“Is your father’s embarrassment serious?” she asked.
Bob looked startled. He didn’t like the way she had shifted the
conversation. “Pretty bad,” he answered.
“I believe, though, it’s customary for men on the ‘street’ not to stay
‘downed,’ as they say?”
“Don’t know as it’s an invariable rule,” returned Bob evasively. Then
realizing it wouldn’t do to be evasive: “As a matter of fact, I don’t
believe I’m very well posted as to that,” he added.
“What does your father say?” she asked abruptly.
Bob would much rather not have talked about that with her. But—“Dad
says there is no hope,” he had to say.
Miss Gerald was silent for a moment. As a child she remembered a very
gloomy period in her own father’s career—when the “street” had him
“cornered.” She remembered the funereal atmosphere of the big old
house—the depression on nearly every one’s face—how everything had
seemed permeated with impending tragedy. She remembered how her father
looked at her, a great gloomy ghost of himself with somber burning eyes.
She remembered how seared and seamed his strong and massive face had
become in but a few days. But that was long ago and he had long since
left her for good. The vivid impression, however, of that gloomy period
during her childhood remained with her. It had always haunted her,
though her father had not been “downed” in the end. He had emerged from
the storm stronger than ever.
The girl shot a sidewise look at Bob, standing now with his arms folded
like Hamlet. Perhaps he had come from such a funereal house as she,
herself, so well remembered? Had dad’s trouble, or tragedy, weighed on
him unduly? Had it made him—for the moment—just slightly
irresponsible? Miss Gerald, as has been intimated, had frankly liked Bob
as an outdoor companion, or an indoor one, too, sometimes, for that
matter. He was one of the few men, for example, she would “trot” with.
He could “trot” in an eminently respectful manner, being possessed of an
innate refinement, or chivalry, which certainly seemed good to her,
after some of those other wild Terpsichorean performances of myriad
masculine manikins in the mad world of Milliondom.
“I suppose your father has taken his trouble much to heart?” Miss Gerald
now observed.
“Not a bit.”
“No?” In surprise.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Said he looked to me to keep him in affluence the rest of his days.”
“To you?”
“That’s right.”
“But how?—What are you going to do?”
“Hustle.”
“At what?”
“Don’t know. Got to find out.”
“What did you plan doing, when at college?”
“Nothing.”
“Is it”—Miss Gerald got back to where she had been before—“the sense
of awful responsibility,” with slight sarcasm, “that has turned your
brain?”
“I’m not crazy.”
“No?” She remembered that most people in asylums say that.
“Though I may be in a matter of three weeks,” Bob added, more to himself
than to her.
“Why three weeks?”
“Well, if I don’t—just shouldn’t happen to go crazy during that time,
I’ll be all right, after that.”
“Why do you allow a specified period for your mental deterioration?”
“_I_ didn’t allow it.”
“Who did?”
“Can’t tell you.”
Miss Gerald pondered on this answer. It would seem as if Bob had
“hallucinations,” if nothing worse. He was possessed of the idea, no
doubt, that he would go crazy within three weeks. He didn’t realize that
the “deterioration,” she referred to, might have already begun. He
looked normal enough, though, had the most normal-looking eyes. Could it
be that he was acting? And if he was acting, why was he? That seemed
incomprehensible. Anyhow, it couldn’t be a sense of responsibility that
had “upset” Bob. She became sure of that now. He played a losing game
with too much dash and brilliancy! Hadn’t she seen him at polo—hadn’t
she held her breath and thrilled when he had “sailed in” and with
irresistible vim snatched victory out of defeat? No; Bob wasn’t a
“quitter.”
“So your father looks to you to support him?”
“So he said. The governor’s a bit of a joker though, you know. He may be
only putting up a bluff to try me out.”
“What did he advise you to do?”
Bob shivered. “Matrimonial market.”
“You mean—?”
“Heiress.” Succinctly.
“Any particular one?”
“Dad did mention a name.”
“Not—?” She looked at him.
