Chapter XXX: Mrs. Cromwell’s Sons-In-Law

HE WAS far from convinced, however, that Mildred’s necessity was as tragic as she believed. If it was, he would prove to his wife that he was a man of more resources than she thought; but it still seemed to him that old John Tower could be in no danger from the simple wiles of Julietta. For Hobart had accepted the theory that Julietta was wily; he had finally gone that far unconditionally before the unhappy evening was over; and he even wondered why he had hitherto been so blind when he looked at Julietta. But as for steady old John Tower—“No,” he said to himself, as he drove into the city the next morning. “Absolutely impossible!” Yet in this emphasis there was that faint shade of doubt so often present when people buttress their convictions with “absolutely”; so he decided to buttress himself further by means of a diplomatic experimental talk with old John.

Arrived in the heart of the city at the great building that was his own, with all its thirty stories obedient to his five feet three inches, a Giant Jinn enslaved by a little master enchanter, he went, not to his own offices, but to old John’s. “I just dropped in for a morning cigar,” he explained.

His brother-in-law received him heartily.

“My dear Hobart, this is indeed a pleasure. Will you smoke one of my cigars or one of your own? I’m afraid yours are much the better.”

“No, they’re not,” Hobart laughed. “Mine are much the worse. Your taste is a lot better than mine about pretty nearly everything.” As he spoke he took a long cigar from the box that Tower was offering him, and lighted it. “You have better taste in cigars, better taste in furniture——” Here he seated himself in one of the set of seventeenth-century English chairs that helped to make the room the pleasant place it was. “You even have better taste on the golf links,” he concluded, chuckling as if reminiscently.

“How so? You play a better game. You don’t allude to my apparel for it, I imagine.”

“That, too,” Hobart said. “But I was thinking of something else.”

“Of what, my dear Hobart?”

Hobart laughed, gave him a look of friendly raillery, mixed with jocose admiration, and said: “Don’t you think I’m a good deal of a dunderhead? On your word, don’t you, old John?”

Old John, beaming genially and amused by his caller’s question, but puzzled by it, laughed with him. “On my word then, no. I haven’t the slightest conception of what you mean.”

“Just think of it!” Hobart chuckled. “Here we go, afternoon after afternoon, you and I, out to the links; and every single time, when we get there, I go roving round the course virtually all by myself, while you put in the time with Julietta! You and she keep together and play the same ball—and what do I play? It seems to me I play the Lone Fisherman! Honestly, do you think it’s fair?”

“Fair?” Old John had become grave, and the other was surprised and interested to observe that a tinge of red was slowly mounting in his cheeks. “Let me understand you, Hobart,” he said. “You mean that I’ve been monopolizing Julietta?”

“Rather!” Hobart continued his rallying jocosity, though inwardly he was disturbed by the spreading of that tinge of red over his brother-in-law’s face. “Don’t you think it’s about time I had a share of feminine camaraderie in our outdoor sports?”

“You mean, Hobart, that this afternoon you’d prefer to play the same ball with Julietta and have me play against you?”

This was not the question Hobart had desired to evoke; and his jocosity departed from him suddenly. “Well——” he said. Then, as his shrewd eyes took note again of old John’s rosy face and of his gravity—already troubled as by some forthcoming disappointment—the Napoleonic Hobart came to one of those swift and clear resolutions, the capacity for which had made possible his prodigious business career during what was still almost his youth. Old John was indeed in danger, although old John was “too innocent” to know it, himself. And in the very instant of this realization, Hobart decided that he had found the opportunity to take up his wife’s challenge and atone in full for his fault to her sister.

“Why—why, yes,” he said, slowly. “Don’t you think it’s about time? You wouldn’t mind very much, would you?”

Old John’s large and well-favoured face grew redder than ever, though otherwise it was expressive of the most naïvely plain regret. “Ah—I suppose it would be fair,” he said. “Julietta _is_ attractive, as you say. In fact, I believe she is the most attractive girl I have ever known. I value her friendship very highly, Hobart. I came into town to a cabaret with her last night, and neither of us knew anybody in the place. We danced together and had a little supper, and danced some more, and talked—altogether until about two o’clock, I think, Hobart. And in all that time I never had a dull moment—not one! She is a most attractive girl, as you say, and I believe there’s perhaps some justice in your idea that you’re entitled to more of her companionship than you’ve been enjoying—for this afternoon at least. Since you put it as you do, suppose we arrange, then, that you and she play the same ball this afternoon and I play against the two of you.”

“I believe that would be fair,” Hobart said, his eyes sidelong upon old John. “It’s settled then.” He rose to go.

