"And at that, you just bangs inside the judge's room and in about two minutes,hestuck his head out, looking kinder towsled and mad like he'd been waked from a sound sleep, and he fires a wrapped-up parcel at the door opposite and yells:
"'There are your pajamas, you unnatural, heartless prodigal! Pajamas, indeed, at such a time!' And then I see Mr. Jack's arm come out and fish the package inside.
"Then the judge turns on me and Wilkes and ordered us to clear out and to go to bed. And Wilkes said we'd best do it because the judge would take care of you and get you to your room quietly. And the last thing I heard before he slammed inside his room was:
"'There's one thing; I've got a daughter!'"
I looked at Jenkins miserably. He wasright; he did have a daughter, and I wanted her. But just now, I wished with all heart that she was somebody's—anybody else's daughter—than that of the man who had witnessed my humiliation.
And afterwards—
Howhad he managed to get me to my room? And had she seen or heard me? Oh, she must have!
Well, nothing mattered now—nothing could ever matter any more. It was some miserable comfort to feel, andknow, that nothing worse could ever happen!
Why, there was nothingworseleft in all the world. By Jove, I was sure ofthatmuch!
And just then a knock sounded.
"Pardon, sir, for not waiting till you came down," the butler was saying, "but Mr. Billings was just so set on me bringing this to you, Ihadto."
He had entered, responding to Jenkins' invitation, bearing in his hand a gray paper parcel.
"For me?" I questioned, as he laid it on the table, and I eyed it ominously. Yet it could not be the same I had sent Billings myself—I could see that—for it was smaller, more compact, and in a different wrapper. But I wasafraidto examine it.
"Yes, sir—he's very bad this morning, sir; the—er—that is, something last night seems to have excited him."
His eye roved eloquently between Jenkins and myself. He continued soberly:
"He's locked me and Perkins out of his rooms again, and wouldn't open the door only wide enough to stick this through. And his message"—hesitatingly—"he said just tell you you had better get these pajamas back where they came from just as quickly as you could—you wouldif you were wise, he said."
"Oh!" I uttered, dazed by this new blow. So itwasher pajamas.
But there was more of the message—I could see it in Wilkes' eye.
"Yes, sir," he went on as I gave him a nod. "Mr. Billings called through the door-crack—and his voice was particularly shrill—screechy-like—very unnatural, sir—and he said: 'You tell him I say he'll find it very dangerous to keep them by him a moment; tell him my advice is to return themimmediately!'"
Here the butler hesitated an instant and added: "And he said for me to try to remember three letters I was to mention—said you would understand."
"Three letters?" I repeated dully.
"Yes, sir, three letters—I did remember 'em, too, because they happened to be the initials of a young woman I—h'm! Q. E. D., sir."
"Q. E. D.?" I said, puzzled and miserable. "What's Q. E. D.?" And then an idea startled me.
"Oh Isay, you mean—er—P. D. Q.—eh, Wilkes?" It sounded like Jack!
But he seemed sure he didn't; insisted on Q. E. D. When he had withdrawn, I sat there a moment, swallowing hard. By Jove, when a chap has had the hardest blow of his life, and that, too, from his best friend, it's devilish hard to come up smiling. I took a deep breath and tried to pull myself together. I knew, of course, it was all over—everything; it was all over, just as everything was beginning with me. For I knew my life never had been worth a whoop before. Why, by Jove, I never even noticed how beautiful were the trees and the sunshine through the leaves until the last two days! But Ihadseen it, becauseshehad seen it! And now—now it was all dull and flat and dead again, and all the world was gray! Ever been there—eh?
I climbed heavily to my feet, for I knew, after all, he was acting devilish considerately ashesaw things, and I must just have the decency to do as he said—and then go. I couldn't explain, of course. Mustn't try to do that—so dashed clumsy, I would only complicate it for her. No, I—By Jove, I suddenly felt sick. Sat there, doubled forward, my head between my hands, as the butler retired, softly closing the door behind him.
Presently I pulled myself together. Jenkins, as he helped me dress, eyed me in a frightened way, his face kind of pale and greenish. Neither of us said a word, but I knew I hadhissympathy, poor fellow—and it helped! Then, with the parcel in my hand, I marched slowly down the stairs, forgetting even some instructions I should have given Jenkins.
She was there in the living-room—she and the frump. And when I saw her dear face and realized what disaster had come between us, I felt things whirling around me like a jolly what's-its-name and dropped my hand on a chair-back hard, until I could stiffen and smile up. But, by Jove, she was on!
