Nothing But the Truth

“Il me faut dire que, vraiment, Madame Ralston parait aussi agee qu’elle l’est!” (“I am obliged to say that Mrs. Ralston appears as old as she is!”)

Then he straightened as if he had just delivered a stunning compliment.

“Merci!” The lady smiled. She also beamed. “How well you speak French, Mr. Bennett!”

The commodore nearly exploded. He understood French.

Bob expanded, beginning to breathe freely once more. “Language of courtiers and diplomats!” he mumbled.

Mrs. Ralston shook an admonishing finger at him. “Flatterer!” she said, and departed.

Whereupon the commodore leaned weakly against Dickie while Clarence sank into a chair. First round for Bob!

The commodore was the first to recover. His voice was reproachful. “Was that quite fair? – that parleyvoo business? I don’t know about it’s being allowed.”

“Why not?” calmly from Bob. “Is truth confined to one tongue?”

“But what about that ‘even tenor of your way’?” fenced the commodore. “You don’t, as a usual thing, go around parleyvooing – ”

“What about the even tenor of your own ways?” retorted Bob.

“Nothing said about that when we – ”

“No, but – how can I go the even tenor, if you don’t go yours?”

“Hum?” said the commodore.

“Don’t you see it’s not the even tenor?” persisted Bob. “But it’s your fault if it isn’t.”

“Some logic in that,” observed Clarence.

“Maybe, we have been a bit too previous,” conceded the commodore.

“That isn’t precisely the adjective I would use,” returned Bob. He found himself thinking more clearly now. They had all, perhaps, been stepping rather lightly when they had left the club. He should have thought of this before. But Bob’s brain moved rather slowly sometimes and the others had been too bent on having a good time to consider all the ethics of the case. They showed themselves fair-minded enough now, however.

“Bob’s right,” said the commodore sorrowfully. “Suppose we’ve got to eliminate ourselves from his agreeable company for the next three weeks, unless we just naturally happen to meet. We’ll miss a lot of fun, but I guess it’s just got to be. What about that parleyvooing business though, Bob?”

“That’s got to be eliminated, too!” from Dickie. “Why, he might tell the truth in Chinese.”

“All right, fellows,” said Bob shortly. “You quit tagging and I’ll talk United States.”

“Good. I’m off,” said the commodore. And he went. The others followed. Bob was left alone. He found the solitude blessed and began to have hopes once more. Why, he might even be permitted to enjoy a real lonely three weeks, now that he had got rid of that trio. He drew out a cigar and began to tell himself he was enjoying himself when —

“Mr. Robert Bennett!” The voice of a page smote the air. It broke into his reflections like a shock.

“Mr. Bennett!” again bawled the voice.

For the moment Bob was tempted to let him slip by, but conscience wouldn’t let him. He lifted a finger.

“Message for Mr. Bennett,” said the urchin.

Bob took it. He experienced forebodings as he saw the dainty card and inscription. He read it. Then he groaned. Would Mr. Robert Bennett join Mrs. Ralston’s house-party at Tonkton? There were a few more words in that impulsive lady’s characteristic, vivacious style. And then there were two words in another handwriting that he knew. “Will you?” That “Will you?” wasn’t signed. Bob stared at it. Would he? He had to. He was in honor bound, because ordinarily he would have accepted with alacrity. But a house-party for him, under present circumstances! He would be a merry guest. Ye gods and little fishes! And then some! He gave a hollow laugh, while the urchin gazed at him sympathetically. Evidently the gentleman had received bad news.

CHAPTER III – AN INAUSPICIOUS BEGINNING

Mrs. Ralston’s house-parties were usually satisfactory affairs. She was fond of people, especially young people, and more especially of young men of the Apollo variety, though in a strictly proper, platonic and critical sense. Indeed, her taste in the abstract, for animated Praxiteles had, for well-nigh two-score of years, been unimpeachable. At the big gatherings in her noble country mansion, there was always a liberal sprinkling of decorative and animated objects of art of this description. She liked to ornament her porches or her gardens with husky and handsome young college athletes. She had an intuitive artistic taste for stunning living-statuary, “dressed up,” of course. Bob came distinctly in that category. So behold him then, one fine morning, on the little sawed-off train that whisked common people – and sometimes a few notables when their cars were otherwise engaged – countryward. Bob had a big grip by his side, his golf sticks were in a rack and he had a newspaper in his hand. The sunshine came in on him but his mood was not sunny. An interview with dad just before leaving hadn’t improved his spirits. He had found dad at the breakfast table examining a book of artificial flies, on one hand, and a big reel on the other.

