It took a great deal of courage for Bob to go down to breakfast the next
morning. In fact, he had never done anything before in his life that
demanded so much courage. He pictured his entrance, anticipating what
would happen; he didn’t try to deceive himself. The monocle-man would
tap him on the shoulder. “You are my prisoner,” he would say. And then
it would be “exit” for Bob amid the exclamations and in the face of the
accumulated staring of the company.
Bob wasn’t going to play the craven now, though, so he marched
down-stairs and into the breakfast-room, his head well up. With that
smile on his lips and the frosty light in his blue eyes, he looked not
unlike a young Viking fearlessly presenting a bold brow to the enemy
while his ship is sinking beneath him. He acted just as if he hadn’t
been away and as if nothing had happened.
“Good-morning, people,” he said in his cheeriest.
For a moment there was a tombstone silence while Bob, not seeming to
notice it, dropped down in a convenient place at the table. His
vis-a-vis, as luck, or ill-luck would have it, was the monocle-man. Bob
felt the shivers stealing over him. But the monocle-man, too, acted as
if nothing had happened. He didn’t get up and tap Bob on the shoulder.
Perhaps he wished to finish his breakfast first.
“Aw!—Have some toast,” he observed to Bob. “Mrs. Ralston’s toast is
really delicious.”
“No,” said Bob airily. “I don’t like that English kind of toast. Makes
me think of rusk! No taste to it! Give me good old American toast with
plenty of butter on it.”
“Aw!” said the monocle-man.
Bob didn’t stop there. He appealed to the bishop and carried the
discussion on to the doctor. He even went so far, a daredevil look in
his sanguine blue eyes now, as to ask Miss Gerald’s opinion. Miss
Gerald, however, pretended not to hear. Her devoted admirer was close at
hand and Bob saw the hammer-thrower’s brows knit at sight of him. Bob in
his new mood didn’t care a straw now and looked straight back at the
hammer-thrower, as if daring him to do his worst. For an instant he
thought the hammer-thrower was going to say something, but he didn’t.
Perhaps second thought told him it would be better taste to wait, for he
lifted his heavy shoulders with rather a contemptuous or pitying shrug
and paid no further attention to luckless Bob.
The latter kept up a gay conversation between bites, professing to be
quite unaware of a certain extraordinary reticence with which his light
persiflage was received. He looked around to see if Gee-gee and Gid-up
were anywhere visible and saw that they were not. This did not surprise
him, as theatrical ladies are usually late risers and like to breakfast
in their rooms; nor would they be apt to mingle promiscuously with the
other guests. Mrs. Ralston, Mrs. Dan and Mrs. Clarence were also not
about. Bob was thankful Mrs. Ralston needed most of the morning by
herself, or with sundry experts, to beautify; he didn’t care to see his
hostess just yet. It was hard enough to meet her fair niece, Miss
Gerald, under the circumstances.
“I understand we have two new arrivals in the professional entertaining
line,” said Bob to the monocle-man.
“Aw!—how interesting!” replied the other. Bob couldn’t get much of a
“rise” out of him, though unvaryingly affable in his manner toward the
young man. “Try some of this marmalade—do—it’s Scotch, you know. All
marmalade ought to be Scotch. Dislike intensely the English make!”
“How unpatriotic!” said Bob cynically. Really, the monocle-man did it
very well. He was a fine imitation.
“Aw!” he said once more.
And then Bob began to play with him. Dear old dad who was somewhat of a
bibliomaniac had, on one or two of Bob’s vacation trips to London,
introduced the lad to many quaint, out-of-the-way nooks and corners. Now
Bob drew on the source of information thus gleaned and angled with his
one-eye-glassed neighbor. But the monocle-man fenced beautifully; he
knew more than Bob. And when the latter had exhausted himself, the
monocle-man, with a few twinkles behind his staring window-pane, played
with Bob. He showed him as a mere child for ignorance of the subject,
and drawled so brilliantly that some of the others became interested,
though professing not to see that Bob was there. When the monocle-man
had finished, Bob felt abashed. He gazed upon the other with new and
wondrous respect. He had attempted the infantile and amateurish game of
unmasking the other—of exhibiting his crass ignorance and letting the
others draw their own conclusions—and he had been literally overwhelmed
in his efforts.
Having shown Bob the futility of trying to play with him, the
monocle-man again offered Bob the marmalade. His manner of doing it made
Bob think of a jailer who believed in the humane treatment of prisoners
and who liked to see them well-fed. Bob for the second time refused the
marmalade and did it most emphatically. Whereupon the monocle-man
smiled.