"Is anything the matter, Mr. Lightnut?" she asked, coming toward me—and how kindly, almost tenderly, her sweet face softened!
"Is it anything about Jacky?" snapped the frump.
I shook my head and just gently placed the little wrapped parcel in Frances' hands. My hand shook so I almost dropped it.
"Some—something of yours that was lost," I said, and I knew my voice shook a little, too. "I was fortunate in recovering it." I looked at her—for the last time, I knew—and it was just my devilish luck that she got misty and dim. I whispered hoarsely: "Open when you are alone."
And then I walked straight out of the house!
A gardener directed me to the park gates, but there were so many dashed curves and terraces I got hopelessly twisted, and pretty soon didn't know whether I was leaving or coming, don't you know. I sat down on an iron bench to think it over, and, by Jove, I must have dozed off, for the first thing I knew some one yelled my name, and I looked up to see—Billings!
He was looking a bit soiled and disheveled, and his eyes had a hunted look.
"What the devil are you doing, sitting here?" he demanded.
"I—I'm going," I said, hurriedly getting to my feet. "Just resting—I—"
"They told me I would find you here," he said. "Here you are, sitting out here in the hot sun without any hat! Good thing, Dicky, you haven't got any—h'm!" Then he panted at me: "Say, nice way you and my sister treated me—I don'tthink! But I'll forgive you this time." Here he linked his arm in mine. "I'll forgive you, if you never say anything at the club about those damned black pajamas—nor in the family, either. Great Scott! I wouldn't have this get out!"
"I wouldn't think of such a thing!" I exclaimed, immeasurably relieved, but indignant, as well. He led me across the turf.
"Oh, I've had an awful time, Dicky! Awful!"—he lifted his hands—"Oh, I don't want to tell you about it—I don't want even to think about it myself!"
I murmured something sympathetic, for Ifeltsympathetic with anything; besides, there still lingered a bit of headache from the Heidelberg punch and I could imagine from that whathisfeelings must have been.
"By George, Dicky," he burst out again, "the way I've been shut up and treated just seems like some infernal conspiracy. Good thing Jack Ellsworth's dad had a pull with the mayor—tell you all the whole rotten business when I can talk about it quietly."
"That's right! that's right!" I said soothingly, "wouldn't think about it at all now, old chap!" No use reminding him, you know, that he had shuthimselfup. Besides, the wandering of the mind to Jack Ellsworth and his father showed me that even yet he was not quite himself.
Billings mopped his forehead. "My, but it was hot in that hole!" he exclaimed. "And that reminds me—have you seen the governor this morning? No? Well, talk about hot!George, but the old man was hot under the collar when I saw him just now! And he looks like he had been dropped from a shot tower! It's this case he's working on, I guess, or else it's about Francis. He's found out whatIknew."
"Do—do you think so?" I questioned nervously.
"Pretty sure," said Billings carelessly. "Fact is, he's already fixing up to send Francis to some kind of reformatory—heard him making the arrangements over the 'phone"—I was glad he didn't look at me as he rattled on—"and, by the way, the governor told me to tellyounot to say awordto Francis—I suppose you'll understand."
Understand? Oh, yes,Iunderstood!
"And he said he wanted to see you."
"Is—is he here?" I stammered, pulling back.
"Thank goodness, no. Gone to meet Colonel Francis Kirkland—say, don't say anything about it—wants to surprise his daughter, you know. On his way to London via San Francisco—arrived at Washington a few days ago."
Oh, the frump's father! Much I cared! But knowing how interestedhewas in her, I tried to show an interest.
"Colonel Francis—er—isn't his daughter named after him?" And I felt myself grow jolly red, for I remembered thatshehad told me that about her friend as she sat on the arm of the Morris chair and in the black pajamas.
"Hanged ifIknow," said Billings carelessly. "I don't know what her name is—don't remember that I ever heard." He whistled. "Say, but did you ever see anything as stunningly pretty in your life?"
I balked. By Jove, I had been doing some mild lying within the past twenty-four hours, but this was askingtoomuch! Dash me if I just could go it, that's all. But he didn't seem to notice.
He slapped me on the back. "By George, Dicky, there's just the girl cut out for you, old chap—take my tip. I think she likes you, too—could see it just now when I was talking about you."
So that was it, I reflected gloomily. The frump now was to be worked off on me, and I was expected to stand for it. I was to be a sort of what-you-call-it offering on the altar of friendship.Thatwas the condition upon which he was patching up things!
