Part 10

George Banks sighted her and jumped like a startled criminal. He took a step backward and smiled foolishly. Kitt laughed.

"Why, Phooey! I thought I'd packed you off to bed. What are you doing prowling around downstairs again? You don't go in for nocturnal melancholia, do you? I hope it isn't so bad as that."

He fidgeted.

"No. Cigarettes. Found I didn't have any in my pocket. None upstairs. Thought I'd come down and find some."

"Lots in that box on the table beside you. Help yourself."

He did, and dropped six or eight into his pocket.

"Well----" he said, fidgeting toward the door.

"Breakfast at eleven thirty," said his hostess, and just then something strange happened in George Banks.

"What the dickens are you going to do for the rest of the night?" he asked. "Are you given to communing with nature yourself?" Again she laughed.

"Brave boy!" she said. "Sit down."

This time they were not on a cold stone bench in the darkness. This time her feet were not so placed as to keep him at a distance.

He seated himself a couple of inches from her, his arm on the back of the sofa behind her head. He took one of the cigarettes from his pocket and placed it between his lips. For the first time his manner of looking at her was leisurely. He filled his lungs with smoke before he opened the conversation.

"And now," he said, "tell me what this is all about. Where do you get the privilege of laughing at me? Who told you I was a funny old man to be kidded unmercifully at every opportunity? What have you done to deserve the right to embarrass me?"

She laughed.

"Why, Phooey! I haven't done anything to embarrass you. If you've felt uncomfortable it's been your own fault. I have laughed at you, but that was because you were funny. I reserve the right to laugh at anything that's funny."

"That isn't entirely wise. You'll find there are a lot of things that are funny that you aren't supposed to laugh at. You'll get in trouble laughing indiscriminately."

"In trouble with you?"

"Among others--yes."

"Ah, then it bites?"

"Not necessarily. But a healthy man can't stand being laughed at. You'll find that out."

"Are you a healthy man? You don't seem healthy. You goof too much. You stare into corners and study rug patterns and look as though you were going to scream with some secret sorrow gnawing at your entrails. Do you really think you're healthy?"

"I really know I'm healthy."

She made an incredulous noise and the corners of her mouth did things. He leaned closer to her.

"Further," he said, picking up one of her hands, "I can prove I'm healthy. I have a healthy normal desire to kiss you."

"To kiss me?" Her mouth was still insulting him. "You look more as though you wanted to choke me."

She executed some sort of distracting movement of her knees. Her eyes were larger than he had thought. Her hand was cool and smooth in his. His arm slipped slowly down from the back of the sofa behind her. His fingers touched her bare shoulder on the side away from him. He thought profane things about himself and removed her hand from a position where it might interfere with possible progress. Slowly, eye to eye with her, he drew her close to him and placed his lips on hers--left them there for throbbing seconds. The end of her nose was cool against his cheek. Her lips were soft. Her body in the crook of his arm was pliant and small. His mind traveled out of the library, upstairs to Mildred Trudeau.

He took his mouth away, replaced his arm on the back of the sofa. He still looked into her eyes.

"Was that what you wanted me to do?" he asked.

"No; though you do do it rather well. I am quite glad you did. It was very pleasant. Thank you."

"I'm afraid you're not welcome. That one kiss is going to make me feel like a burglar for weeks. You have no idea the mental anguish I'll go through."

"And end up by telling Trudy I made you do it?"

"No, I don't think that. But I'm not proud of myself. I might have a little more self-control." He stood up before her, feet slightly apart, right hand gripping left elbow. "Well----" he said. Then, after a pause, "I hope you'll understand this whole performance. I hope you won't think I go around kissing other girls while I'm engaged to Trudy."

He saw a flicker at the corners of her mouth. He fled. Over his shoulder he heard her words:

"It must be funny to have a conscience." Then a laugh. "Breakfast at eleven thirty."

III

It wasn't funny to have a conscience. It was bad for George Banks's trousers, which he tossed over the back of a chair and left there to wrinkle. It was bad for his disposition, especially as he found that the cigarettes he had put in his pocket were crushed beyond the possibility of use. It was bad for his sleep, for he lay flat on his back for a long time thinking things over, and all he could think of was the way Barbara Kittridge's lips felt and the way her mouth laughed at him.

The next day he avoided his hostess. In the evening particularly he made sure not to be left alone with her. And on Sunday, when he said his good-by and drove off with Trudy at his side, he vowed he would never see Barbara Kittridge again.

If he was going to marry Trudy--and that seemed entirely probable, for she seemed perfectly willing and he certainly couldn't do anything about it--well, the thing to do was to keep out of the way of temptation. After all, Kitt was the first girl who had interested him since he had asked Mildred to marry him. If he should strike only one exciting girl every six or eight months, it ought to be fairly easy to keep out of their way.

