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’twantedto 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 wasalonein 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 thoseDer Dopplegangerverses. 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 aDoppleganger, 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 wherehisgracious 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 nevertalkedlove 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 apalestra, 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) hehadseen 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 onlycouldunderstand!” 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.
“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?”
“Ididn’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. Ithadbeen 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 hehadto 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 saidifit 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, youarelaughing,” 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 letthem”—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.
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 mindthat” 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 youwereburglars,” 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 ofPinafore.
“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. Whatcouldyou 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.”
“SayIwas 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.