Nothing But the Truth

“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.

CHAPTER XVII – A GOOD DEAL OF GEE-GEE

“See here,” he said rather savagely, “this has got to stop.”

Gee-gee stared. “Bless its little heart, what is it talking about?”

“You know,” said Bob. The fact that he now saw Gwendoline Gerald rejoined afar by the hammer-thrower did not improve his temper.

“Pardon me,” returned Gee-gee, tossing her auburn hair, “if I fail to connect. Mrs. Ralston has been good enough to treat us as her regular guests. And, indeed, why shouldn’t she?” With much dignity. “But if you feel I ain’t good enough to speak to your Lord Highmightiness, except at stage doors and alleys and roof gardens – ” Cuttingly.

“This isn’t a question of social amenities,” said Bob. Gee-gee didn’t know what “amenities” meant and that made her madder. “You’ve come down here to raise a regular hornet’s nest.”

Gee-gee sat down. She was so mad she had to do something. She wanted to slap Bob’s face, but she couldn’t do that. As Mrs. Ralston’s guest she couldn’t give way to her natural and primitive impulses. Her gown, modishly tight all over, strained almost to bursting point; it seemed to express the state of her feelings. A high-heeled shoe, encasing a pink-stockinged foot, agitated itself like a flag in a gale.

“I like that,” she gasped. “And who are you to talk to me like that? Maybe you think this is a rehearsal.”

“For argument’s sake, I’ll own I’m not much account just at present,” said Bob. “Be that as it may, I’m going to try to stop the mischief you are up to, if I can.” He didn’t know how he would stop it; he was talking more to draw Gee-gee out than for any other purpose. Bob’s own testimony, as to certain occurrences on that memorable roof-garden evening, wouldn’t amount to much. The lawyers could impeach it even if they let him (Bob) testify at all in those awful divorce cases that were pending. But they probably wouldn’t let him take the witness-stand if he was a prisoner. Bob didn’t know quite what was the law governing the admissibility of testimony in a case like his.

Gee-gee shifted her mental attitude. She was getting her second breath and caution whispered to her to control herself. This handsome young gentleman had been the most indifferent member of the quartet on that inauspicious occasion on the roof; indeed, he had yawned in the midst of festivities. Bob, in love, cared not for show-girls or ponies. He had even tried to discourage Dan and the others in their zest for innocent enjoyment. Gee-gee now eyed Bob more critically. As a young-man-sure-of-himself, he had impressed her on that other occasion! Instinct had told her to avoid Bob and select Dan. Now that same instinct told her it might be better to temporize with this blunt-speaking young gentleman – to “sound” him.

“You sure have got me floating,” observed Gee-gee in more lady-like accents. “I’m way up in the air. Throw out a few sand-bags and let’s hit the earth.”

“That’s easy,” said Bob. “Do you deny you’re down here to raise Ned?”

“Do I deny it?” remarked Gee-gee with flashing eyes. “Do I? We are down here to fill a little professional engagement. We are down here on account of our histrionic talents.” A sound came from Bob’s throat. Gee-gee professed not to notice it. “We are paid a fee – not a small one – to come down here, to do privately our little turn which was the hit of the piece and the talk of Broadway.”

“Bosh!” said Bob coolly. Gee-gee looked dangerous. Once more the pink-stockinged ankle began to swing agitatedly, and again reckless Bob narrowly escaped a slap in the face. “Mrs. Dan and Mrs. Clarence got Mrs. Ralston to ask you down here,” he went on. “You weren’t asked on account of your histrionic ability. You were asked because it was the only feasible way to get you beyond other strong, I may even say desperate, and to them, inimical influences. Mrs. Ralston isn’t the only one who is financing your little rural expedition. I guess you know what I mean?”

“Nix!” said Gee-gee. “You’ve got me up in the air again. Turn the little wheel around and let the car come down. This ain’t Sunday, and if I was taking a little Coney-Island treat, I wouldn’t choose you for my escort.”

“It certainly isn’t Sunday in the sense of a day of rest,” remarked Bob gloomily. By this time the hammer-man and Miss Gerald were beyond his range of vision. But he would not think of them; he must not. He had a duty to perform here; maybe it would do no good, but it was his duty to try. “That publicity racket is all right up to a certain point,” he said, bending his reproachful eyes upon Gee-gee. “But when it comes to smashing reputations, stretching the truth, and injuring others irreparably – all for a little cheap nauseating notoriety – Well” – Bob hit straight from the shoulder – “I tell you it’s rotten. And I, for one, shall do what I can to show up the whole conspiracy. That’s what it is. It would be different if you were going to tell what was so, but you aren’t. It isn’t in the cards.”