I record his line of reasoning. It becomes my painful duty to record his actions during the three months that followed. But I will do it quickly for you, so that you will not feel so badly about it as I do.

A week after the Kittridge house party Mrs. Trudeau decided to take Mildred abroad. Two weeks after that they sailed. Both of them were properly kissed good-by by George Banks. They found their stateroom filled to the point of discomfort with flowers and baskets of fruit and cakes and books, and cards from George Banks saying _bon voyage_ and other stimulating sentiments.

From the pier George made his way to a certain club and partook of certain stimulants in tall cold glasses. He stayed in the club for dinner, which consisted of several repetitions of the same stimulants, and for the night, which was interspersed with more of the same. By Monday he was ready to return to his regular round of duties in his father's bond house and to look at things calmly.

Thereafter for two weeks he lived a life of quiet and sobriety, at home for dinner every night and in bed early. He wrote to Mildred, care of this and that in Paris and London and Berne and elsewhere, and told her that life was dull without her, as it was. He did not mention that this particular sort of dullness was relief from the other kind of dullness that had been his lot before she left.

Then he got a note from Barbara Kittridge, which said that she was having a lot of people out for a week-end and that she would be delighted to have him among them. This he carried in his pocket for two days and finally answered by a letter which alleged a business trip out of town. The next day he called Kitt on the phone and told her that he found he didn't have to go away after all.

For a great part of Friday evening he talked with Kitt. Saturday morning they swam together--with several other people, which was just as well. Sunday they played tennis and talked about books. Monday he came home again with a heavy heart. He had not kissed Kitt, nor had he come close to it. But he had recognized in her a person worthy of himself--more than worthy of himself--far above him.

She worried him. She made him wish he were less than a gentleman and could drop his _fiancée_ quietly off a pier in a burlap bag. She caused him to spend another afternoon and evening with the tall cool glasses.

For the rest of the summer, let us say merely that George Banks was seen more or less frequently at the Kittridge summer home and that he dined with Kitt in town on several occasions. Let us say that he remembered throughout that he was engaged to be married and that he maintained a high standard of personal behavior.

Let us skip to the not particularly joyous day on which he received a letter from Mildred Trudeau, saying that she would land in New York from the Majestic on September fifth, barring icebergs and other acts of God. At which time, she said, they would announce that their wedding would take place in October.

With the aid of another evening at the club, George bore up. After all, Mildred was a very fine type of young woman. High social endowments. Mighty respectable and dependable. He wouldn't jilt her. Hell, let her marry him!

Still, when his father called him in next morning and asked him to go to Chicago on business that would keep him away from New York on the day of his _fiancée's_ arrival, he welcomed the opportunity. He wired to Bill Lincoln, who had been his roommate for two years, and told him to have the Field Museum and the stockyards ready. With some abandon he packed two bottles of Scotch in his suit case for the trip.

IV

On the evening of September third George Banks was told by the doorman of the Sportsmen's Club in Chicago that Mr. Lincoln was awaiting him in the bar. Going through the main lounge and taking the first turn to the left, he found that the doorman had spoken at least part of the truth.

Mr. Lincoln was awaiting him. So was the bartender of the Sportsmen's Club. So were a great many Sportsmen's Specials, which were made of gin and lime juice and dashes of things from several bottles, the whole being shaken until it became greenish and frothy. The mixture was efficacious. After the fifth, or possibly the sixth, Mr. Lincoln and his guest, Mr. Banks, might fairly have been said to have reached the ole-fella state. After the eighth, or possibly the twelfth, they felt themselves sufficiently fortified for dinner, and left the bar with promises of a speedy return.

In the dining room, when the waiter, wrinkling his brow over his orders, was fairly started toward the kitchen, Bill Lincoln came to the point.

"Phooey," he said, "whus this I hear 'bout you being engaged?"

He leaned across the table slightly, looking out of the tops of his eyes. His guest drank water.

"Yes," said George Banks.

"Yes, what? Yes, you're engaged? I shu'say you pro'bly are engaged. Seems's though I haven't read anything else in months but George Banks engaged. What I mean's, who's the girl? Whus she like? Is she downhearted or does she keep the spirit of conviv'al'ty in the home? Tell me about her."

"Oh, she's all right."

"Well, tha's a big send-off you give her. 'She's all right,' he says. I didn't ask you if she's sick. I ask you whus she like? Is she a good egg? Tha's what I mean. Is she a good egg?" He stared across the table at George. "Phooey," he said after a moment, "y'understand I didn't mean any harm. I hope I didn't offend you or anything. 'S jus' friendlies' kin' of interes'. 'F course a fella gets a drink or two, he doesn't talk so nice as he might. But Lord! I didn't mean any harm!" His voice trailed off and he stared.