At that moment Bob met the gaze of the temperamental young thing. There
were dark rings under her eyes and she looked paler than he had ever
seen her. Also, there was a certain fascinated wonder, not unmixed with
some deeper feeling, in her expression. She was, no doubt, absolutely
astounded to see Bob there, and talking with the monocle-man. Bob
surmised she would be waiting for him somewhere later to express
herself, and he was not mistaken. Bob got up. As he did so, he glanced
at the monocle-man. Would he be permitted to go, or would the denouement
now happen? Would the other, alas, arise?
He did nothing of the kind. He let Bob have a little more line. He even
suffered him to walk away, at the same time smiling once more at vacancy
or the rack of toast. Of course the temperamental young thing hailed Bob
shortly after he was out of the room. He expected that. She came
hurrying up to him, excitement and terror in her eyes.
“Flee!” she whispered.
“I won’t do it,” answered Bob sturdily.
“Why did you come back?” Agitatedly, “What a rash thing to do! Like
walking into the lions’ den.”
“Well, the principal lion was nice and polite, anyhow.”
“Could you not see he was only just”—she sought for a word—“dallying
with you?”
“He made me see that,” Bob confessed rather gloomily. “He made me feel
like thirty cents. I guess he’s got my goat. And to think I thought him
a blamed fool. I tell you I’m learning something these days; I’m taking
a course they don’t have in college, all right.”
“Why do you waste time talking?” said the girl. “Every moment is
precious. Go, or you are lost.”
“That sounds like the stage,” replied Bob.
She came closer, her temperamental gaze burning. “Will this make you
serious?” she asked almost fiercely. “I told.”
“Eh?”
“I told all,” she repeated.
“You did?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Last night.”
“Hum!” said Bob. “That makes it a little worse, that is all.”
“I was mad,” she said, “at the way you—you—”
“I think I understand.”
“Why—why don’t you get angry and—”
“And curse you the way they do in plays?” He laughed a little
mirthlessly. “What’s the use? It wouldn’t do any good if I dragged you
around by the hair.”
“It’s just that attitude of yours,” she said, breathing hard, “that has
made me perfectly furious.”
“Who’d you tell?” Bob eyed her contemplatively.
“Lord Stan—The monocle-man, as you call him.”
“Whew!” Bob whistled. “You went straight to headquarters, didn’t you?”
“He came up to me on the porch just after you had left, and—and—”
“It’s quite plain,” said Bob gently. “You couldn’t hold in. Don’t know
as I ought to blame you much.”
“I wish you wouldn’t act like that,” she returned passionately. “Don’t
you hate me?”
He looked at her from his superior height. “No. Now that I think of it,
you only did the right and moral thing. After all”—he seemed to be
speaking from the hammer-thrower’s high judicial plane—“it was your
duty to tell.”
“Duty!” she shot back at him. “I didn’t do it for that, or”—with sudden
scorn—“because it was the moral thing. I did it because—because
you—you had hurt me and—and I wanted to hurt you the worst way—the
very worst way I could—”
“Well, that sounds very human,” replied Bob soothingly. “It’s the old
law. Eye for an eye! Tit for tat! _Quid pro quo!_” That hammer-thrower
was getting him into the Latin habit.
“You must not speak like that. You _must_ hate me—despise me—I
betrayed you—betrayed—”
Bob looked at her sympathetically. She really was suffering. “Oh, no,
you didn’t. You only thought you did,” he said.
“I did! I did! And afterward I felt like Salome with the head of John
the Baptist.”
Bob twisted his handsome head and lifted a hand to his neck. “Well, it’s
really not so bad as that,” he returned in a tone intended to be
consoling. “Anyhow, it’s very brave of you to come and tell me about
it.”
“Brave!” she scoffed, the temperamental breast rising. “Why, I just
blurted it all right out—how I discovered you in my room—how I turned
on the light and how you dropped the brooch to the floor!”
For a few moments both were silent. Then Bob spoke: “How’d it be, if we
called bygones, bygones, and just be friends?” he said gravely.
“Honestly, I believe I could like you an awful lot as a friend.”
“Don’t!” she said hoarsely. “Or—or I can’t hold in. My! but you are
good.”
“Isn’t that the sound of music?” said Bob suddenly.
“I—I believe it is.”
“A tango, by jove! Think of tangoing right after breakfast! Some one
_is_ beginning early. What are we coming to in these degenerate days?”
Bob wanted to take her thoughts off that other disagreeable subject. His
own sudden and unexpected appearance had, no doubt, been quite upsetting
to those other guests. That tango music had a wild irresponsible sound,
as if the some one who was banging the concert-grand in the big music
salon was endeavoring to turn the general trend of fancy into more
symphonious channels. He, or she, was a musical good Samaritan. Bob held
out a ceremonious arm to the temperamental young thing. “Shall we?” he
said. “Why not?”