“Yes.”
An awful pause.
“Now you know why I didn’t want to see you,” said Bob, in that even
fatalistic voice. “First place, I wouldn’t ask you to marry me, if you
were the last girl in the world! Second place, I was afraid if I saw
you, some of these things dad said to try me, would be bound to pop out.
You mustn’t think badly of dad, Miss Gerald. As I’ve said, he didn’t
mean a word of it. He was only sizing me up. Don’t I know that twinkle
in his eye? Just wanted to see if I’m as lazy and good-for-nothing as
some chaps brought up with the silver spoon. Why, he’d—honestly, dad
would just kick me, if I took his advice. Why, if I went back home
to-morrow,” went on Bob, warming to the subject, “and told him we were
engaged”—the girl moved slightly—“and were going to be married right
off”—the girl moved again—“why—why, old as I am, dad would take off
his coat and give me a good trouncing. That’s the kind of a man dad is.
I see it all now.”
He really believed he did—and for the first time. He felt he had solved
the mystery of dad’s manner and conduct. It _had_ been a mystery, but
the solution had come to him like an inspiration. Dad wanted to see
whether he would arise to the occasion. He had told him he didn’t
believe he was worth his salt just to see his backbone stiffen. He had
alluded to that other way of repairing the “busted family credit” just
to observe the effect on Bob. And how dad must have chuckled inwardly at
Bob’s response! Why, they’d almost had a scene, he and good old dad. Bob
could smile at it now—if he could smile at anything. He certainly had
been a numskull. Dad, pulling in fish somewhere, was probably still
chuckling to himself, and wondering how Bob would work out the problem.
“Dad was always just like that when I was a boy,” he confided to Miss
Gerald, now standing more than ever like a marble lady in the moonlight.
“He would propose the contrariest things! Always trying and testing me.
Guess that’s why he acted so happy when he went broke. Thought it would
make a man of me! By jove, that’s it! Why, he was as care-free as a boy
with a new top!”
“Was he, indeed?” said Miss Gerald, studying Mr. Robert Bennett with
eyes that looked very deep now, beneath the imperious brows. “How nice!”
Oh, that tone was distant. It might have been wafted from one who stood
on an iceberg.
“Isn’t it?” Bob heaved a sigh. “I’m not afraid of you any more,” he
said, “now that I’ve got that off my chest.”
Again Miss Gerald shivered slightly, but whether at the slang or not,
was not apparent.
“You can’t frighten me any more,” said Bob.
“But why,” said Miss Gerald, “did you tell me, at all, of dad’s—as you
call him—charming suggestion?”
“Had to. Didn’t you ask me?” In faint surprise. Then he remembered she
didn’t know he _had_ to tell the truth. That made him look rather
foolish—or “imbecile,” in the light of all those other proceedings.
Miss Gerald’s brow contracted once more. Again she might be asking
herself if Master Robert was acting? Was this but gigantic, bombastic,
Quixotic “posing” after all? It was too extraordinary to speak of such
things as he had spoken of, to her! Did he only want to appear
different? Did he seek to combine Apollo with Bernard Shaw in his
attitude toward society? Or had he been reading Chesterton and was he
but striving to present in his own personality a futurist’s effect of
upside-downness? Miss Gerald felt now the way she had at the modernists’
exhibition, when she had gazed and gazed at what was apparently a load
of wood falling down-stairs, and some one had told her to find the lady.
It was about as difficult to-night to find the real Mr. Bennett—the
happy-go-lucky Bob Bennett of last month or last week—as it had been to
find that lady where appeared only chaotic kindling wood.
Miss Gerald let the cool air fan her brow for a few moments. This young
man was, at least, exhilarating. She felt a little dizzy. Meanwhile Bob
looked at her with that sad silly smile.
“You can’t ask me any questions that will disconcert me now,” he
boasted.
Miss Gerald looked at him squarely. “Will you marry me?” she said.
It was a coup. Her father had been capable of just such coups as that.