“Which shall it be, my son?” dad had greeted him cordially. “Trout or tarpon?”

“I guess that’s for you to decide,” Robert had answered grumpily. Dad, in his new role, was beginning to get on Bob’s nerves. Dad didn’t seem to be at all concerned about his future. He shifted that weighty and momentous subject just as lightly! He acted as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

“Wish I could make up my mind,” he said, like a boy in some doubt how he can best put in his time when he plays hooky. “Minnows or whales? I’ll toss up.” He did. “Whales win. By the way, how’s the hustling coming on?”

“Don’t know.”

“Well, don’t put it off too long.” Cheerfully. “I guess I can worry along for about three weeks.”

“Three weeks!” said Bob gloomily. Oh, that familiar sound!

“You wouldn’t have me stint myself, would you, my son?” Half reproachfully. “You wouldn’t have dad deny himself anything?”

“No,” answered the other truthfully enough. As a matter of fact things couldn’t be much worse, so he didn’t much care. Fortunately, dad didn’t ask any questions or show any curiosity about that “hustling” business. He seemed to take it for granted Bob would arise to the occasion and be as indulgent a son as he had been an indulgent dad – for he had never denied the boy anything. Bob softened when he thought of that. But confound dad’s childlike faith in him, at this period of emergency. It made Bob nervous. He had no faith in himself that way. Dad did lift his eyebrows just a little when Bob brought down his big grip.

“Week-end?” he hazarded.

“Whole week,” replied Bob in a melancholy tone.

“Whither?”

“Tonkton.”

Dad beamed. “Mrs. Ralston?”

“Yes.”

“Aunt of Miss Gwendoline Gerald, I believe?” With a quick penetrating glance at Bob.

“Yes.”

“Sensible boy,” observed dad, still studying him.

“Oh, I’m not going for the reason you think,” said Bob quite savagely. He was most unlike himself.

“Of course not.” Dad was conciliatory.

“I’m not. Think what you like.”

“Too much work to think,” yawned dad.

“But you are thinking.” Resentfully.

“Have it your own way.”

Bob squared his shoulders. “You want to know really why I’m going to Tonkton?”

“Have I ever tried to force your confidences, my son?”

“I’m going because I’ve got to. I can’t help myself.”

“Of course,” said dad. “Ta! ta! Enjoy yourself. See you in three weeks.”

“Three – !” But Bob didn’t finish. What was the use? Dad thought he was going to Tonkton because Miss Gerald might be there.

As a matter of fact Bob’s one great wish now was that she wouldn’t be there. He wanted, and yet didn’t want, to see her. What had he to hope now? Why, he didn’t have a son, or not enough of them to count. He was to all practical intents and purposes a pauper. Dad’s “going broke” had changed his whole life. He had been reared in the lap of luxury, a pampered son. He had never dreamed of being otherwise. And considering himself a favored child of fortune, he had even dared entertain the delirious hope of winning her – her, the goddess of his dreams.

But hope now was gone. Regrets were useless. He could no longer conceive himself in the role of suitor. Why, there were few girls in the whole land so overburdened with “rocks” – as Dickie called them! If only she didn’t have those rocks – or stocks! “Impecunious Gwendoline!” How well that would go with “Impecunious Bob!” If only her trustees would hit the toboggan, the way dad did! But trustees don’t go tobogganing. They eschew the smooth and slippery. They speculate in government bonds and things that fluctuate about a point or so a century. No chance for quick action there! On the contrary, the trustees were probably making those millions grow. Bob heaved a sigh. Then he took something white from his pocket and gazed at two words, ardently yet dubiously.

That “Will you?” of hers on Mrs. Ralston’s card exhilarated and at the same time depressed him. It implied she, herself, did expect to be at her aunt’s country place. He attached no other especial importance to the “Will you?” An imperious young person in her exalted position could command as she pleased. She could say “Will you?” or “You will” to dozens of more or less callow youths, or young grown-ups, with impunity, and none of said dozens would attach any undue flattering meaning to her words. Miss Gerald found safety in numbers. She was as yet heart-free.

“Can you – aw! – tell me how far it is to Tonkton?” a voice behind here interrupted his ruminations.