Billings laughed suddenly. "But, oh, I tell you it would be hard on Francis—a regular knockout, by George!"
Devilish brutal for him to say so, I thought.
"Do you think so?" I questioned dismally. "Would Frances really care?"
"Oh, yes," he said lightly. "Soon get over it, though—puppy love, you know."
Puppy love, indeed! By Jove, how I hated Billings!
He went on: "Suppose you never heard anything of the professor and the pajamas?"
I had not, and I was devilish sick of pajamas, anyway.
"And say, Dicky, I don't remember that I ever thanked you properly, old man, for putting up my kid brother the other night. He says you treated him like a brick and that you and he got to be great pals. So much obliged, old chap, because he wanted to go running around, you know."
"Your brother?" I questioned, astonished, and I guess my face must have showed it, for Billings' eyes, first opening wide, narrowed, and his countenance began to gather an angry red. He stopped short.
"Didn'the stay with you?" he snapped.
I stared blankly. "Why, Billings—I didn't know—I didn't remember you had a brother. I never have seen him."
Billings' face swelled redder, and he struck his fist down with an oath. He looked angrily toward the house. Then he stepped hurriedly in advance of me.
"Excuse me, old chap, will you?" he said, his voice hardened. "Will see you at luncheon—make yourself at home, won't you?"
Make myself at home! I sneaked under the quiet shade in a convenient pergola, and, dropping upon a bench, gazed gloomily at the sunlight patches at my feet.
"Oh,hereyou are, eh?" broke harshly upon me.
I looked up, startled from my mood. There, hands upon his hips and scowling, stood—the chauffeur!
I frowned, but the fellow just moved nearer.
"I guess mamma's baby don't feel so spry this morning!" he jeered. "Does its little heady-cums ache-ums—eh?"
I grunted rather wearily. "If it does, my good fellow, it's none of your business. Don't bother me!" I shifted the other way.
"Oh, isn't it?"—his tone quickened truculently—"Well, maybe I'll make it my business!" He jerked his arm at me, continuing sharply: "Look here, you glass-eyed monkey-jack, don't you getflipwith me this morning"—he laughed coarsely—"or I'll think you want some more!Doyou?"
I turned my head and, polishing my monocle carefully, gave it a tight screw and took him in slowly, beginning with his yellow mop of hair and ending with the toes of his soiled canvas shoes. By Jove, I wassurethey'd never been whitened since he bought them.
I seemed to anger him. He uttered a sort of snort with a mutter uncomplimentary and strode forward, towering above me where I sat.
"Answer, when I'm talking to you, you sap-headed fool," he bellowed, "or I'll wring your neck! I asked if you wanted some more."
I stretched my arms, trying their muscle room in a lengthy yawn, and blinked at him with my free eye, wondering where the deuce he got the crimson hat band. By Jove,thatwas the most dashed impertinent thing of all!
"More what?" I drawled indifferently.
"More—ofthat!"—viciously—andthwackhis knuckles struck against the iron back of the jolly bench. For I wasn't there, don't you know.
"Huh! Think you're some smart, don't you?" he sneered, hitching his trousers band. "Now, look here"—he leveled his finger—"you're a guest here and I know I oughtn't to do it, and Ihateit for Jack's sake, but I'm feeling I'll justhaveto give you another trimming this lovely morning!" He chuckled, rolling his lips and spreading them till I could see every tooth. He moved toward me leisurely, slipping up his sleeves. "What you got last night, sonny, was for your own sake, butthistime it's going to be for Frances'—youfishworm!"
"Guess we'll leave Miss Frances out of it, don't you know," I remonstrated.Dashthe fellow's impudence! Then, remembering I was wearing a coat of dark cheviot that was the very devil for showing every speck of dust, I slipped out of it and looked about for somewhere to hang it. Not a dashed place, of course; not a thing, you know, except nails here and there in the wooden uprights of the pergola, and of coursenailswouldn't do to hang a coat on. So I just folded the jolly thing carefully—very carefully, just as I had seen Jenkins do—and then I held it on my arm.
The chap had been shifting about me in a curve, clucking his tongue contemptuously and muttering, and getting more jolly red-eyed and abusive every minute.
"Be a man!" he snarled. "You blame tailor's dummy, be aman!" And he struck his chest a blow to show me what he meant.
And just then I remembered to smooth my hair-part.
"Oh,you—" With a growl like a bear, he swept both his hands to his head and whirled them through his great yellow pile, leaving each hair standing on end like the quills on the fretful what's-its-name. Then he danced toward me, pausing irregularly to double over with a chuckle.
