shook off those fingers. He didn’t intend
being taken into custody. Dan and the others might as well understand
that, first as last. The commodore’s voice grew more appealing.
“Don’t you see you’re being crazy will account for everything?”
“Oh, will it?” In a still small voice.
“Miss Gwendoline asked me if you’d showed signs before coming down
here?” piped up Dickie. And again Bob breathed deep. Then his thoughts
floated away. Dickie was too insignificant to bother with.
“Hallucinations!” observed the commodore briskly. “Fits you to a T!”
Bob didn’t answer. He was trying to think if _she_—Miss
Gwendoline—hadn’t said something about hallucinations?
“You simply imagined all those things you confided to Mrs. Dan. You
didn’t mean to tell what wasn’t so, but you couldn’t help yourself. You
really believed it all, at the time. You are irresponsible.”
“Maybe you’ll tell me next there isn’t any Gee-gee,” said Bob. “Also,
that Miss Gid-up is but an empty coinage of the brain?”
“No, we’ll do better than that. The existence of a Gee-gee accounts, in
part, for your condition. First stage, Gee-gee on the brain; then,
brain-storm! Gee-gee is part of your obsession!”
“You talk, think and dream of Gee-gee,” interposed Clarence. “We’ve got
it all doped out. You are madly jealous. You imagine every man is in
love with her. You even attribute to Dan here, ulterior motives.”
“I mentioned to Miss Gerald, privately, that a certain very fascinating
but nameless young show-girl might be your trouble,” said Dickie.
Again Bob did a few deep-breathing exercises, and again he managed to
conquer himself.
“Don’t you see we’ve simply got to lock you up?” said the commodore.
“You’re a menace to the community; you’re a happy home-breaker. You may
do something desperate.”
“I might,” said Bob, looking the commodore in the eye.
Dan overlooked any covert meaning. “We take your case in time,” he went
on. “You go into an institution, stay a week, or two—or shall we say,
three,” insinuatingly, “and you come out cured.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice?” said Bob. They were going to put truth in a
crazy-house. That’s what it amounted to. “But how about Gid-up? Did I
have an obsession about her, too?”
“Oh, as Gee-gee’s chum she is part of the brainstorm and that drags poor
old Clarence in,—Clarence who is as ignorant of the existence of Gid-up
as I am of Gee-gee.”
“And that’s the truth,” said Clarence stoutly.
Bob laughed. He couldn’t help it. Perhaps many of the people in jails
and crazy-houses were only poor misguided mortals who had gone wrong
looking for truth. Maybe some of them had met with that other kind of
truth (Dan’s kind and Clarence’s kind) and they hadn’t the proper vision
to see it was the truth (that is, the world’s truth).
“Got it fixed all right,” went on the commodore. “Doc, up there at the
house, has written a letter to the head of an eminently respectable
institution, for eminently respectable private patients. It’s not far
away and the head is a friend of Doc’s. Dickie saw to the details. It’s
a good place. Kind gentle attendants; nourishing food. Isn’t that what
the Doc said, Dickie?”
“I guess the food won’t hurt _him_” said Dickie, regarding Bob. Maybe,
Dickie wouldn’t have minded if Bob had had an attack, or two, of
indigestion.
“Doc says they’re especially humane to the violent,” continued the
commodore, unmindful of Bob’s ominous silence. It seemed as if Dan was
talking to gain time, for he looked around where the bushes cast dark
shadows, as if to locate some spot. “None of that slugging or
straight-jacket business! Doc talked it over with the judge and some of
the others. Judge said he’d committed a lot of people who hadn’t acted
half as crazy as you have. You see Dickie had to take him into his
confidence a little bit and the Doc, too. Doc diagnosed your breakdown
as caused by drugs and alcohol.”
“So you made me out a dipsomaniac?” observed Bob.
“What else was there to do? Didn’t you bring it on yourself?”
Dan now stopped, not far from a clump of bushes. Down the road stood a
stalled motor-car vaguely distinguishable in the dusk. Its occupant, or
occupants had apparently gone to telephone for help.
“You bet I made you out a ‘dippy,’” said Dickie with much satisfaction.
A white light shone from Bob’s eyes. Then he shrugged his broad
shoulders.
“Good night,” he said curtly and turned to go.
But at that instant the commodore emitted a low whistle and two men
sprang out of the bushes. At the same moment the trio precipitated
themselves, also, on Bob. It was a large load. He “landed” one or two on
somebody and got one or two in return himself. Dickie rather forgot
himself in the excitement of the moment and was unnecessarily forceful,
considering the odds. But Bob was big and husky and for a little while
he kept them all busy. His football training came in handy. Numbers,
however, finally prevailed, and though he heaved and struggled, he had
to go down. Then they sat on him, distributing themselves variously over
his anatomy.
“Thought I was giving you that charming little chat, just for the
pleasure of your company, did you?” panted the commodore, from somewhere
about the upper part of Bob? “Why, I was just leading you here.”
“And he came like a lamb!” said Clarence, holding an arm.
“Or a big boob!” from Dickie, who had charge of a leg.
Bob gave a kick and it caught Dickie. The little man went bowling down
the road like a ten-pin. But after that, there wasn’t much kick left in
Bob. They tied him tight and bore him (or truth, trussed like a fowl),
to the car. Some of them got in to keep him company. There wasn’t
anything the matter with the car. It could speed up to about sixty, or
seventy, at a pinch. It went “like sixty” now.
“If he tries to raise a hullabaloo, toot your horn,” said the commodore,
when he got his breath, to the driver. “At the same time I’ll wave my
hat and act like a cut-up. Then they’ll only take us for a party of
fuzzled joy-riders.”
“I don’t think he’ll make much noise now,” shouted Dickie significantly,
from behind. “We’ll jolly well see to that.”
“How long will it take you to make the bug-house?” the commodore asked
the man at the wheel.
“We should reach the private sanatorium in less than an hour,” answered
that individual.
CHAPTER XIII—AN ENFORCED REST CURE
They kept him two days in the padded room on Dickie’s recommendation,
who made Bob out as highly dangerous. “Powerful and vicious,” he
described him to the suave individual in charge of the “sanatorium.”
That particular apartment was somewhat remote from the other rooms, so
that any noises made by the inmate of the former wouldn’t disturb the
others. Becoming more reconciled to the inevitable, Bob found the quiet
of the padded room rather soothing to his shaken nerves. He didn’t have
to talk to hardly a soul. Only an attendant came around once in a while
to shove cautiously something edible at him, but the attendant didn’t
ask any questions and Bob didn’t have to tell him any truths. It was a
joyful relief not to have to tell truths.
Bob’s eye was swollen and he had a few bruises, but they didn’t count.
He had observed
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