Isham Frederic Stewart - Nothing But the Truth стр 9.

He had to go down and he did. Nemesis lurked for him below. Had Bob realized what was going to happen he would have skipped back to his room. But, as it was, he assumed a bold front. He even said to himself, Cheer up; the worst is yet to come. It was.

CHAPTER V TRIVIALITIES

Luncheon came and went, but nothing actually tragic happened at it. Bob didnt make more than a dozen remarks that failed to add to his popularity. He tried to be agreeable, because that was his nature. That even-tenor-of-his-way condition made it incumbent on him yes, made it his sacred duty to be bright and amiable. So it was Hence, loathed Melancholy! and a brave endeavor to be as jocund as the poets lines! Only those little unfortunate moments airy preludes to larger misfortunes had to occur, and just when he would flatter himself he was not doing so badly.

For example, when Mrs. Augustus Ossenreich Vanderpool said: Dont you adore dogs, Mr. Bennett?

No. I like them. It became necessary to qualify that. That is not the little kind.

The lady stiffened. Her beribboned and perfumed five-thousand-dollar toy-dogs were the idolized darlings of her heart. The children might be relegated to the nursery but the canines had the run of the boudoir. They rode with her when she went out in state while the French bonne took the children for an airing. And why are the little kind excluded from the realm of your approbation? observed Mrs. Vanderpool coldly.

It was quite a contract to answer that. Bob wanted to be truthful; not to say too much or too little; only just as much as he was in honor bound to say. I think people make too much fuss over them, he answered at last. That reply seemed quite adequate and he trusted the lady would change the subject. But people had a way of not doing what he wanted them to, lately.

What do you call too much fuss? pursued the lady persistently.

Bob explained as best he could. It was rather a thankless task and he floundered a good deal as he went about it. He wasnt going to be a bit more disagreeable than he could help, only he couldnt help being as disagreeable as he had to be. The fact that Miss Gwendoline Geralds starry eyes were on him with cold curiosity did not improve the lucidity of his explanation. In the midst of it, she to whom he was talking, seemed somehow to detach herself from him, gradually, not pointedly, for he hardly knew just when or how she got away. She seemed just to float off and to attach herself somewhere else to the bishop or to a certain judge Mrs. Ralston always asked to her house-parties that they might have a judicial as well as an ecclesiastical touch and Bobs explanation died on the thin air. He let it die. He didnt have to speak truth to vacancy.

Then he tangoed, but not with Miss Gwendoline Gerald. He positively dared not approach that young lady. He didnt tango because he wanted to, but because some one set a big music-box going and he knew he was expected to tango. He did it beautifully and the young lady was charmed. She was a little dark thing, of the clinging variety, and Dickie had gone with her some. Her father owned properties that would go well with Dickies thered been some talk of consolidation, but it had never come off. Papa was inclined to be stand-offish. Then Dickie began to get attentive to the little dark thing, though nothing had yet come of that either. Bob didnt own any properties but the little dark thing didnt mind that. At tangoing, he was a dream. Properties cant tango.

You do it so well, said the little dark thing breathlessly.

Do I? murmured Bob, thinking of a stately young goddess, now tangoing with another fellow.

Dont you adore it? went on the little dark thing, nestling as close as was conventional and proper.

I might, observed Bob. That was almost as bad as the dog question. He trusted the matter would end there.

She giggled happily. Maybe you disapprove of modern dancing, Mr. Bennett?

That depends, said Bob gloomily. He meant it depended upon who was doing the modern with the object of your fondest affections. If you yourself were engaged in the arduous pastime with said object, you would, naturally harbor no particular objections against said modern tendencies, but if you werent?

Bob tangoed more swiftly. His thoughts were so bitter he wanted to run away from them. The irony of gliding rhythmically and poetically in seeming joyous abandon of movement when his heart weighed a ton! If that heaviness of heart were communicated to his legs, they would in reality be as heavy as those of a deep-sea diver, weighted down for a ten-fathom plunge.

And in thus trying to run away from his thoughts Bob whirled the little dark thing quite madly. He couldnt dance ungracefully if he tried and the little dark thing had a soul for rhythm. It was as if he were trying to run away with her. He fairly took away her breath. She was a panting little dark thing on his broad breast now, but she didnt ask him to stop. The music-box ceased to be musical and that brought them to a stop. The eyes of the little dark thing her name was Dolly sparkled, and she gazed up at Bob with the respect one of her tender and impressionable years has for a masculine whirlwind.

You quite sweep one off ones feet, Mr. Bennett, she managed to ejaculate.

At that moment Miss Gwendoline passed, a divine bud glowing on either proud cheek. She caught the remark and looked at the maker of it. She noted the sparkle in the eyes. The little dark thing was a wonder with the men. She seemed to possess the knack only second to Miss Gwendoline, in that line of converting them into trailers. Miss Gwendoline, though, never tried to attain this result. Men became her trailers without any effort on her part, while the little dark thing had to exert herself, but it was agreeable work. She made Bob a trailer now, temporarily. Miss Gwendoline turned her head slightly, with a gleam of surprise to watch him trail. She had noticed that Bob had danced with irresistible and almost pagan abandon. That argued enjoyment.

The little dark thing would come in ultimately for hundreds of belching chimneys and glowing furnaces and noisy factories quite a snug if cacophonous legacy!  and Miss Gwendoline had only that day heard rumors that Bobs governor had fallen down and hurt himself on the street. She, Miss Gwendoline, had not attached much importance to those rumors. People were always having little mishaps in the street, and then bobbing up richer than ever.

But now that rumor recurred to her more vividly in the light of Bobs trailing performance and the mad abandon of his tangoing. Of course, all men are gamblers, or fortune-hunters, or something equally reprehensible, at heart! Tendency of a cynical, selfish and money-grabbing age! Miss Gwendoline was no moralist but she had lived in a wise set, where people keep their eyes open and weigh things for just what they are. Naturally a young man whose governor has gone on the rocks (though only temporarily, perhaps), might think that belching chimneys, though somewhat splotchy on the horizon and unpicturesque to the eye, might be acceptable, in a first-aid-to-the-injured sense. But Bob as a plain, ordinary fortune-hunter?  Somehow the role did not fit him.

Besides, a fortune-hunter would not bruskly and unceremoniously have refused her invitation to ride in the trap. And at the recollection of that affront, Miss Gwendolines violet eyes again gleamed, until for sparkles they out-matched those of the little dark thing. However, she held herself too high to be really resentful. It was impossible she should resent anything so incomprehensible, she told herself. That would lend dignity to the offense. Therefore she could only be mildly amused by it. This was, no doubt, a properly lofty attitude, but was it a genuine one? Was she not actually at heart, deeply resentful and dreadfully offended? Pride being one of her marked characteristics, she demanded a great deal and would not accept a little.