MR. SCOBELL IS FRANK
Much may happen in these rapid times in the course of an hour and a
half. While John was keeping his vigil on the sandstone rock, Betty was
having an interview with Mr. Scobell which was to produce far-reaching
results, and which, incidentally, was to leave her angrier and more at
war with the whole of her world than she could remember to have been in
the entire course of her life.
The interview began, shortly after breakfast, in a gentle and tactful
manner, with Aunt Marion at the helm. But Mr. Scobell was not the man
to stand by silently while persons were being tactful. At the end of
the second minute he had plunged through his sister's mild monologue
like a rhinoceros through a cobweb, and had stated definitely, with an
economy of words, the exact part which Betty was to play in Mervian
affairs.
"You say you want to know why you were cabled for. I'll tell you.
There's no use talking for half a day before you get to the point. I
guess you've heard that there's a prince here instead of a republic
now? Well, that's where you come in."
"Do you mean--?" she hesitated.
"Yes, I do," said Mr. Scobell. There was a touch of doggedness in his
voice. He was not going to stand any nonsense, by Heck, but there was
no doubt that Betty's wide-open eyes were not very easy to meet. He
went on rapidly. "Cut out any fool notions about romance." Miss
Scobell, who was knitting a sock, checked her needles for a moment in
order to sigh. Her brother eyed her morosely, then resumed his remarks.
"This is a matter of state. That's it. You gotta cut out fool notions
and act for good of state. You gotta look at it in the proper spirit.
Great honor--see what I mean? Princess and all that. Chance of a
lifetime--dynasty--you gotta look at it that way."
Miss Scobell heaved another sigh, and dropped a stitch.
"For the love of Mike," said her brother, irritably, "don't snort like
that, Marion."
"Very well, dear."
Betty had not taken her eyes off him from his first word. An unbiased
observer would have said that she made a pretty picture, standing
there, in her white dress, but in the matter of pictures, still life
was evidently what Mr. Scobell preferred for his gaze never wandered
from the cigar stump which he had removed from his mouth in order to
knock off the ash.
Betty continued to regard him steadfastly. The shock of his words had
to some extent numbed her. At this moment she was merely thinking,
quite dispassionately, what a singularly nasty little man he looked,
and wondering--not for the first time--what strange quality, invisible
to everybody else, it had been in him that had made her mother his
adoring slave during the whole of their married life.
Then her mind began to work actively once more. She was a Western girl,
and an insistence on freedom was the first article in her creed. A
great rush of anger filled her, that this man should set himself up to
dictate to her.
"Do you mean that you want me to marry this Prince?" she said.
"That's right."
"I won't do anything of the sort."
"Pshaw! Don't be foolish. You make me tired."
Betty's eye shone mutinously. Her cheeks were flushed, and her slim,
boyish figure quivered. Her chin, always determined, became a silent
Declaration of Independence.
"I won't," she said.
Aunt Marion, suspending operations on the sock, went on with tact at
the point where her brother's interruption had forced her to leave off.
"I'm sure he's a very nice young man. I have not seen him, but
everybody says so. You like him, Bennie, don't you?"
"Sure, I like him. He's a corker. Wait till you see him, Betty.
Nobody's asking you to marry him before lunch. You'll have plenty of
time to get acquainted. It beats me what you're kicking at. You give me
a pain in the neck. Be reasonable."
Betty sought for arguments to clinch her refusal.
"It's ridiculous," she said. "You talk as if you had just to wave your
hand. Why should your prince want to marry a girl he has never seen?"
"He will," said Mr. Scobell confidently.
"How do you know?"
"Because I know he's a sensible young skeesicks. That's how. See here,
Betty, you've gotten hold of wrong ideas about this place. You don't
understand the position of affairs. Your aunt didn't till I put her
wise."
"He bit my head off, my dear," murmured Miss Scobell, knitting
placidly.
"You're thinking that Mervo is an ordinary state, and that the Prince
is one of those independent, all-wool, off-with-his-darned-head rulers
like you read about in the best sellers. Well, you've got another guess
coming. If you want to know who's the big noise here, it's me--me! This
Prince guy is my hired man. See? Who sent for him? I did. Who put him
on the throne? I did. Who pays him his salary? I do, from the profits
of the Casino. Now do you understand? He knows his job. He knows which
side his bread's buttered. When I tell him about this marriage, do you
know what he'll say? He'll say 'Thank you, sir!' That's how things are
in this island."
Betty shuddered. Her face was white with humiliation. She half-raised
her hands with an impulsive movement to hide it.
"I won't. I won't. I won't!" she gasped.
Mr. Scobell was pacing the room in an ecstasy of triumphant rhetoric.
"There's another thing," he said, swinging round suddenly and causing
his sister to drop another stitch. "Maybe you think he's some kind of a
Dago, this guy? Maybe that's what's biting you. Let me tell you that
he's an American--pretty near as much an American as you are yourself."
Betty stared at him.
"An American!"
"Don't believe it, eh? Well, let me tell you that his mother was born
and raised in Jersey, and that he has lived all his life in the States.
He's no little runt of a Dago. No, sir. He's a Harvard man, six-foot
high and weighs two hundred pounds. That's the sort of man he is. I
guess that's not American enough for you, maybe? No?"
"You do shout so, Bennie!" murmured Miss Scobell. "I'm sure there's no
need."