Bob hastily returned the card to his pocket, and glancing back, saw a monocle. “Matter of ten miles or so,” he responded curtly. He didn’t like monocles.

“Aw!” said the man.

Bob picked up his newspaper that he had laid down, and frowningly began to glance over the head-lines. The man behind him glanced over them, too.

“Another society robbery, I see,” the latter remarked. “No function complete without them nowadays, I understand. Wonderful country, America! Guests here always expect – aw! – to be robbed, I’ve been told.”

“Have the paper,” said Bob with cutting accents.

“Thanks awfully.” The man with the monocle took the paper as a matter of course, seeming totally unaware of the sarcasm in Bob’s tone. At first, Bob felt like kicking himself; the rustle of the paper in those alien hands caused him to shuffle his feet with mild irritation. Then he forgot all about the paper and the monocle man. His thoughts began once more to go over and over the same old ground, until —

“T’nk’n!” The stentorian abbreviation of the conductor made Bob get up with a start. Grabbing his grip – hardly any weight at all for his muscular arm – in one hand, and his implements of the game in the other, he swung down the aisle and on to the platform. A good many people got off, for a small town nestled beneath the high rolling lands of the country estates of the affluent. There were vehicles of all kinds at the station, among them a number of cars, and in one of the latter Bob recognized Mrs. Ralston’s chauffeur.

A moment he hesitated. He supposed he ought to step forward and get in, for that was what he naturally would do. But he wanted to think; he didn’t want to get to the house in a hurry. Still he had to do what he naturally would do and he started to do it when some other people Bob didn’t know – prospective guests, presumably, among them the man with the monocle – got into the car and fairly filled it. That let Bob out nicely and naturally. It gave him another breathing spell. He had got so he was looking forward to these little breathing spells.

“Hack, sir?” said a voice.

“Not for me,” replied Bob. “But you can tote this up the hill,” indicating the grip. “Ralston house.”

“Dollar and a half, sir,” said the man. “Same price if you go along, too.”

“What?” It just occurred to Bob he hadn’t many dollars left, and of course, tips would be expected up there, at the big house. It behooved him, therefore, to be frugal. But to argue about a dollar and a half! – he, a guest at the several million dollar house! On the other hand, that dollar looked large to Bob at this moment. Imagine if he had to earn a dollar and a half! He couldn’t at the moment tell how he would do it.

“Hold on.” Bob took the grip away from the man. “Why, it’s outrageous, such a tariff! Same price, with or without me, indeed! I tell you – ” Suddenly he stopped. He had an awful realization that he was acting a part. That forced indignation of his was not the truth; that aloof kind of an attitude wasn’t the truth, either.

“To tell you the truth,” said Bob, “I can’t afford it.”

“Can’t afford. Ha! ha!” That was a joke. One of Mrs. Ralston’s guests, not afford – !

“No,” said Bob. “I’ve only got about fifteen dollars and a half to my name. I guess you’re worth more than that yourself, aren’t you?” With sudden respect in his tone.

“I guess I am,” said the man, grinning.

“Then, logically, I should be carrying your valise,” retorted Bob.

“Ha! ha! That’s good.” The fellow had been transporting the overflow of Mrs. Ralston’s guests for years, but he had never met quite such an eccentric one as this. He chuckled now as if it were the best joke. “I’ll tell you what – I’ll take it for nothing, and leave it to you what you give me!” Maybe, for a joke, he’d get a fifty – dollars, not cents. These young millionaire men did perpetrate little funnyisms like that. Why, one of them had once “beat him down” a quarter on his fare and then given him ten dollars for a tip. “Ha! ha!” repeated the fellow, surveying Bob’s elegant and faultless attire, “I’ll do it for nothing, and you – ”

Bob walked away carrying his grip. Here he was telling the truth and he wasn’t believed. The man took him for one of those irresponsible merry fellows. That was odd. Was it auspicious? Should he derive encouragement therefrom? Maybe the others would only say “Ha! ha!” when he told the truth. But though he tried to feel the fellow’s attitude was a good omen, he didn’t succeed very well.

No use trying to deceive himself! Might as well get accustomed to that truth-telling habit even in his own thoughts! That diabolical trio of friends had seen plainer than he. They had realized the dazzling difficulties of the task confronting him. How they were laughing in their sleeves now at “darn fool Bob!” Bob, a young Don Quixote, sallying forth to attempt the impossible! The preposterous part of the whole business was that his role was preposterous. Why, he really and truly, in his transformed condition, ought to be just like every one else. That he was a unique exception – a figure alone in his glory, or ingloriously alone – was a fine commentary on this old world, anyhow.