"It isn't that, Bill. You didn't say anything wrong. 'S jus' th' I wan'ed to keep on pleasant topics. I don't want to talk about whus she like. Le's talk about you."

George Banks reached for the water again.

"Wait!" said Bill Lincoln. "Wait! Don' touch that stuff. Good Scotch in my pocket."

He called a captain and ordered sparkling water, glasses and ice. When these necessities arrived he made two drinks and pushed one across the table.

"Now," he said, "what's all this talk about pleasant topics?" The oysters arrived and interrupted him, but he waited. "Tell me," he said as a father commands his erring son.

And so it was that George Banks divulged, for the first time, his inmost thoughts about marriage and women and Mildred Trudeau. With eloquence that waned and waxed as food sobered him and Scotch buoyed him up, he told the whole story of nearly a year of engagement. He told of the enthusiasm that had robbed him of discretion, of the dreadful months of engagement to beauty unmarred by brains. He explained the conventions that the fact of being a gentleman forces upon one engaged by mistake, and how he was just gentleman enough to go through with the thing. He omitted entirely any reference to Barbara Kittridge, and, at that, his story was not finished until they were ready to return to the bar--which they did.

At eleven, when the bar closed, they went, supplied with water and ice, to a corner of the lounge and talked further. All I can say of their conversation is that it was earnest. To reproduce it would be to endanger the world's supply of apostrophes and possibly to make this story unfit for publication.

Eliminating nonessentials, the thing simmered down to an argument as to whether a gentleman must necessarily be a damn fool. Mr. Lincoln saw no sense in Mr. Banks's theories of social ethics, and Mr. Banks had no defense except a series of dogmas about what a gentleman might not do. Therefore Mr. Lincoln won the debate and Mr. Banks agreed that, gentleman or no gentleman, it was up to him, for the good of all concerned, especially old Bill Lincoln, to break his engagement into a thousand pieces.

So firm was his conviction that it held him after he had safely attained his room. He found writing materials in the desk and proceeded not to put off till tomorrow what he had the nerve to do tonight. For nearly an hour he sat and wrote and tore up paper and chewed the penholder and smoked cigarettes. And finally he was satisfied. He folded the paper and put it into an envelope. He picked his way carefully down the hall and rang for the elevator. When it came he handed his letter and fifty cents to the astonished elevator boy, with strict orders that this letter must be posted at once. The boy bowed and agreed that it should be so. George Banks found his room and went to bed. Let us read the letter into the evidence:

MY DEAR MILDRED: I sent a letter to you at the Ritz yesterday to explain how I happened to be in Chicago when you got home. In that letter I said a lot of things I did not honestly mean. The things I mean I did not mean were the things I said about--erasure--loving you. I know that a gentleman does not ever jilt a lady and I hope you will accept my apologies and I hope you will forgive me and I hope that you will understand that I am not jilting you exactly, but only telling you the truth for your good and my good both. You see, it would be a hell of a mess if we got married and we would both be unhappy and so I do not see any sense in being a gentleman about it. It would be pretty hard to be a gentleman and be married to you, anyway, as a friend of mine was saying to me only this evening.

You see, when I asked you to marry me I did not know you very well and I thought you were different from the way you are. I do not mean to say that you are not great the way you are, and everybody seems to think you are great, and my family likes you; but what I mean is I think you would probably be a wonderful wife for somebody that thinks woman's place is in the home, or probably almost anybody but me. But, you see, I cannot talk to you, because I never think you understand what I say and I do not believe you do now. Anyway, I do not think that would be a very good way to commence being married, not understanding each other when we talk and not talking very much.

So what I want to suggest if you do not mind too much is that we do not announce that we will get married in October or any time at all, but just quietly forget it and let bygones be bygones and you speak to me when you see me around even if you know I am not a gentleman, because this is the only time I have not been a gentleman with you or anybody else. And you will know that I am sorry, because I have been thinking of what a mess we would make of it for months; and I have not said anything about it before, because I did not want to be not a gentleman. And I want to impress on you that I am perfectly stone cold sober when I am writing this and that I would never write it at all if it wasn't for the best of both of us.

Hoping to see you soon.

Sincerely yours, GEORGE BANKS.

V

At eleven the next morning George Banks awoke in his room in the Sportsmen's Club. He found his eyes burning and his vision blurred. He found his head throbbing with an ache which radiated from one particular spot inside of his forehead. He found his lips and tongue parched as though he had slept all day in the middle of a desert with his mouth wide open to the blistering sun. An experiment in rising showed conclusively that his knees were weak and that his equilibrial nerves were functioning badly, if at all.

But worse than all this physical disability was a sickening sense of unpleasantness to be faced, which was firmly fixed in the back of his mind. He tried to think, but memories slipped away from him and disappeared like so many slippery pieces of soap under a bathtub. Presently he gave up and lay face downward on the bed, partly conscious, knowing only that his head was throbbing, throbbing, throbbing.