"Oh, this istoogood!" he yelped. "But I can't help it; I jest can't refuse the money, Lizzie! I know they'll send me away for this, but—Oh, mamma!"
And over he'd double again.
Oddest thing, isn't it, how your jolly active mindwillwander at the rummest times; and I had a thought then of how, when I was a delicate boy, bully old Doctor Dake and Doctor Madden had prescribed a punching-bag, and later boxing-gloves. And I thought with a pang of what ripping times the governor and I had, scrapping, and of what knocks he gradually began to give me until he forced me to learn to come back harder. Jove, what corking hours we had! And then when Chugsey, the retired English light-weight champion, came to butler—oh, what smashing three-handed rounds we used to have! Bully old governor, who was never so busy on his sermons but what he could take a walk or a ride with me; or talk with me, orfightwith me! Why, he—
By Jove, my dashed monocle got so cloudy of a sudden, I almost missed the chauffeur's move—almost, don't you know!
And then—
"I say, you know!" I said disgustedly, as I screwed my monocle at him there, his big yellow mat sticking out of sight through the jolly vines. "Awfully raw thing to strike at a man and leave your guard open like that—Icouldhave put it over your heart, don't you know!"
I heard a little sound behind me and there was she!
"Oh!" I gasped as I slipped into my coat. And now Iwasmiserable, for I remembered how kind this chauffeur, Scoggins, had been to her. And for her to have seen me in this vulgar row!
"Yes, I saw it all," she said, as I moved toward her, murmuring some jolly effort at apology. Her eyes were shining. "I saw it all, sir—andheard. And just when I had hunted you up withthese!"—and then I saw that her arms were burgeoning with roses. "See what I've been doing for you, sir!"
"For me?" By Jove, it was all I could say as I took them!
"And you ran off!" She pouted adorably—naturally, too, dash it. I've seen them put it on when they looked like they had toothache. "How am I ever going to thank you about the pajamas?" By Jove, her big blue eyes looked me frankly in the face. There was never a quiver of embarrassment. "It's wonderful—and to find themhere!"
"I'd—I'd have got 'em to you sooner," I faltered, swallowing, "but they've been lost a day or two—thief stole them from my rooms, you know."
"How on earthdidyou ever get hold of them? I never expected to see those pajamas again. Oh, you must tell me all about how you managed it!"—and we moved away—"I justwishfather were here!"
Ididn't! Dash it, it made me squirm to think of his return.
As we left the pergola behind, I looked backward through its arch, and there was the chauffeur, standing in the shadows, looking after us. And long after, as we turned from the straight avenue leading through the pergola, I descried his figure, still looking after us, unchanged, immovable.
It was rum!
But I had other things to think of as we sat out in the loggia—chiefly of her, herself; withal, wondering gloomily what her father would say when he found I had disobeyed his injunction about not speaking to her. Presently the summons to luncheon came, and we went in.
From up-stairs came sounds indicating great hilarity on Billings' part. In fact, we could hear him slapping his knee and screaming. The frump looked at me anxiously.
"Why, I understood he was all right again," she said aside.
I shook my head dubiously. I had seen in the past day or two how rapidly Billings' moods shifted. Twenty minutes since he had looked enraged.
"Oh, this is too good—but keep it mum!" we heard. "Come on, Professor!"
"Professor?" The frump looked at Frances, then at Wilkes inquiringly.
"I didn't know, miss," he murmured contritely. "'S why I didn't mention it."
We were crossing the great hall in the direction of the beautiful dining-room beyond—Elizabethan, I think Frances said it was. We all paused expectantly as Billings rolled down the stairs in his usual jolly, elephantine way. And then on the landing appeared an apparition—not only an apparition, but, by Jove, a scarecrow, as well!
Professor Doozenberry, blandly smiling—his rail-like figure shrouded flabbily in one of Billings' largest and loudest suits! Billings went through the form of introductions, chuckling idiotically the while. But the professor scarcely noticed any one but the frump.
"Don't wait, Wilkes," Billings directed. His nod beckoned me aside.
"Gentleman sulking in his tent over here I want you to meet," he said. And I followed him to the library. A figure pacing the floor turned sharply. By Jove, it was the chauffeur, and how he did scowl at me!
"Now, young man," said Billings sternly, "perhaps you'll have the nerve to tell me before Mr. Lightnut himself that you were his guest on your way home from Harvard."
"I certainly was!" He made the statement, chin up and eyes blazing. "I was his guest at the Kahoka Wednesday night, and he knows it."