He would hit the enemy in the most unexpected manner in the most
unexpected quarter, and thus overwhelm his foes. Miss Gerald might not
mean it; she, most likely, only said it. Under the circumstances, to get
at the truth herself, she was justified in saying almost anything. If he
were but posing, she would prick the bubble of his pretense. If those
grandiloquent, and, to her, totally unnecessary protestations didn’t
mean anything, she wished to know it. He would never, never marry
her,—wouldn’t he? Or, possibly, her question was but part of a plan, or
general campaign, on her part, to test his sanity? Six persons—real
competents, too!—had affirmed that he wasn’t “just right.” Be that as
it may, Miss Gerald dropped this bomb in Master Bob’s camp and waited
the effect with mien serene.
Her query worked the expected havoc, all right. Bob’s jaw fell. Then his
eyes began to flash with a new fierce love-light. He couldn’t help it.
Marry her?—Great Scott!—She, asking him, if he would? He felt his
pulses beating faster and the blood pumping in his veins. His arms went
out—very eager, strong, primitive arms they looked—that cave-man kind!
Arms that seize resistless maidens and enfold them, willy-nilly! Miss
Gerald really should have felt much alarmed, especially as there was so
much doubt as to Bob’s sanity. It’s bad enough to be alone with an
ordinary crazy man, but a crazy man who is in love with one? That is
calculated to be a rather unusual and thrilling experience.
However, though Miss Gerald may have entertained a few secret fears and
possible regrets for her own somewhat mad precipitancy, she managed to
maintain a fair semblance of composure. She had the courage to “stand
by” the coup. She was like a tall lily that seems to hold itself
unafraid before the breaking of the tempest. She did not even draw back,
though she threw her head back slightly. And in her eyes was a
challenge. Not a love challenge, though Bob could not discern that! His
own gaze was too blurred.
Miss Gerald suddenly drew in her breath quickly, as one who felt she
would need her courage now. Almost had Bob, in that moment of
forgetfulness, drawn her into his arms and so completed the paradoxical
picture of himself, when the impulse was abruptly arrested. He seemed
suddenly to awaken to a saner comprehension of the requirements of the
moment. His arms fell to his side.
“That’s a joke, of course,” he said hoarsely.
“And if it wasn’t?” she challenged him. There was mockery now in her
eyes, and her figure had relaxed.
“You affirm it isn’t?”
“I said _if_ it wasn’t?”
“I guess you win,” said Bob wearily. These extremes of emotion were
wearing on the system.
“You mean you wouldn’t, even if I had really, actually—?”
“I mean you certainly do know how to ‘even up’ with a chap. When he
doesn’t dare dream of heaven, you suddenly pretend to fling open the
golden gates and invite him to enter.”
“Like St. Peter,” said the girl.
“Ah, you _are_ laughing,” said Bob bitterly, and dropped his head. Her
assurance was regal. “As if it wasn’t hard enough, anyway, to get you
out of my darn-fool head,” he murmured reproachfully.
“Then you reject me?” said the girl, moving toward the entrance. “Good!
I mean, bad! So humiliating to have been rejected! Good night, Mr.
Bennett. No—it isn’t necessary for you to accompany me to the house. I
really couldn’t think of troubling you after your unkind refusal to—”
Bob groaned. “I say, there is always your aunt, you know, who can ask me
to vacate the—” he called out.
“I’ll think about it,” said the lady. A faint perfume was wafted past
him and the vision vanished. Bob sank down on the cold marble seat.
* * * * *
He remained thus for some time, oblivious to the world, when another
car, en route from the village to the house, purred past him, spitting
viciously, however, between purrs. Bob didn’t even look around.
Spit!—spit!—purr!—purr!—Its two lights were like the eyes of some
monster pussy-cat, on the war-path for trouble. Spit!—it seemed in a
horribly vicious mood. More “spits” than “purrs,” now! Then the car
stopped, though it was some distance from the house.
