It was some time before Bob recovered sufficiently to answer.
Fortunately they were alone in Bob’s private office. From below came the
sound of hammers, but that and the dingy surroundings did not seem to
disconcert her. She looked at Bob coldly, the violet eyes full of
directness.
“I—well, I feared you would cut me,” stammered Bob. “Won’t—won’t you
sit down?”
“No, thank you. At least, not yet. I,” accusingly, “am not accustomed to
being cut, and if any of my friends cut me, I want to know why. That’s
why I am here.”
She was her father’s daughter at that moment—straight, forceful.
“But,” said Bob eagerly, looking once more the way he used to, before he
had got into this sobering business of manufacturer, “that’s just the
point. You see I felt I had somehow forfeited my right to be one of your
friends. I felt out of the pale.”
“Do you think you deserve to forfeit the right?”
“I—perhaps. I don’t know. I’m very confused about all that happened at
your aunt’s place.”
Was that the shadow of a smile on the proud lips? Bob wasn’t looking at
her. He dared not. He was talking to a drawing of his device.
“Perhaps you have heard of that confounded wager,” he went on. “I told
you why I—I didn’t want to see you. At least, I think I did.”
“I have a vague impression of something of the kind,” said the girl.
“And there you are,” observed Bob helplessly. “It was an awful muddle,
all right. You certainly punished me some, though. Honestly, if I
offended you, you did get back good and hard.”
“Did I?” said she tentatively. “Is that a drawing of it on the wall?”
She was looking at the device.
“Yes. That’s what I make.”
“Won’t you show me around?”
Bob did, walking as in a dream among the dingy workmen who paused as the
vision passed. For a long time they talked—just plain ordinary talk.
Then he told her how he was inventing something else and Miss Gerald
listened while all differences seemed magically to have dropped between
them. Drinking deep of the joy of the moment, Bob yielded to the
unadulterated happiness that went with being near her. He forgot all
about the long future when he would see her no more.
Finally Miss Gerald got up to go. They had returned to Bob’s office and
she had seated herself in a shabby old chair.
Bob’s face fell. His heart had been beating fast and the old light had
come to his eyes.
“Going?” he said awkwardly.
“Yes.”
She put out her hand and Bob took it, looking into her eyes. Then—he
never knew how it happened—he had her in his arms. Bang! bang! went
Bob’s hammers below and they seemed to be competing with the beating of
his heart. At length the girl stirred slightly. She was wonderful in her
proud compliance to Bob’s somewhat chaotic and over-powering expression
of his emotions. “I suffered, too, a little, perhaps,” she said.
That nearly completed Bob’s undoing. “You! you!” he said, holding her
from him and regarding her face eagerly, devouringly.
“Yes,” the proud lips curled a little, “I haven’t really a heart of
stone, you know.”
Then Bob became chaotic once more for it was as if heaven had been
hurled at him. He spoke burning words of truth and this time they did
not get him into trouble. She drank them all in, too. Then he began to
ask questions in that same chaotic manner. He was so masterful she had
to answer.
“Yes, yes,” she said, “of course, I do.”
“When did it begin?”
“A long, long time ago.”
“You have loved me a long time?” he exulted and drew a deep breath. “A
moment ago I was pondering on the problems of life and wondering what
was the use of it all? Now—” He paused.
“Now?” said the girl and her eyes were direct and clear. The love light
in them—for it was that—shone as the light of stars.
Bob threw out his arms. “Life is great,” he said.
A moment they stood apart and looked at each other. “It can’t be,” said
Bob. “It is too much to believe. I certainly must prove it once more.”
“One moment,” said Miss Gerald. “Dolly told me you kissed her.”
“I did.”
“Why, if as you say, it was only I—?”
Bob was silent.
“Did—did she ask you to?”
Bob did not answer.
“You don’t answer?” The violet eyes studied him discerningly.
“All I can say is I did kiss her.” He would not betray jolly little pal.
The violet eyes looked satisfied. “You have answered,” she said. “I
think I understand the situation thoroughly.”
Bob impetuously wanted to demonstrate once more that she was really
she—that it wasn’t a dream—but she held him back and looked into his
eyes. “You’ve said a good many things,” said Miss Gerald. “But there’s
one you haven’t.”
“What?”
“It’s one you really ought to ask, after all this demonstration.”
“Oh!” said Bob loudly. “Will you marry me?”
“Yes,” she answered. And for the first time voluntarily offered him her
lips.
Suddenly the sound of hammers stopped.
“What’s happening?” she asked.
“Closing time. May I see you to your car?”
“Yes,” she laughed, “if you will get in.”
“I’ll get in if you won’t be ashamed of having a rather dingy-looking
individual by your side?”
“I’m proud of you, Bob,” said her father’s daughter. “And I believe in
you.”
“And—?” he suggested.
“I love you,” she said simply.
Bob tried to say something, but words didn’t seem to come. Then silently
he opened the door and they passed out. He helped her in the car and
held a small gloved hand all the way down Fifth Avenue. Young people who
can be cruel are, also, capable of going to the other extreme. It wasn’t
Fifth Avenue for Bob. It was Paradise.
Dad heard the news that night. “Of course,” he said. “I expected it.”
Then, with a twinkle of the eye. “But I’m glad you got started in life
for yourself first, son. I was afraid you would ask her before you had
the right.”
“You afraid? Then you did suggest my doing it, just to try me, to see
what kind of stuff I was made of? I thought so. I told her so.” Bob’s
eyes now began to twinkle. “Sure that’s all you did, dad, to find out if
I was a real man or a sawdust one?”
