Nothing But the Truth

“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.