Betty uttered a cry. Something had told her who he was, this Harvard
man who had sold himself. That species of sixth sense which lies
undeveloped at the back of our minds during the ordinary happenings of
life wakes sometimes in moments of keen emotion. At its highest, it is
prophecy; at its lowest, a vague presentiment. It woke in Betty now.
There was no particular reason why she should have connected her
stepfather's words with John. The term he had used was an elastic one.
Among the visitors to the island there were probably several Harvard
men. But somehow she knew.
"Who is he?" she cried. "What was his name before he--when he--?"
"His name?" said Mr. Scobell. "John Maude. Maude was his mother's name.
She was a Miss Westley. Here, where are you going?"
Betty was walking slowly toward the door. Something in her face checked
Mr. Scobell.
"I want to think," she said quietly. "I'm going out."
* * * * *
In days of old, in the age of legend, omens warned heroes of impending
doom. But to-day the gods have grown weary, and we rush unsuspecting on
our fate. No owl hooted, no thunder rolled from the blue sky as John
went up the path to meet the white dress that gleamed between the
trees.
His heart was singing within him. She had come. She had not forgotten,
or changed her mind, or willfully abandoned him. His mood lightened
swiftly. Humility vanished. He was not such an outcast, after all. He
was someone. He was the man Betty Silver had come to meet.
But with the sight of her face came reaction.
Her face was pale and cold and hard. She did not speak or smile. As she
drew near she looked at him, and there was that in her look which set a
chill wind blowing through the world and cast a veil across the sun.
And in this bleak world they stood silent and motionless while eons
rolled by.
Betty was the first to speak.
"I'm late," she said.
John searched in his brain for words, and came empty away. He shook his
head dumbly.
"Shall we sit down?" said Betty.
John indicated silently the sandstone rock on which he had been
communing with himself.
They sat down. A sense of being preposterously and indecently big
obsessed John. There seemed no end to him. Wherever he looked, there
were hands and feet and legs. He was a vast blot on the face of the
earth. He glanced out of the corner of his eye at Betty. She was gazing
out to sea.
He dived into his brain again. It was absurd! There must be something
to say.
And then he realized that a worse thing had befallen. He had no voice.
It had gone. He knew that, try he never so hard to speak, he would not
be able to utter a word. A nightmare feeling of unreality came upon
him. Had he ever spoken? Had he ever done anything but sit dumbly on
that rock, looking at those sea gulls out in the water?
He shot another swift glance at Betty, and a thrill went through him.
There were tears in her eyes.
The next moment--the action was almost automatic--his left hand was
clasping her right, and he was moving along the rock to her side.
She snatched her hand away.
His brain, ransacked for the third time, yielded a single word.
"Betty!"
She got up quickly.
In the confused state of his mind, John found it necessary if he were
to speak at all, to say the essential thing in the shortest possible
way. Polished periods are not for the man who is feeling deeply.
He blurted out, huskily, "I love you!" and finding that this was all
that he could say, was silent.
Even to himself the words, as he spoke them, sounded bald and
meaningless. To Betty, shaken by her encounter with Mr. Scobell, they
sounded artificial, as if he were forcing himself to repeat a lesson.
They jarred upon her.
"Don't!" she said sharply. "Oh, don't!"
Her voice stabbed him. It could not have stirred him more if she had
uttered a cry of physical pain.
"Don't! I know. I've been told."
"Been told?"
She went on quickly.
"I know all about it. My stepfather has just told me. He said--he said
you were his--" she choked--"his hired man; that he paid you to stay
here and advertise the Casino. Oh, it's too horrible! That it should be
you! You, who have been--you can't understand what you--have been to
me--ever since we met; you couldn't understand. I can't tell you--a
sort of help--something--something that--I can't put it into words.
Only it used to help me just to think of you. It was almost impersonal.
I didn't mind if I never saw you again. I didn't expect ever to see you
again. It was just being able to think of you. It helped--you were
something I could trust. Something strong--solid." She laughed
bitterly. "I suppose I made a hero of you. Girls are fools. But it
helped me to feel that there was one man alive who--who put his honor
above money--"
She broke off. John stood motionless, staring at the ground. For the
first time in his easy-going life he knew shame. Even now he had not
grasped to the full the purport of her words. The scales were falling
from his eyes, but as yet he saw but dimly.
She began to speak again, in a low, monotonous voice, almost as if she
were talking to herself. She was looking past him, at the gulls that
swooped and skimmed above the glittering water.
"I'm so tired of money--money--money. Everything's money. Isn't there a
man in the world who won't sell himself? I thought that you--I suppose
I'm stupid. It's business, I suppose. One expects too much."
She looked at him wearily.
"Good-by," she said. "I'm going."
He did not move.
She turned, and went slowly up the path. Still he made no movement. A
spell seemed to be on him. His eyes never left her as she passed into
the shadow of the trees. For a moment her white dress stood out
clearly. She had stopped. With his whole soul he prayed that she would
look back. But she moved on once more, and was gone. And suddenly a
strange weakness came upon John. He trembled. The hillside flickered
before his eyes for an instant, and he clutched at the sandstone rock
to steady himself.
Then his brain cleared, and he found himself thinking swiftly. He could
not let her go like this. He must overtake her. He must stop her. He
must speak to her. He must say--he did not know what it was that he
would say--anything, so that he spoke to her again.
He raced up the path, calling her name. No answer came to his cries.
Above him lay the hillside, dozing in the noonday sun; below, the
Mediterranean, sleek and blue, without a ripple. He stood alone in a
land of silence and sleep.