Billings looked at me and shrugged his shoulders.
"Don't bother denying it, old man," he said. "It's all right."
"Oh, but I say—it isn't!" I exclaimed in disgusted amaze. "Dashed impertinence, you know—never saw this fellow before the morning at the—er—boat, and day before yesterday when I—" I halted, remembering.
But the fellow was shaking his finger at me.
"A-a-a!" he jeered like a school-boy. "Why don't you finish? Bet you don't know, Jack, that this paragon friend of yours was up here on the train day before yesterday." Billings stared, for he did not know.
The chap grew more impudent. "Yah, see him turn red!"
"By Jove!" I exclaimed, warming up, you know. "Say, Billings, who the devil is this fellow?" And I advanced angrily—dashed annoyed, you know.
Billings interposed. "My brother," he said quietly.
"Yes, his brother," almost shouted the other. Then he lowered his voice at Billings' command: "And I say, you didn't tell Jack you were on the train yesterday, posing as a 'Mr. Smith,' and that you insulted Frances." He shook off his brother's hand angrily. "Oh, yes he did—sister told me about it! I knew it was you when I got to thinking about it this morning!" He panted for breath. "I can't call you a liar, Lightnut, when you say I wasn't at your rooms, because you're a quicker hitter than I am, and—" He looked around and shrugged. "And because we are in this house. But you're an infernal hypocrite, and I want Jack to know it." He laughed mockingly and faced his brother. "Ask your friend, Mr. Lightnut, about that girl in black pajamas in his rooms!"
And he flung himself from the room with a Parthian shot: "Ask him to tell you about her as he did me. Ask him who itwas!"
Billings seemed to groan. "More black pajamas!" he muttered.
I faced him eagerly. "I never told him about her—I'll swear I didn't," I pleaded miserably. "You know all there is to know, Jack. I wouldn't tell anybody in the world a thing like that. I—love her too well. Much less would I go and tell her own brother."
"Wha-a-a-t?" Billings' fat body almost leaped into the air. "What the devil—say, old chap,whatare you talking about?"
"And, besides, she's forgiven me," I persisted gloomily. "And I love her—and—and we're going to be married—or I hope so, dash it!"
Billings stared at me with popping eyes for an instant. Then he lifted my chin and looked at me anxiously. "Are you quite well, old man?" he asked. "Headache, or anything like that? By George, it's from sitting out in that sun without a hat. Marry my sister?" He wagged his head lugubriously. "What—Elizabeth? Oh, good heavens!"
"No—Frances," I explained anxiously.
He stared. "Francis?" Then his arm led me out. "Come along, old chap," he said with an air of concern. "We'll get a little ice—"
There was a bustle near the hall entrance, and I heard a commanding voice I recognized as that of Judge Billings:
"Come right in, Colonel, and we will try to make you forget that little exasperation—do you know I just can't get over the idea that I've seen you somewhere andrecently—Hello, Jack! Colonel Kirkland, my eldest boy, Jack—named after his mother, Johanna. Look here, Jack, has everybody on the blithering police force gone crazy aboutpajamas? Most infernal outrage—pardon me, Colonel Kirkland—three policemen wanted to arrest him on description—dragnet order, they said—for stealing a pair of black silk pajamas. Ever hear the like of that?"
Billings' voice murmured something, and then I was dully conscious of my name being passed and of the fact that I was limply shaking a hand. But I don't remember uttering a word—couldn't, by Jove, for my jolly tongue was paralyzed. Didn't know what to do; didn't know what to say, you know, for there before my eyes, recognizable and unmistakable, despite frock coat and white choker tie, was the figure of "Foxy Grandpa."
The beefy face, white mutton chop whiskers and bald head were as indelibly imprinted on my memory as the sunburn line that fenced his fiery face.
Andthiswas the frump's father, and it was for him she was scheming to make a home!
I didn't go in to luncheon.
Instead, I lay down up in my room, wondering what Jenkins would think when he saw Foxy Grandpa a guest with me under this roof, and wondering also what I ought to do, or if I should do anything. I came to the conclusion finally that I wouldn't say anything for the present, for I had about all the complications I could carry.
Presently I went down to the living-room, where they were all assembled, and my heart leaped as I thought I detected a brightening in Frances' face as I entered.
Billings was waving the frump away with his fat hand. "Take it away," he said. "I hate bugs."
"But, Jacky," said the frump pleadingly, "I think it's aphusiotus gloriosa."
"I don't care if it's a giraffe," said Billings rudely.
