“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.
CHAPTER VII – VARYING VICISSITUDES
A footman had brought the message, which Bob now took and opened mechanically. It was from the commodore.
“For heaven’s sake,” it ran, “return at once to New York Will explain.”
Bob eyed it gloomily. The commodore must have been considerably rattled when he had sent that.
“Any answer, sir?” said the footman.
Bob shook his head. What could he answer? He couldn’t run away now; the commodore ought to know that. Of all fool telegrams! —
“A business message, I suppose?” purred the lady at his side. “I trust it is nothing very important, to call you away?”
“No, I shouldn’t call it important,” said Bob. “Quite unnecessary, I should call it.”
He crumpled up the message and thrust it into his pocket. At that moment one of Mrs. Ralston’s paid performers – a high-class monologist – began to earn his fee. He was quite funny and soon had every one laughing. Bob strove to forget his troubles and laugh too. Mrs. Dan couldn’t very well talk to him now, and relieved from that lady’s pertinent prattle, he gradually let that “dull-care grip” slip from his resistless fingers. Welcoming the mocking goddess of the cap and bells, he yielded to the infectious humor and before long forgot the telegram and everything save that crop of near-new stories.
But when the dinner was finally over, he found himself, again wrapped in deep gloom, wandering alone on the broad balcony. He didn’t just know how he came to be out there all alone – whether he drifted away from people or whether they drifted away from him. Anyhow he wasn’t burdened with any one’s company. He entertained a vague recollection that several people had turned their backs on him. So if he was forced to lead a hermit’s life it wasn’t his fault. Probably old Diogenes hadn’t wanted to live in that tub; people had made him. They wouldn’t stand him in a house. There wasn’t room for him and any one else in the biggest house ever built. So the only place where truth could find that real, cozy, homey feeling was alone in a tub. And things weren’t any better to-day. Nice commentary on our boasted “advanced civilization!”
Bob felt as if he were the most-alone man in the world! Why, he was so lonesome, he wasn’t even acquainted with himself. This was only his “double” walking here. He knew now what that German poet was driving at in those Der Doppleganger verses. His “double” was alone. Where was he? – the real he