What an old humbug of a world it was, he thought, when, passing before the one and only book-store the little village boasted of, he ran plump into, or almost into, Miss Gwendoline Gerald.

She, at that moment, had just emerged from the shop with a supply of popular magazines in her arms. A gracious expression immediately softened the young lady’s lovely patrician features and she extended a hand. As in a dream Bob looked at it, for the fraction of a second. It was a beautiful, shapely and capable hand. It was also sunburned. It looked like the hand of a young woman who would grasp what she wanted and wave aside peremptorily what she didn’t want. It was a strong hand, but it was also an adorable hand. It went with the proud but lovely face. It supplemented the steady, direct violet eyes. The pink nails gleamed like sea-shells. Bob set down the grip and took the hand. His heart was going fast.

“Glad to see you,” said Miss Gwendoline.

Bob remained silent. He was glad and he wasn’t glad. That is to say, he was deliriously glad and he knew he ought not to be. He found it difficult to conceal the effect she had upon him. He dreaded, too, the outcome of that meeting. So, how should he answer and yet tell the truth? It was considerable of a “poser,” he concluded, as he strove to collect his perturbed thoughts.

“Well, why don’t you say something?” she asked.

“Lovely clay,” observed Bob.

The violet eyes drilled into him slightly. Shades of Hebe! but she had a fine figure! She looked great next to Bob. Maybe she knew it. Perhaps that was why she was just a shade more friendly and gracious to him than to some of the others. They two appeared so well together. He certainly did set her off.

“Is that all you have to say?” asked Miss Gwendoline after a moment.

“Let me put those magazines in the trap for you?” said Bob, making a desperate recovery and indicating the smart rig at the curb as he spoke.

“Thanks,” she answered. “Make yourself useful.” And gave them to him. But there was now a slight reserve on her part. His manner had slightly puzzled her. There was a constraint, or hold-offishness about him that seemed to her rather a new symptom in him. What did it mean? Had he misinterpreted her “Will you?” The violet eyes flashed slightly, then she laughed. How ridiculous!

“There! You did it very well,” she commended him mockingly.

“Thanks,” said Bob awkwardly, and shifted. It would be better if she let him go. Those awful things he might say? – that she might make him say? But she showed no disposition to permit him to depart at once. She lingered. People didn’t usually seek to terminate talks with her. As a rule they just stuck and stuck around and it was hard to get rid of them. Did she divine his uneasiness? Bob showed he certainly wasn’t enjoying himself. The violet eyes grew more and more puzzled.

“What a brilliant conversationalist you are to-day, Mr. Bennett!” she remarked with a trace of irony in her tones.

“Yes; I don’t feel very strong on the talk to-day,” answered Bob truthfully.

Miss Gwendoline pondered a moment on this. She had seen young men embarrassed before – especially when she was alone with them. Sometimes her decidedly pronounced beauty had a disquieting effect on certain sensitive young souls. Bob’s manner recalled the manner of one or two of those others just before they indulged, or tried to indulge, in unusual sentiments, or too close personalities. Miss Gerald’s long sweeping lashes lowered ominously. Then they slowly lifted. She didn’t feel to-day any inordinate endeavor or desire on Bob’s part to break down the nice barriers of convention and to establish that more intimate and magnetic atmosphere of a new relationship. Well, that was the way it should be. It must be he was only stupid at the moment. That’s why he acted strange and unlike himself.

Perhaps he had been up late the night before. Maybe he had a headache. His handsome face was certainly very sober. There was a silent appeal to her in that blond head, a little over half-a-head above hers. Miss Gwendoline’s red lips softened. What a great, big, nice-looking boy he was, after all! She let the lights of her eyes play on him more kindly. She had always thought Bob a good sort. He was an excellent partner in tennis and when it came to horses – they had certainly had some great spurts together. She had tried to follow Bob but it had sometimes been hard. His “jumps” were famous. What he couldn’t put a horse over, no one else could. For the sake of these and a few kindred recollections, she softened.

“I suppose men sometimes do feel that way the next day,” she observed with tentative sympathy. One just had to forgive Bob. She knew a lot of cleverer men who weren’t half so interesting on certain occasions. Intellectual conversation isn’t everything. Even that soul-to-soul talk of the higher faddists sometimes palled. “I suppose that’s why you’re walking.”