“Curse this old rattletrap!” said a man’s voice.
“Oh, I guess no one’ll pay any attention to it,” spoke another occupant.
“Besides, it was the only one to be had at the station, and we had to
get here quick.”
“You bet! The quicker, the better,” observed a third man.
They all got out, not far from where Bob sat in the dark gazing into a
void, but he did not notice. Cars might come, and cars might go, for all
of him. He was dimly aware of the sound of voices but he had no interest
in guests, newly-arrived or otherwise. One of the trio paid the driver
of the car and it purred back, somewhat less viciously, from whence it
came.
“Better separate when we get near the house and approach it carefully,”
said the first speaker in low tense tones. “We’ve got to get hold of him
without anybody knowing it.”
“That’s right. Wouldn’t do to let _them_”—with significant
accent—“know what we’ve come for,” said the second man. The trio were
quite out of ear-shot of Bob, by now.
“Hope it’ll turn out all right,” spoke the third anxiously. “Why, in
heaven’s name, didn’t we think of this in the first place?”
“Can’t think of every contingency!” answered the first speaker
viciously. “Our plan now is to get hold of one of the servants. A nice
fat tip, and then—Come on! No time to waste!”
As they made their way up the driveway to the house Bob looked drearily
around. His eyes noted and mechanically followed the trio of dark forms.
He saw them stop near the house; then he observed one approach a side
window and peer in. A moment later another approached another window and
peered in.
“That’s funny!” thought Bob, without any particular emotion. At the same
time, he recalled that a band of burglars had been going about, looting
country-houses. Perhaps these fellows were after a few hundred thousand
dollars’ worth of jewels? There might be half a million dollars’ worth
of jewelry sprinkled about among Mrs. Ralston’s guests. But what did it
matter? The presence of these intruders seemed too trifling a matter to
think about now, and Bob sank into another reverie.
How long he remained thus, he did not know. The laughter and talk of a
number of guests, coming out the front way (end of a “trot,” probably)
aroused him and Bob got up.
As he did so, he fancied he saw again the three men he had noticed, then
forgotten, slip around toward the back of the house. Throughout the
gardens, the moonlight made clear spots on the ground where the bright
rays sifted through the foliage or shone down between the trees, and
they had to skip across one of these bright places to get around
somewhere behind the big mansion. Undoubtedly, the appearance from the
house of the guests who wanted to cool off had startled the intruders
and inspired a desire to make themselves less conspicuous for the time
being. Bob entertained a vague impression that the conduct of the trio
was rather crude and amateurish, though that didn’t worry him. He didn’t
care whether they were full-fledged yeggmen of the smoothest class, or
only bungling artists, a discredit to their profession. He dismissed
consideration of them as quickly again as he had done before.
A yawn escaped his lips, and it rather surprised him that a
broken-hearted man could yawn. He looked at his watch, holding it in the
moonlight, and saw that it was late enough now so that he could retire
if he wished, without violating, to any great degree, that
even-tenor-of-his-way clause. Accordingly Bob got up and walked toward
the house. A side door was open and he went in that way and up to his
room. He was glad he didn’t encounter any one—that is, any one he had
to speak to. The monocle-man drifted by him somewhere, but Bob didn’t
have to pay much attention to him. He could imagine the superior way in
which the Britisher had informed Miss Gerald that he found him (Bob) an
“interesting young man.” The monocle-man and the bishop seemed to agree
on that point.
Undressing hastily, Bob flung himself into bed. He had gone through so
much he was tired and scarcely had he touched the sheets when the
welcoming arms of Morpheus claimed him. His sleep was sound—very sound!
In fact, it was so sound that something occurred and he didn’t know it.
It occurred again—several times—and still he did not know it. Another
interval!—a long one! Bob yet slept the sleep of the overwrought. His
fagged brain was trying to readjust itself. He could have slept right
through to the dawn, but this was not to be. Long before the glowing god
made its appearance in the east, Bob was rudely yanked from the arms of
Morpheus.