“You mean—?”
“Tango with me? That is, if you are not above tangoing with a—”
She slipped an uncertain little hand on his arm.
“It may be my last, for a long time,” he said gaily. “While we live, let
us live.”
But when they entered they saw it was the man with the monocle who sat
at the big, wonderfully carved piano. His fingers were fairly flying;
his face was a bit more twisted up to keep the monocle from falling off,
while he was flinging his hands about over the keys. At sight of him,
the temperamental little thing breathed quickly and would have drawn
back, but Bob drew her forward. The monocle-man’s face did not change as
he glanced over his shoulder to regard them; he had a faculty for
hitting the right keys without looking. Bob put a big reassuring arm
about a slim waist. He tangoed only to show the temperamental little
thing that he forgave her. But her feet were not so light as ordinarily
and the dance rather dragged. Once Bob looked down; why, she wasn’t much
bigger than a child.
“Friends?” he asked.
Her little hand clutched tighter for answer, and the monocle-man played
more madly. It was as if he were making the puppets fly around while he
pulled the strings. He seemed having the best kind of a time. There was
now a whimsical look in his eyes as they followed Bob.
That was one of the longest days Bob ever knew. The temperamental thing
had told him they were coming to arrest him. Well, why didn’t they? His
appearing unexpectedly on the spot like that may have caused them to
change their minds. He included in the “them” Mrs. Ralston and her niece
and he could only conclude they all meant to “dally” with him, in Miss
Dolly’s phraseology, a little longer. But surely they had enough
evidence to go right ahead and let justice (?) take its course. What the
temperamental little thing had confessed would be quite sufficient in
itself, for their purpose.
Bob began to get impatient; he didn’t like being “dallied” with. In his
desperate mood, he desired to meet the issue at once and since “it” was
bound to happen, he wanted it to happen right off. Then he would
robustly proclaim his innocence—aye, and fight for it with all his
might. He was in a fighting mood.
Mrs. Ralston’s demeanor toward him—when in the natural order of events
he was obliged to meet that lady—added to his feeling of utter
helplessness. She, like the monocle-man, acted as if nothing had
happened, seeming to see nothing extraordinary or surprising in his
being there. She treated him just as if he hadn’t been away and talked
in the most natural manner about the weather or other commonplace
topics. She was graciousness itself, even demanding playfully if he
hadn’t thought of any more French compliments?
Bob stammered he had not. The fact that Miss Gerald was near and
overheard all they said didn’t add to his mental composure. Gwendoline’s
violet eyes had such a peculiar look. Bob hoped and prayed she would
preserve that manner of cold and haughty aloofness. He wouldn’t have
exchanged a word with her now for all the world, if he had had any
choice in the matter. Did she divine his inward shrinking from any
further talk with her? Did she realize she was the one especial person
Bob didn’t want to converse with, under the circumstances? It may be she
did so realize; also, that she deliberately sought to add to his
discomfiture. Possibly, she felt no punishment could be too great for
one who had sunk so low as he had.
At any rate, the day was yet young when, like a proud princess, she
stood suddenly before him. Bob had taken refuge in that summer-house
where she had proposed (ha! ha!) to him. He had been noting that Mrs.
Ralston seemed to have several new gardeners working for her and it had
flashed across his mind that these gardeners were of the monocle-man
type. They were imitation gardeners. One kept a furtive eye on Bob. He
was under surveillance. Now he could understand why the monocle-man let
him flutter this way and that, with seeming unconcern. Oh, he was being
dallied with, sure enough! That monocle-man was argus-eyed. Bob had had
a sample of his cleverness at the breakfast-table.
Miss Gerald’s shadow fell abruptly at Bob’s feet. He saw it before he
saw her—a radiant, accusing patrician presence. The girl carried a golf
stick, but there was no caddy in sight.
“Mr. Bennett,” said Miss Gerald, with customary directness, “do you know
who poisoned my aunt’s dog?”
Bob scrambled to his feet awkwardly. Her loveliness alone was enough to
embarrass him. “No,” he said.
“He was poisoned that night you left,” she said, and went on studying
him.
Bob pondered heavily. If the dog had been killed with a golf stick for
example, he might have been to blame. “You are sure he was poisoned?” he
asked with an effort.
“Certainly.” In surprise.
“Well, I didn’t do it,” said Bob.