But the professor was already across the room to the rescue.
"Ha! not agloriosa," he said animatedly, as he snooped over the little greenish thing in the frump's hand. "Observe the shortenedprothoraxandmesothoraxand—"
"Andmetathorax," chimed in the frump, her head close to his. "Hence—"
"It is aphanaeus carnifex," said the professor positively.
By Jove, it looked to me like what we used to call a dung beetle!
And then the two cranks went out in the sun with butterfly nets, and Frances and I drifted out to our pavilion overlooking the broad sweep of the Tappan Zee. As yet, her father had said nothing to me, but I knew that the blow might fall any moment. Only the arrival of the frump's father had so far saved me. And though I had gone right ahead violating his jolly injunction about Frances, I kept a sort of parole with him by avoiding any discussion of things that I knew would have interested my darling the most—that is, our love and our future. Later we took a drive through Sleepy Hollow and the Pocantico Hills. But though we grew better and better acquainted every minute, I couldn't help feeling devilish disappointed, for never once did she ever call me "Dicky." I wondered moodily whether her brother had told her yet of his plans for me.
In the evening, the younger brother showed up at dinner, but sulked, which I thought under the circumstances was about the most considerate thing he could have done.
Once during the evening, Billings, who had been talking with the professor, turned to me. "By the way, Dicky—those pajamas, you know—what did you do with them this morning?" He and the professor whispered again; then Billings turned back. "Gray paper parcel—um—you know?"
Know? Dash it, of course I knew, but I—
"Why,Ihave them now," came quietly from my companion, "thanks to Mr. Lightnut. He gave them to me this morning."
"Gavethem to you!" gasped Billings. He whispered to me: "But the rubies, you cuckoo—you didn't give herthose?"
Rubies? Dash it, I had to think hard to remember what had become of the rubies. But I got the idea.
"Why, the professor has those," I reminded him. "The red pajamas, you know—don't you remember?" I drew him aside.
Billings stared. "But he says he returned them," he exclaimed, cutting an odd sidewise look at the professor, who was talking to Frances and the frump. Billings frowned.
"Haven't seen them," I said carelessly, for I wanted to talk toher. "Oh, dash the rubies—wait till morning!"
Billings looked sourly at the professor and went off and sat alone. He seemed put out about the old boy not returning the garments. Never seemed to occur to him that the professor was a devilish busy and absent-minded old chap. Might not return them for a month.Iknew that.
"Oh, really, Frances?" the frump was saying, "How exceedingly nice of you, dear!" The professor was occupied for the moment with a moth. "I hope I won't frighten you in them as you say your maid was frightened at you. If pajamas are unbecoming to you, why just imagine me in them!"
By Jove, I was devilish glad I was not supposed to hear, for I didn't want to be required to imagine it. But as for them being unbecoming to my darling—well, I knew she knew what I thought!
Later, when the evening had shaded off and the ladies had left us, we sat in the smoking-room talking till late. I was astonished to find Foxy Grandpa devilish entertaining and clever—not a bad sort at all. He seemed to have no recollection of me at all, and therefore no grudges. I had made up my mind by this time I wasn't going to marry the frump, no matter what came or what Billings wanted, and I would tell him so in the morning. But whoever did marry her—and it looked like it was going to be the professor—would have some sort of compensation in Foxy Grandpa's entertaining stories of Eastern scandal.
Billings' cub brother smoked in a corner of the room by himself and drank innumerable slugs of whisky straight. Once I saw his father go over to him and seem to remonstrate, but without effect.
Billings wanted his father to try my special import of cigarettes, so I sent for Jenkins, who had arrived, to bring some down. And when he saw Foxy Grandpa calmly sitting there by me, pulling at a straw, he almost lost his balance. But I shook my head with covert warning.
"Ever see me before—eh?" asked the cub harshly, as he waved aside the cigarettes Jenkins extended. "Last Wednesday night—remember?"
"Yes, sir," replied Jenkins, hesitatingly. Then he rolled an eye at me and corrected himself hastily but firmly:
"No, sir; I don't recalleverseeing you before, sir."
Of course, I knew he had not, but the cub got up with a sour laugh. Then with a murmured gruff apology, he withdrew, saying he had a headache and was going to bed. And, by Jove, what a look he gave me from the door!
"Midnight!" ejaculated some one at length, just as the professor finished a jolly rum but interesting yarn of adventures in Tibet. We all rose and I was answering a challenge of Billings' for a Sunday morning game of billiards, when all of a sudden a scream rang out from somewhere above. Then came a greater commotion—two voices raised in rapid and excited colloquy. On top of this another scream, louder and more piercing—a woman's call for help.
