CHAPTER VI – DINNER

Mrs. Dan dallied with Bob, displaying all the artifices of an old campaigner. Of course, she had no idea how easy it might be for her to learn all she wanted to. She could not know he was like a barrel or puncheon of information and that all she had to do was to pull the plug and let information flow out. She regarded Bob more in the light of a safety vault; the bishop’s interruption had put him on his guard and she would have to get through those massive outer-doors of his reserve, before she could force the many smaller doors to various boxes full of startling facts.

It was a fine tableful of people, of which they were a part. Wealth, beauty, brains and brawn were all there. An orchestra played somewhere. Being paid performers you didn’t see them and as distance lends enchantment to music, on most occasions, the result was admirable. Delicate orchids everywhere charmed with their hues without exuding that too obtrusive perfume of commoner flowers. Mrs. Ralston was an orchid enthusiast and down on the Amazon she kept an orchid-hunter who, whenever he found a new variety, sent her a cable.

So Mrs. Dan started on orchids with Bob. She hadn’t the slightest interest in orchids, but she displayed a simulated interest that sounded almost like real interest. Mrs. Dan hadn’t practised on society, or had society practise on her, all these years for nothing. She could get that simulated-interested tone going without any effort. But Bob’s attention wandered, and he gazed toward Miss Gerald who occupied a place quite a distance from him.

Mrs. Dan, failing to interest Bob on orchids, now took another tack. She sailed a conversational course on caviar. Men usually like things to eat, and to talk about them, especially such caviar as this. But Bob eyed the almost priceless Malasol as if it were composed of plain, ordinary fish-eggs. He didn’t even enthuse when he took a sip of Moselle that matched the Malasol and had more “bouquet” than the flowers. So Mrs. Dan, again altering her conversational course, sailed merrily before the wind amid the breeze of general topics and gay light persiflage. She was at her best now. There wasn’t anything she didn’t know something about. She talked plays, operas and amusements which gradually led her up to roof gardens. She took her time, though, before laying the bowsprit of her desires straight in the real direction she wished to go. She knew she could proceed cautiously and circumspectly, that there was no need for hurry; the meal would be fairly prolonged. Mrs. Ralston’s dinners were elaborate affairs; there might even be a few professional entertainment features between courses.

“And speaking about roof gardens,” went on Mrs. Dan, looking any way save at Bob, “I believe you were telling me, only this afternoon, how you and dear Dan were finally driven to them as a last resort. Poor Dan! So glad to hear he could get a breath of fresh air in that stuffy old town! Just hated to think of him confined to some stuffy old office. Men work too hard in our strenuous, bustling country, don’t you think so? And then they break down prematurely. I’ve always told Dan,” she rattled on, “to enjoy himself – innocently, of course.” She paused to take breath. “Don’t you think men work too hard in America, Mr. Bennett?” she repeated.

“Sometimes,” said Bob.

She gave him a quick look. Perhaps she was proceeding rather fast, though Bob didn’t look on his guard. “As I told you, I adore roof gardens. But you were telling me you men were not alone. What harm!” she gurgled. “Some people,” talking fast, “are so prudish. I’m sure we’re not put in the world to be that. Don’t you agree?”

“Of course,” said Bob absently. He didn’t like the way that fellow down on the other side of the table was gazing into Miss Gwendoline’s eyes. “I beg your pardon. I – I don’t think I caught that.”

“We were saying there were some wom – ladies with you,” said Mrs. Dan quickly. Too quickly! She strove to curb her precipitancy. “You remember? You told me?” Her voice trailed off, as if it were a matter of little interest.

“Did I?” Bob caught himself up with a jerk. He felt now as if he were a big fish being angled for, and gazed at her with sudden apprehension. The lady’s, mien however, was reassuring.

“Of course,” she laughed. “Don’t you remember?”

“I believe I did say something of the kind.” Slowly. He had had to.

“Surely you don’t deny now?” she continued playfully.

“No.” He had not spared himself. He couldn’t spare Dan. The lady’s manner seemed to say: “I don’t care a little bit.” Anyhow, the evening in question had passed innocently, if frivolously, enough. No harm would come to Dan in consequence. And again Bob’s interest floated elsewhere.