“Were you in any way responsible for it?” She stood like an angel of the
flaming sword in the doorway, where the sunlight framed her figure. She
rather intoxicated poor Bob.
“Not to my knowledge,” he said. Of course the commodore might have
poisoned the dog, but it was unlikely. Probably that inside-operator, or
his outside pal had “done the deed.” A dog would be in their way.
Miss Gerald considered. “There is another question I should like to ask
you, Mr. Bennett,” she said presently.
“Go on,” returned Bob, with dark forebodings.
“Are you a sleep-walker?”
“No.”
“Then why do you go wandering around nights when every one else has
retired? Last night, for example?”
“So that hammer-thrower told you, did he?” remarked Bob. “I thought he
would.”
“Do you blame him?”
“Oh, I suppose it was his duty.” Every one seemed “telling” on Bob just
at present.
“You do not deny it?”
“Why should I?”
“Then we may accept his version of the story?”
“Yes. I presume it was correct.”
Again Miss Gerald remained thoughtful and Bob glanced out toward the
gardeners. One of them seemed to have edged nearer. Bob smiled a little
glumly. After having caught him in the web, the spiders were now winding
the strands around and around him. Spiders do that when they don’t want
to devour their victim right off. They mummify the victim, as it were,
and tuck him away for the morrow.
“Why”—the accusing presence was again speaking—“did you go down-stairs
that first night of your arrival, after all the household had retired?”
Bob would have given a great deal not to answer that, but he had to. “I
was showing some people out.”
“Your accomplices?”
“They might be called that.” Miserably. He wouldn’t “give away” Dan and
the others, unless he had to—unless truth compelled him to designate
them by name as his accomplices.
“Are you aware, Mr. Bennett, of the seriousness of your answer?”
“Yes, I know. But how did you know—that I went down-stairs?”
“I thought I heard some one go down. And then I got up and you went by
my door, and I looked out, ever so quietly. You went in Dolly’s room and
she woke up and caught you trying to take her brooch.”
Bob was silent. What was the use of talking?
“Well, why don’t you speak?”
“It is true I went in Miss Dolly’s room, but I thought it was my room,”
said Bob monotonously. “It was a mistake.” And Bob told how the brooch
happened to fall to the floor. Strange to say, truth didn’t ring in his
accents. He hadn’t much confidence at that moment in the old saw that
truth is mighty and will prevail. Truth wasn’t mighty; it was a monster
that sucked your heart’s blood. And Bob gazed once more with that
famished look upon Miss Gerald. He found her a joy to the eye. Though
she stood in a practical pose, the curves of her gracious and proud
young figure were like ardent lines of poetry in a matutinal and
passionate hymn to beauty. And Bob’s lips straightway yearned to sing
hexameters to loveliness in the abstract—and in the flesh—instead of
plodding along half-heartedly through unconvincing and purposeless
explanations.
“You certainly do look fine to-day!” burst from Bob. It wasn’t exactly a
hexameter nor yet an iambic mode of expression. But it had to come out.
Roses blossomed on the girl’s proud cheek. Bob’s explosive and
uncontrollable ardency would have been disconcerting, under any
circumstances, but under such as those of the present—Miss Gerald’s
eyes flashed.
“Isn’t—isn’t that rather irrelevant?” she said after a moment’s pause.
“I—yes, I guess it is,” confessed Bob, and his head slowly fell. He
looked at the hard marble pavement.
A moment the girl stood with breast stirring, like an indignant goddess.
“Have you—have you any information to volunteer?” she said at length
icily.
“Oh, I don’t have to volunteer,” answered Bob. And then rushed on to a
Niagara of disaster. “Why don’t you ask that hammer-thrower? I suppose
you’d believe _anything_”—he couldn’t keep back the bitter
jealousy—“he tells you.”
An instant eyes met eyes. Bob’s now were stubborn, if forlorn and
miserable. They braved the indignant, outraged violet ones. He even
laughed, savagely, moodily. What would he not have given if she would
only believe him, instead of—? But it was not to be. Yet this girl had
his very soul. His miserable and forlorn eyes told her that. Whose eyes
would have turned first, in that visual contest is a matter of
uncertainty, for just then the enthusiastic voice of Gee-gee was heard
“through the land.”
“Why, Mr. Bennett—you here? So glad to see you!”
Bob forgot all about heroics. Gee-gee drifted in as if she were greeting
an old and very dear friend, instead of a casual acquaintance, upon
whom, indeed, she had rather forced herself, on a certain memorable
evening. Bob wilted. When he recovered a little, Miss Gerald was gone.
Below them the gardener who had caught Bob’s eye now drew a bit nearer.
Bob turned on Gee-gee.