"One of the maids," Billings hazarded. "A mouse—"
"That was Frances!" I answered him excitedly, and we all piled out into the hall and peered down its long vista.
Down one of the dimly illumined angles of the great stairway a white figure darted, then paused, abashed, crouching back against the wall at sight of us advancing. Above her sounded a man's voice, and even as she screamed again, he overtook her, clasping her arm.
"Frances—dear, dear Frances!" he cried. "Are you afraid ofme?"
And he threw his arms around her. "Come on back, dearest!" he pleaded. "You have been dreaming."
And under the light of a great red cluster of grapes, pendent from the mouth of a grinning Bacchus, I recognized with horror the yellow mat of hair and freckled face of Billings' cub brother. On the instant, with a bull-like roar, Billings sprang forward, but I was quicker still. But fleeter than either of us to reach the scene were the two elderly men, together with Miss Warfield, the housekeeper, and a couple of the maids. Frances darted like a bird to Foxy Grandpa, and then the figures of the women shut her from view.
Billings and I had paused, half-way to the landing. It looked as though the elder Billings was amply capable of handling the occasion now. He had backed the youth against the wall behind, and his language was of a kind I hated to have my darling hear. Every time the other offered to expostulate, his father broke out again.
"You are a disgrace to an honored name!" he roared. "And the only explanation left for me to offer our guests is that you are drunk and don't know where you are!"
"Oh, father!" faltered the boy. And then he turned his black shrouded figure to the pale marble against which he leaned, and it seemed to me his very heart would sob away.
"What's the matter, dad?" came a voice from the head of the stairway. "What in thunder is all the row about?"
"By George!" gasped Billings. Everybody looked upward—one of the women screamed. For there, slowly advancing down the angle leading to the landing, his yellow mop of hair shining above the dark collar of a dressing-robe, was the duplicate of the youth cowering under the elder Billings' wrath.
And out of a dead, tense silence, came his voice again:
"Can't any of you speak?" He touched the figure on the shoulder. "Who are you?" he asked in an odd, strained voice.
The black figure turned toward him a face agonized in grief.
"I—I don't know," came a voice pitifully—his voice, it seemed.
The cub just stood like a statue for a moment—stood as we all stood. Then slowly his hand went out and touched the hand of his double. Slowly his fingers swept the face, the hair; gradually his eyes closed, as though he were sensing by touch alone.
Suddenly a loud cry leaped from his throat.
"Sister!" he shouted. And he swept the black figure to him.
Then, tossing back his head, the youth faced us with blazing, angry eyes, looking as David must have, when he faced old what's-his-name.
"If there's a man among you, I'd like to know what this means?" he cried.
There was a blank silence for an instant, and then—
"Perhaps I can explain," said a voice.
And up the stairway advanced Professor Doozenberry.
Evening had come again.
In fact, it was almost bedtime. Frances and I sat before the hearth in the library, looking silently into the red heart of the dying embers of fragrant pine cones. For in the heights of the Pocantico Hills it often is chilly on summer nights.
My darling sat on a lowfauteuil, her chin resting upon her hand, her beautiful eyes fixed dreamily, inscrutably, upon the fading coals. In her lap lay the spread of the crimson pajamas.
She was thinking—thinking—I wondered what! And I was thinking how jolly rum it all was; that Francis wasn't Frances, that the professor wasn't Billings, Colonel Francis Kirkland wasn't Foxy Grandpa and wasn't the frump's father after all; and that the frump, herself—bless her, her name was Elizabeth—wasn't Frances, and wasn't a frump at all, but just a jolly, nice, homely old dear, you know. And I was trying to catch and hold some of the deuced queer things the professor had discoursed upon about ancient Oriental what's-its-name, and astral bodies, obsession, psychical research and all that sort of thing. Somehow, dash it, it had all seemed devilish unreasonable and improbable tome—couldn't get hold of it, you know; but as everybody else had said "Ah-h-h!" and had wagged their heads as though they understood, I just said: "Dash it, of course, you know!" and recrossed my legs and took a fresher grip on my monocle.
The most devilish hard thing to get hold of had been that Frances had never sat on the arm of my Morris chair, had never told me she liked me better than any man she had ever met, and had never called me "Dicky" at any time or anywhere. I wondered if she ever would, and how the deuce fellows went about it when they proposed to the girl they madly loved. I was devilish put out, you know, that I had never tried it so Icouldknow.