Half an hour later he mustered his courage again and sat up. The room whirled dangerously and he grasped the side of the bed. The edges of his vision were a little clearer. He looked about him. On the desk he saw salvation--a half-full bottle of Scotch. Shakily, supporting himself by whatever came to hand, he made his way to the desk. He carried the bottle to the bathroom and poured a drink of heroic proportions. He drank.

For a minute he sputtered. His eyes blurred again worse than before. He was not entirely sure that he had not wasted the whisky. Then he became stronger, blinked a few times, placed one foot timidly before the other and walked.

Just as he got back to the bed and sat down, he remembered. He had written a letter to Mildred. He had told her what he thought--of her and of his engagement to her and everything. He had asked her to call it all off. Of that much he was sure. And past that his memory would not carry him. Had he told her she was the world's dumbest woman? Had he told her that he had much rather marry a book of etiquette because that, at least, could be left home? Probably. He didn't know, and it didn't make much difference. The import of the letter, however he had worded it, was enough.

He rolled across the bed to the telephone and got Bill Lincoln on the wire.

What George Banks said to Bill Lincoln is neither printable nor essential. It is enough that Bill rushed to the Sportsmen's Club to confer with his ex-roommate, and that the result of the hasty conference was that George Banks found himself, in almost no time, on a train which was due at Grand Central Station at 9 A.M., September fifth.

For it had been decided that he must beat his _fiancée_ to his letter or be forever damned, socially and as a gentleman, and this was the only way the thing could be done. His father's business was unfinished, but that could be explained somehow. The point now was to save Mildred Trudeau's feelings and George Banks's soul. To that end all else must be sacrificed.

George Banks slept soundly in the club car while the train bore him many miles from Chicago. It was close to dinner time when he snorted, gulped five times in rapid succession, and awoke feeling clearer in the head, but clearer, too, in the realization of what he had to face. It was then that he remembered a bottle which had never been taken from his suit case, and bethought himself, in this connection, of an old proverb having to do with the hair of the dog that bites one. A few minutes later the club-car porter was pouring bubbly water into a glass the lower half of which was filled with ice and an amber colored fluid.

After the first, George Banks felt stronger. As the treatment progressed he began to become friendlier toward his fellow wanderers through this vale of tears. When it was time for the fourth, he felt moved to alleviate the sufferings of a young man who sat at his left, separated from him by only one vacant chair. The young man accepted. On investigation he proved to be none other than Harry Powers, who had graduated from Princeton only three years before George. So there they were. They found reminiscences enough to last nearly through dinner; and by the time these began to pall on them they were ready to philosophize on whatever subjects presented themselves, which offered a wide range indeed.

The upshot was that they spent the evening together over George's bottle. Nor did they consider the evening at an end until the bottle had been emptied beyond the possibility of miscalculation. Even then the club-car porter had to plead with them to let him close up for the night.

By showing his Pullman check to the various porters he encountered, George found his way to his own berth. He flung himself in headlong. He undressed lying on his stomach, and wriggling out of his clothes, after what must be the manner of Houdini in a strait-jacket at the bottom of a river. By a miracle he found his pajamas and got himself into them.

For some time he had not thought of what awaited him in the morning. Suddenly the realization came back to him with a vividness that shook him. He would have to kiss the bearded cheek of Mrs. Trudeau. He would have to stare hungrily for hours and hours at her inane daughter--his _fiancée_. And--good Lord!--first he would have to dash to the Ritz and get that letter before she did. Suppose the ship should dock at daybreak. He had heard they did sometimes. He would have to be early all right.

His reasoning led him to the conclusion that the porter must be admonished to call him early--if the porter was waking. If you're waking, call me early, call me early, mother dear. Oh yes, by all means. The porter must be waking, and if he was waking, he must call George early.

With the refrain of Tennyson's worst poem running through his head, George Banks, neatly clad in blue silk pajamas, rolled from his berth into the dimly lighted aisle. If you're waking, call me early, call me early, porter dear. He stumbled over the prominently displayed shoes of the snoring gentleman in the next section. If you're waking, call me early.... He arrived at the men's wash room and pushed the curtain aside. The porter was not there.

George Banks rang a bell and waited a moment, but no one appeared. Porter probably gone to sleep in the caboose or whatever arrangement they have for porters to sleep in. Better find the conductor, anyway. More dependable fellows, these conductors.... If you're waking, call me early, call me early, conductor dear. Not so good. Meter all wrong. But a wise hunch to tell the conductor.

If you're waking, call me early.... George Banks found his way through the next car to the confusion of the shoes parked neatly along the aisle. No porter there, either. He went on. Another car yielded neither porter nor conductor, and George was sick of this business. Chances were some one would call him too early, anyway. They always did.