Part 12 (2/2)
”My wife wasn't fooled for a minute,” Hood chuckled. ”We were having our last fling before we settled down for the rest of our days. We all have the same weakness for a springtime lark: my wife, my daughter, and I.”
Billy ran his hands through his hair. ”Pierrette! Pierrette is your daughter!”
”Certainly,” replied Hood; ”and Columbine, the dearest woman in the world, is my wife, and Pantaloon my father-in-law. In my affair with you there was only one coincidence: everything else was planned. It was Pierrette, whose real name is Roberta--Bobby for short, when we're not playing a game of some sort--Bobby really did lift your suitcase by mistake. And it was stowed away in Ca.s.sowary's car when I came to your house intending to return it. But when I saw that you needed diversion I decided to give you a whirl. It was an easy matter for Ca.s.sowary to move the suitcase to the bungalow, where you found it. I steered you to the house on purpose to see how you and Bobby would hit it off. The result seems to have been satisfactory!”
Ca.s.sowary turned uneasily on his bench.
”And before we quit all this foolishness,” Hood resumed with a glance at the chauffeur, ”there's one thing I want to ask you, Mr. Deering, as a special favor. That chap lying over there is Tommy Torrence, whom you kicked off your door-step for daring to love your daughter. He's one of the best fellows in the world. Just because his father, the old senator, didn't quite hit it off with you in a railroad deal before Tommy was born is no reason why you should take it out on the boy. He started for the bad after you made a row over his attentions to your daughter, but he's been with me six months and he's as right and true a chap as ever lived.
You've got to fix it up with him or I'll--I'll--well, I'll be pretty hard on your boy if he ever wants to break into my family!”
With this Hood rose and drew from his pocket a handful of newspaper clippings which he threw into the air and watched flutter to the floor.
”Those are some of your advertis.e.m.e.nts offering handsome rewards for news of me dead or alive. In collecting them I've had a mighty good time.
Let's all go to sleep; to-morrow night the genial Fogarty will get us out of this. He's over there now sawing the first bar of that window!”
X
A year has pa.s.sed and it is May again and the last day of that month of enchantment. There has been a house-party at the Deering place at Radford Hills. Constance came from Wyoming to spend May with her father, bringing with her, of course, her husband, sometime known as Ca.s.sowary, who has been elected to the legislature of his State and, may, it is reported, be governor one of these days. The Tyringhams are there, and this includes Robert Tyringham, _alias_ R. Hood, and his wife (whose authors.h.i.+p of ”The Madness of May,” has not yet been acknowledged) and also her father, Augustus Davis, who continues to find recreation in frequent attacks upon any inoffensive piano that gets in his way. Mr. and Mrs. Edward Rans...o...b.. too, have shared Mr. Deering's hospitality. Marriage has not interrupted Mrs. Rans...o...b..s career as an artist, though she has dropped ill.u.s.trating, and is specializing in children's portraits with distinguished success.
The senior Deering, wholly at peace with his conscience, does not work as hard as he used to before his taste of adventurous life gained in the pursuit of Hood. He is very proud of his daughter-in-law, whose brown eyes bring constant cheer and happiness to his table. If she does not hang moons in trees any more, she is still quite capable of doing so, and has no idea of permitting her husband to wear himself out in the banking-house. They are going to keep some time every year for play, she declares, to the very end of their lives.
Hood had been devoting himself a.s.siduously to mastering the details of his business affairs, living as other men do, keeping regular office hours in a tall building with an outlook toward the sea, and taking his recreation on the golf-links every other afternoon.
”Mamma has been nervous all this month about papa,” Roberta (known otherwise as Pierrette or Bobby) was saying as she and Billy slowly paced the veranda. ”But now May is over and he hasn't shown any disposition to run away. I suppose he's really cured.” There was a tinge of regret in her last words.
”Yes,” Billy replied carelessly. ”He hasn't mentioned his old roving days lately. I think he's even sensitive about having them referred to.”
”But even if he should want to go, mamma wouldn't break her heart about it. She feels that it's really something fine in him: his love of the out-of-doors, and adventures, and knowing all sorts and conditions of men. And he has really helped lots of people, just as he helped you. And he always had so much fun when we all played gypsy, or he went off alone and came back with no end of good stories. I'm just a little sorry----”
They paused, clasping hands and looking off at the starry canopy.
Suddenly from the side of the house a man walked slowly, hesitatingly. He stopped, turned, glanced at the veranda, and then, sniffing the air, walked rapidly toward the gate, swinging a stick, his face lifted to the stars.
Bobby's hand clasped Billy's more tightly as they watched in silence.
”It's papa; he's taking to the road again!” she murmured.
”But he'll come back; it won't be for long this time. I haven't the heart to stop him!”
”No,” she said softly, ”it would be cruel to do that.”
The lamps at the gate shone upon Robert Tyringham as he paused and then, with a characteristic flourish of his stick, turned westward and strode away into the night.
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