He noticed Miss Gwendoline did not seem exactly averse to letting that fellow by her side gaze into her eyes. Confound the fellow! He had one of those open honest faces. A likable chap, too! One of the Olympian-game brand! A weight-putter, or hammer-thrower, or something of the kind. Bob could have heaved considerable of a sledge himself at that moment.

“Of course, boys will be boys,” prattled Mrs. Dan at his side, just in the least stridently. “I suppose you sat down and they just happened along and sat down, too! You couldn’t very well refuse to let them, could you? That wouldn’t have been very polite?” She hardly knew what she was saying herself now. Though a conversational general, on most occasions, her inward emotion was now running apace. It was almost beating her judgment in the race. She tried to pull herself together. “Why, in Paris, doing the sights at the Jardin or the Moulin Rouge, or the Casino de Paris, every one takes it or them – these chance acquaintances – as a matter of course. Pour passer le temps! And why not?” With a shrug and in her sprightliest manner. “So the ladies in this instance, as you were saying, came right up, too, and – ?”

She paused. That was crude – clumsy – even though she rattled it off as if without thinking. She was losing all her finesse. But again, to her surprise, the fish took the bait. She did not know Bob’s predicament – that he couldn’t finesse.

“Yes, they came up,” said Bob reluctantly, though pleased that Mrs. Dan appeared such a good kind of fellow.

“Show-girls?” asked the lady quickly.

“Well – ah! – two of them were.”

“Two? And what were the others?”

Bob again regarded the lady apprehensively, but her expression was eminently reassuring. It went with the music, the bright flowers and the rest of the gay scene. Mrs. Dan’s smile was one of unadulterated enjoyment; she didn’t seem displeased at all. Must be she wasn’t displeased! Perhaps she was like some of those model French wives who aren’t averse at all to having other ladies attentive to their husbands? Mrs. Dan had lived in Paris and might have acquired with a real accent an accompanying broad-mindedness of character. That might be what made the dear old commodore act so happy most of the time, and so juvenile, too! Mrs. Dan looked broad-minded. She had a broad face and her figure was broad – very! At the moment she seemed fairly to radiate broad-mindedness and again Bob felt glad – on the commodore’s account. He had nothing to feel glad about, himself, with that confounded hammer-thrower —

“Who were the others, did you say?” repeated Mrs. Dan, in her most broad-minded tone.

She seemed only talking to make conversation and looked away unconcernedly as she spoke. Lucky for Dan she was broad-minded – that they had once been expatriates together! Even if she hadn’t been, however, Bob would have had to tell the truth.

“Who were the others?” he repeated absently, one eye on Miss Gerald. “Oh, they were ‘ponies.’”

“‘Ponies,’” said the lady giving a slight start and then recovering. “I beg your pardon, but – ah – do you happen to be referring to the horse-show?”

“Not at all,” answered Bob. “The ponies I refer to,” wearily, “are not equine.” These technical explanations were tiresome. At that moment he was more concerned with the hammer-thrower, who had evidently just hurled a witticism at Miss Gerald, for both were laughing. Would that Bob could have caught the silvery sound of her voice! Would he had been near enough! Across the table, the little dark thing threw him a few consolatory glances. He had almost forgotten about her. Miss Dolly’s temperamental eyes seemed to say “Drink to me only with thine eyes,” and Bob responded recklessly to the invitation. The little dark thing seemed the only one on earth who was good to him. He drank to her with his eyes – without becoming intoxicated. Then she held a glass to her lips and gazed at him over it. He held one to his and did likewise. He should have become doubly intoxicated, but he didn’t. He set down his glass mournfully. Miss Gerald noticed this sentimental little byplay, but what Bob did was, of course, of no moment to her.

“Ponies, Mr. Bennett? And not equine?” Mrs. Dan with difficulty succeeded in again riveting Bob’s wandering attention. “Ah, of course!” Her accents rising frivolously. “How stupid of me!” Gaily. “You mean the kind that do the dancing in the musical shows.” And Mrs. Dan glanced a little furtively at her right.