“Why?” he repeated, puzzled.

“To dissipate that ‘tired feeling,’ I believe you call it?”

“But I’m not tired,” said Bob.

“Headachey, then?”

“No.” He wasn’t quite following the subtleties of her remarks.

“Then why are you walking?” she persisted. “And with that?” Touching his grip with the tip of her toe.

“Save hack fare,” answered Bob.

She smiled.

“Man wanted a dollar and a half,” he went on.

“And you objected?” Lightly.

“I did.”

Again she smiled. Bob saw she, too, thought it was a joke. And he remembered how she knew of one or two occasions when he had just thrown money to the winds – shoved it out of the window, as it were – orchids, by the dozens, tips, two or three times too large, etc. Bob, with those reckless eyes, object to a dollar and a half – or a hundred and fifty, for that matter? Not he! If ever there had been a spendthrift! —

“Well, I’ll lend a hand to a poor, poverty-stricken wretch,” said Miss Gerald, indulgently entering into the humor of the situation.

“What do you mean?” With new misgivings.

“Put them” – indicating the grip and the sticks – “in the trap,” she commanded.

Bob did. He couldn’t do anything else. And then he assisted her in.

“Thanks for timely help!” he said more blithely, as he saw her slip on her gloves and begin to gather up the reins with those firm capable fingers. “And now – ?” He started as if to go.

“Oh, you can get in, too.” Why shouldn’t he? There was room for two. She spoke in a matter-of-fact manner.

“I – ?” Bob hesitated. A long, long drive – unbounded opportunity for chats, confidences! – and all at the beginning of his sojourn here? Dad’s words – that horrid advice – burned on his brain like fire. He tried to think of some excuse for not getting in. He might say he had to stop at a drug store, or call up a man in New York on business by telephone, or – But no! he couldn’t say any of those things. He was denied the blissful privilege of other men.

“Well, why don’t you get in?” Miss Gerald spoke more sharply. “Don’t you want to?”

The words came like a thunder-clap, though Miss Gwendoline’s voice was honey sweet. Bob raised a tragic head. That monster, Truth!

“No,” he said.

An instant Miss Gwendoline looked at him, the violet eyes incredulous, amused. Then a slight line appeared on her beautiful forehead and her red lips parted a little as if she were going to say something, but didn’t. Instead, they closed tight, the way rosebuds shut when the night is unusually frosty. Her eyes became hard like diamonds.

“How charmingly frank!” she said. Then she drew up the reins and trailed the tip of the whip caressingly along the back of her spirited cob. It sprang forward. “Look out for the sun, Mr. Bennett,” she called back as they dashed away. “It’s rather hot to-day.”

Bob stood and stared after her. What did she mean about the sun? Did she think he had a touch of sunstroke, or brain-fever? It was an inauspicious beginning, indeed. If he had only known what next was coming!

CHAPTER IV – A CHAT ON THE LINKS

At the top of the hill, instead of following the winding road, Bob started leisurely across the rolling green toward the big house whose roof could be discerned in the distance above the trees. The day was charming, but he was distinctly out of tune. There was a frown on his brow. Fate had gone too far. He half-clenched his fists, for he was in a fighting mood and wanted to retaliate – but how? At the edge of some bushes he came upon a lady – no less a personage than the better-half of the commodore, himself.

She was fair, fat and forty, or a little more. She was fooling with a white ball, or rather it was fooling with her, for she didn’t seem to like the place where it lay. She surveyed it from this side and then from that. To the casual observer it looked just the same from whichever point you viewed it. Once or twice the lady, evidently no expert, raised her arm and then lowered it. But apparently, at last, she made up her mind. She was just about to hit the little ball, though whether to top or slice it will never be known, when Bob stepped up from behind the bushes.

“Oh, Mr. Bennett!” He had obviously startled her.

“The same,” said Bob gloomily.

“That’s too bad of you,” she chided him, stepping back.

“What?”

“Why, I’d just got it all figured out in my mind how to do it.”

“Sorry,” said Bob. “I didn’t know you were behind the bushes or I wouldn’t have come out on you like that. But maybe you’ll do even better than you were going to. Hope so! Go ahead with your drive. Don’t mind me.” His tone was depressed, if not sepulchral.

But the lady, being at that sociable age, showed now a perverse disposition not to “go ahead.”