“Perhaps I did misrepresent slightly the state of the parental
exchequer. As a matter of fact, I’m still pretty well off, Bob. Though
they did bounce me a little, I was not so much ruined as I let people
think. I didn’t deny those bankruptcy stories, because I wanted you to
make good, dear boy. And you have!” There was pride and affection in
dad’s tones. “But now that you have, there will be no further need to
continue that Japanese custom. I have ample for my simple needs and a
little left over to go fishing with.”
Bob might have protested, but just at that moment a car swung in front
of the house, where it stopped. On the back seat sat a lady. The driver
got out and started up the steps to dad’s house. By this time Bob was
coming down the steps. He hastened to the lady.
“So good of you!” he said, his eyes alight. “I ordered to-day that car
of my own,” he added, leaning over the door.
“Are you sure you can afford it yet?” she laughed.
“Sure. And it will be a beauty. As fit for you as any car could be!”
“Are you going like that—hatless?” she asked.
“I—well, I was wondering if I couldn’t induce you to come in for a
moment?” Eagerly. “Want you to meet dad. Or shall I bring him out here?”
“I’ll go in, of course,” she said, rising at once. “And I shall be very
glad.”
“He—he was only trying me out, after all,” spoke Bob as he opened the
door of the car. “That advice, I mean. You remember? And he pretended to
be broke, too, just to test me. He told me just now.”
“I think I shall like your father,” said Miss Gerald.
“Oh, we’re bully chums!”
By this time they were in the house. Bob took her by the hand and led
her to dad.
“I remember your mother and I knew your father,” said dad, when Bob had
presented him. “Your mother was very beautiful.”
Gwendoline thanked him, while Bob gazed upon her with adoring eyes.
“Isn’t she wonderful, dad?” he said.
“Wonderful, indeed,” said dad fondly, a little sadly. Perhaps he was
thinking of the time when his own bride had stood right there, in the
home he had bought for her. Perhaps he saw her eyes with the light of
love in them—eyes long since closed. “I trust you will not think me
trite if I say, God bless you,” murmured dad.
“I won’t think you trite at all,” said Gwendoline Gerald, approaching
nearer to dad. “I think it very nice.”
“And would you think me trite if I—?”
Dad’s meaning was apparent for Gwendoline’s golden head bent toward him
and dad’s lips just brushed the fair brow.
“I’m very glad. I think Bob will make a good husband. He will have to
set himself a high mark though, to deserve you, my dear.”
“That’s just what I keep telling her myself,” observed Bob. He
experienced anew a touch of that chaotic feeling but didn’t give way to
it on account of dad’s being there.
“Don’t set the mark too high, or you may leave me far behind,” laughed
Gwendoline Gerald. “By the way I’ve asked Dolly to be first bridesmaid
and she has consented. Said she supposed that was the ‘next best thing,’
though I can’t imagine what she meant.”
“That’s jolly,” said Bob. He thrilled at these little delicious details
of the approaching event. “But I suppose we should be going now.”
“Is it the opera?” asked dad.
Bob answered that it was. “She insisted on coming for me in her car,” he
laughed. “Would have had one myself now if I had imagined anything like
this. It was rather sudden, you know.”
“It looks as if I made him do it,” said the girl with a laugh. “I went
right to his office, and that, after his refusing me once, when I
proposed to him.”
“Did you do that, Bob?”
“Well, I didn’t believe she meant it. Did you?” To Miss Gerald.
“That’s telling,” said Gwendoline, and looked so inviting in that
wonderful opera costume, so white and tall and alluring, so many other
things calculated to fire a young man’s soul, that Bob had difficulty
not to resort to extreme masculine measures to make her tell.
“Hope you have a pleasant evening,” observed dad politely as they went
out together, a couple the neighbors might well find excuse to stare at.
“Oh, I guess we’ll manage to pull through,” said Bob.
Their first evening out all alone by themselves in great, big gay New
York! It was nice and shadowy, too, in the big limousine where the dim
light spiritualized the girl’s beauty.
“Tell now,” he urged, “what I asked you in there?”
“Did I mean it?” Her starry eyes met his. “Perhaps a little bit. But I’m
glad you didn’t accept. I’m glad it came out the other way,” she
laughed.
Bob forgot there was a possibility of some one peering in and seeing
them. Those laughing lips were such a tremendous lure. Then they both
sat very still. Wheels sang around them; there was magic in the air.
“Just think of it!” said Bob with sudden new elation.
“What?”
“Why, there’ll be nights and nights like this,” he said, as if he had
made an important new discovery.
“And ‘then some’!” added the classical young goddess non-classically and
gaily, as they turned into the Great White Way.
THE END
By FREDERIC S. ISHAM
The Strollers. Illustrated by Harrison Fisher. 12mo, Cloth, $1.50
Under the Rose. Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy, 12mo, Cloth,
$1.50
Black Friday. Illustrated by Harrison Fisher, 12mo, Cloth, $1.50
The Lady of the Mount. Illustrated by Lester Ralph, 12mo, Cloth, $1.50
Half a Chance. Illustrated by Herman Pfeifer, 12mo, Cloth, $1.50
The Social Buccaneer. Illustrated by W. B. King, 12mo, Cloth, $1.50
A Man and His Money. Illustrated by Max J. Spero, 12mo, Cloth, $1.25
Net
Aladdin from Broadway. Illustrated by William Thatcher Van Dresser,
12mo, Cloth, $1.25 Net
End of Project Gutenberg's Nothing But the Truth, by Frederic S. Isham