THE CUB
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 a _phusiotus
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 a _gloriosa_," he said animatedly, as he snooped over the
little greenish thing in the frump's hand. "Observe the shortened
_prothorax_ and _mesothorax_ and--"
"And _metathorax_," chimed in the frump, her head close to his.
"Hence--"
"It is a _phanaeus 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, _I_ have them now," came quietly from my companion, "thanks to Mr.
Lightnut. He gave them to me this morning."
"_Gave_ them to you!" gasped Billings. He whispered to me: "But the
rubies, you cuckoo--you didn't give her _those_?"
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 to _her_.
"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. _I_ knew
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 recall _ever_ seeing 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 of _me_?"
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.