“I suppose so.” Tower’s gravity increased; but he brightened at a thought that came to him as his departing caller reached the door. “I suppose, Hobart, to-morrow—to-morrow——”

“To-morrow what?” Hobart inquired, staring at him.

“Ah—to-morrow——” Old John hesitated, then finished hopefully: “We might return to our former arrangement?”

“To-morrow? Oh, yes, certainly—to-morrow we’ll return to our former arrangement,” Hobart said; and as he passed through the anteroom beyond he murmured the word incredulously to himself, “‘To-morrow.’” He laughed shortly, and in his imagination continued the dialogue with old John. “Day after to-morrow, too, I suppose? And the day after that? And the next, and the next? Why, yes! Why not?” Then he became serious. “You poor dear old thing, there’s got not to _be_ any ‘to-morrow’!”

He took the affair into his own hands for complete settlement; and at noon he went to a jeweller’s and bought the most expensive wrist-watch in the place—a trifling miracle of platinum intricately glittering with excellent white diamonds. He put the little packet in his coat pocket, and at about five o’clock that afternoon he showed it to Miss Julietta Voss.

Old John Tower, absent-minded and not playing well, had driven his ball into a thicket fifty yards away from where Hobart and Julietta had paused;—he was in the underbrush, solemnly searching, with his caddy.

“Something for you,” Hobart said, tossing the little packet up and down in his hand.

She looked surprised. “For me? From you?”

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

“Oh, nothing to speak of,” he replied, airily. “I just happened to hear you broke that gold wrist-watch you usually wear——”

“I did,” she said. “But John found another for me to-day—a new one exactly like it.” She displayed her left forearm for inspection. “Isn’t it lovely of him always to be so dear about all the little thoughtful things?”

“I don’t know,” Hobart said; and he quoted an ancient bit of slang: “There might be others!”

She shook her head. “Not like him!”

“Are you sure, Julietta?” He gave her a quick and serious look that increased her surprise. “You might at least take a glance round you to see.”

“What on earth are you talking about, Hobart Simms?”

At that he gave her another quick glance—a personal glance, as it might have been defined, since to Julietta it seemed to convey an unexpected feeling concerning herself and himself. Then he looked wistfully away, and when he spoke, a moment later, his voice had not the briskness customary in his speech;—it was, on the contrary, perceptibly unsteady. “Julietta, I’ve been—well, don’t you suppose a man might some day get a little tired of being—I mean to say, here I am with you, day after day—yet really _not_ with you. You’re so busy noticing old John all the time, you never take time off to be a little friendly with anybody else.”

She caught her breath, staring at him wonderingly. “But you—you never showed me you wanted me to,” she said, slowly.

“Didn’t I?” He turned to her, smiling, and as he spoke he removed the paper wrappings of the small packet. “Other people might want to do some of the ‘little thoughtful things’ too—if they ever got a chance.”

He put into her hand the green velvet box that had been inside the wrapping, and she opened it curiously;—then suppressed an outcry.

“Good Heaven!” she gasped, and stared at him. “Of course you know I couldn’t accept a thing like _this_!”

“Why not? You would from John.”

“But——”

“You’re wearing the one he gave you.”

“Yes, but _this_——”

“It’s nothing,” he said. “Of course, if you don’t like it——”

Sorrowfully he extended his hand to take back the little green velvet box from her; but she retained it and stood staring at him, amazed and also profoundly thoughtful. Like Hobart, she was a person who could make quick decisions.

“I never dreamed of this,” she said. “I thought you only came along with us because you thought it was a good course and because John asked you.”

“And he asked me because you made him,” Hobart added. “And the reason you did was because you wanted me for a chaperon.”

She laughed excitedly. “You don’t seem contented with the rôle, I must say!”

“How could I?”

“I never dreamed!” she said, and she looked at the watch upon her wrist and at that in the green velvet box. “Queer!” she laughed. “Now I have two!”

“Would you mind wearing mine?” Hobart asked, and he laughed with her.

“But he’ll see it!”

Hobart’s laughter became gayer and louder. “What if he does?”

“Perhaps you’re right,” Julietta said, and as she took the magnificent tiny miracle from the box, there began to shine in her eyes an exultation that could be ruthless. “Perhaps I’d better wear yours and keep his in my pocket.”

“Perhaps you’d better,” he agreed, still laughing. “Don’t let him see the joke’s on him till we get back to the clubhouse, though. If he asks you about it, don’t tell him till then;—I want to get away first.”

“Yes,” she assented, thoughtfully. “Perhaps that would be just as well.”