But on that side the good bishop was still expounding earnestly to the lady he had brought in. He was not in the least interested in what Mrs. Dan and Bob were saying. He was too much concerned in what he was saying himself. At Bob’s left sat the young lady who had been his partner at tennis in the afternoon but she, obviously, took absolutely no interest in Bob now. He had a vague recollection of having been forced to say something in her hearing, earlier in the day, that had sounded almost as bad as his tennis-playing had been. Truth, according to the philosophers, is beautiful. Only it doesn’t seem to be! This young lady had turned as much of the back of a bare “cold shoulder” on Bob at the table as she could. In fact, she made it quite clear Mrs. Dan could have the young man entirely to herself. So Mrs. Dan and Bob were really as alone, for confidential conversational purposes, as if they had been secluded in some retired cozy-corner.

“Two show-girls and two ponies!” Mrs. Dan went on blithely. “That made one apiece.” With a laugh. “Who got the ponies?”

“Clarence got one.”

“And Dan?”

Bob nodded. He had to, it was in the contract. The lady laughed again right gaily.

“Dan always did like the turf,” she breathed softly. “So fond of the track, or anything equine.”

For the moment Bob became again almost suspicious of her, she was such a “good fellow”! And Bob wasn’t revengeful; because he had suffered himself he didn’t wish the commodore any harm. Of course it would be rather a ghastly joke on the commodore if Mrs. Dan wasn’t such a “good fellow” as she seemed. But Bob dismissed that contingency. He was helpless, anyway. He was no more than a chip in a stream. The current of Mrs. Dan’s questions carried him along.

“And what did the pony Dan got, look like?”

“I think she had reddish hair.”

“How lurid! I suppose you all had a few ponies with the ponies?” Jocularly.

“Yes,” said the answering-machine.

“I suppose the ponies had names? They usually do,” she rattled on.

“Yes. They had names, of course.”

“What was Dan’s called?”

The orchestra was playing a little louder now – one of those wild pieces – a rhapsody!

“Don’t know her real name.”

“Her stage name, then?”

“Not sure of that!” Doubtfully.

“But Dan must have called her something?” With a gay little laugh.

“Yes.” Bob hesitated. In spite of that funereal feeling, he couldn’t suppress a grin. “He called her Gee-gee.”

“Gee-gee!” almost shrieked the lady. Then she laughed harder than ever. She was certainly a good actress. At that moment she caught Mrs. Clarence Van Duzen’s eye; it was coldly questioning.

“And what did the pony Clarence got, look like?” Mrs. Dan had passed the stage of analyzing or reasoning clearly. She didn’t even ask herself why Bob wasn’t more evasive. She didn’t want to know whether it was that “good-fellow” manner on her part that had really deceived him into unbosoming the truth to her, or whether – well, he had been drinking too much? He held himself soberly enough, it is true, but there are strong men who look sober and can walk a chalk line, when they aren’t sober at all. Bob might belong to that class. She thought she had detected something on his breath when he passed on the links and he might have been “hitting it up” pretty hard since, on the side, with some of the men. In “vino veritas”! But whether “vino,” or denseness on his part, she was sure of the “veritas.” Instinct told her she had heard the truth.

“And Clarence’s pony – did she have red hair, too?” She put the question in a different way, for Bob was hesitating again.

“No.”

“What was its hue?”

“Peroxide, I guess.” Gloomily.

“Is that all you remember?” Mrs. Dan now was plying questions recklessly, regardlessly, as if Bob were on the witness-stand and she were state prosecutor.

“About all. Oh! – her nose turned up and she had a freckle.”

“How interesting!” Mrs. Dan’s laugh was rather forced, and she and Mrs. Clarence again exchanged glances, but Bob didn’t notice. “And what was she called?” Breathing a little hard.

“Gid-up,” said Bob gravely.

“‘Gid-up’!” Again the lady almost had a paroxysm, but whether or not of mirth, who shall say. “Gee-gee and Gid-up!” Her broad bosom rose and fell.

“Telegram, sir!” At that moment Bob heard another voice at his elbow. Across the table the man with the monocle was gazing at him curiously.