From across the hall droned the voices from the smoking-room—Colonel Kirkland and the judge debating something about treaty ports and the Manchurian railway. Through the French windows from the open loggia came the eager, pitched tones of the professor and the frump—no, Elizabeth, I mean—discussing Aldeberan and Betelguese, dead suns, star clusters and the nebular hypothesis.
Within the room Billings had snapped out the lights, to bring out the blazing fire of his treasured ruby, and from the tray in the dark corner where he was closing it in his collection vault, it gleamed like the end of a bright cigar. The other four were absently clutched in my darling's hand and the crimson shine gleamed bravely through her finger bars. "Carbuncles—ancient carbuncles," the professor had called them, "that the Chinese believed their dragons carried in their mouths, in their black caves in days of old, to furnish light whereby they could see to devour their victims." AndthatI believed, for I could see some practical sense about it!
"WhatIshould like to know," said the dear, precious cub, hugging his knee by the mantel, "is whereIcome in!"
"You don't come in," said Billings, lifting him playfully by the ear; "you comeout!" And out they went.
And my dear girl and I were like what's-his-name's picture—alone at last, you know. She stirred softly and her sigh came like the wind through the trees at night.
"I suppose we will have to burn them," she said dolefully; "the professor says it is the only thing to do."
"Jolly shame, I say!" I murmured indignantly.
"It seems a crime," she said softly, and there was a little choke in her voice. She slipped to the soft-fibered rug before the fire. I gently brought my chair closer to her.
For a moment she pressed her cheek against the crimson mass, then kneeling forward, laid it gently on the glowing coals. There was a flash, a lightning blaze of red that almost blinded us, and then for a brief space a field of shining ash. Against this the tiny serpent frogs writhed and twisted and turned at last to leaden gray. Over the spread of all, swept wave after wave of golden, crimsoned pictures—temples and pagodas—dragons that licked fiery tongues at us—strange faces that came and went, leering hideously into our own.
And then of a sudden it was all faded—gone! The breeze from the open window stirred the ashes to the side. She dropped back with a deep sigh.
"They're gone," she breathed mournfully.
"Never mind," I said; "you've these left." And daringly I laid my hand upon the one that clasped the rubies. And I thrilled as it lay still beneath my own.
"Good-by, you dear old, wicked, enchanted pajamas," she said. "I don't care—I just love you, because—" She paused.
"Because they brought us together?" By Jove, I didn't know I had said it, till it came out!
An instant, and then I caught it—just a little whisper, you know:
"Yes—Dicky!"
By Jove! And then, dash it, my monocle dropped! But I let it go.
Presently she looked at the glowing rubies in her hand.
"They are from India, you know, Dicky—from Mandalay, the professor said." And she murmured: "'On the road to Mandalay, where the old flotilla lay'—don't you remember? I've been there, Dicky."
"By Jove!" I said. "Have you, though? Is it jolly?"
"The poet seemed to think so—" She laughed. "Do you know Kipling, Dicky?" I tried to think, but dashed if I could remember.
I wondered if it would be a good place to take a trip to!
I hitched closer. "What does—er—this poet chap say about it? What's it like, you know?"
She laughed. "I'm afraid it's wicked, Dicky, a good deal like the haunted pajamas." She leaned forward, chin upon her hand again, looking into the fading coals. "I'll tell you what he says."
Then her voice went on:
"Ship me somewhere east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,Where there aren't no Ten Commandments an' a man can raise a thirst."
"Ship me somewhere east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,Where there aren't no Ten Commandments an' a man can raise a thirst."
"By Jove!" I said, interested.
"For the temple bells are callin', and it's there that I would be—By the old Moulmein pagoda, lookin' lazy at the sea."
"For the temple bells are callin', and it's there that I would be—By the old Moulmein pagoda, lookin' lazy at the sea."
I brought my hand down on my knee.
"Oh, I say, you know—er—Frances," I exclaimed with enthusiasm, "we'll go there for our honeymoon, by Jove! Shall we—eh?"
And then the jolly rubies rolled unheeded to the floor. And nothing stirred but the ashes of the haunted pajamas!
And then—Oh, but Frances says that'sall!
A vivid, startling portrayal of one man's financial greed, its wide-spreading power, its action in Wall Street, and its effect on the three women most intimately in his life. A splendid, entertaining American novel.
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The first big success of this much loved American novelist. It is a powerful portrayal of a young clergyman's attempt to win his beautiful wife to his own narrow creed.
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