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CHAPTER XXV.
A SUDDEN DEPARTURE
Time – A week later.
“Hello, Bobs, is that you?” But it was Lena May who had answered an imperative ring at the telephone, and so she replied, “Oh, good morning, Mr. Caldwaller-Cory. No, I am not Roberta. I will call her.”
A moment later Ralph knew that he was talking to the girl whom he loved.
“I say, Bobety,” he exclaimed, “will you go for a drive with me right away this minute? Please say ‘yes’ (for she had hesitated), I have something of great importance to tell you.”
“Honestly, I can’t, Ralph,” was the earnest reply. “I am going to give Lena May a holiday. She and Dean Wiggin are going to take little Tony Wilovich to Bronx Park and spend the day. The little fellow is wild to see the monkeys and Lena May needs a day among the trees.”
Her youngest sister was at her elbow whispering, “We can go some other time, dear, if there’s something that you want to do.”
But Roberta shook her head. There was a brief silence at the other end of the line, then the lad spoke again. “I say, Bobs, how are they going? On the L! That’s what I thought. Suppose I get Dad’s big car. We can take them out to the park and then on the way back you and I can have the visit I want. In fact I’ve got to see you, Bobs. It’s terribly important to me. I’m all cut up about something that has happened and – ”
Roberta knew by her friend’s voice that something had occurred to trouble him greatly, and so she said: “Wait a moment, Ralph. I will talk it over with my sister.”
Lena May thought the plan a good one and Ralph was told to be at the Pensinger mansion in one-half hour with the car and they would all be ready and waiting for him.
Lena May then departed to the rickety tenement to get the wee lad.
“Oh, Mrs. Wilovich,” the girl said, as she looked about the small, hot room. “How I do wish that you would go with us today. Don’t you feel strong enough?”
“No, dearie, thanks though. The coughin’ spell was harder’n usual this mornin’. ’Twas all as I could do to get Tony’s breakfast. I’ll be that happy knowin’ as the little fellow’s seein’ the monkeys his heart’s been set on ever since the picture posters was up on the fences.”
Five minutes later the girl and the little boy were joined by the young bookseller on Seventy-eighth Street.
“Dean,” Lena May said sadly, “I don’t believe that Mrs. Wilovich will be with us one month from today.”
“Nor do I,” the lad replied; then he added, as he looked at the curly-headed three-year-old, who had darted ahead but who looked back, laughing at them, “What will become of Tony?”
“I’m going to keep him, somehow. Gloria has given her permission. I wanted to be sure that Sister thought my plan wise that I might know just what to say to the little mother when she speaks of it to me, as she will in time.”
No wonder was it that the lad’s unspoken love for the girl took unto itself the qualities of adoration. “She is too sweet and too good to be loved by a useless man such as I am,” he thought, and how he wished that his muscle-bound arm might be freed that he could work and fight the world for this angel of a girl. A surgeon had once told him that there was really nothing wrong with his arm. It had grown with the passing years, but was stiffened from long disuse.
Tony was wildly excited when he saw the big green car in which he was to ride for the first time in his short life, and he entertained them all with his chatter.
Roberta, sitting on the front seat with her friend, glanced often at his face and realized that, although he, too, joined in the laughter evoked by the baby’s prattle, his thoughts were of a very serious nature, and she wondered what she was to hear when they two were alone.
She little dreamed that Ralph was to say something that would greatly affect her.
Dean, carrying the basket which was well filled with picnic refreshments, and Lena May leading the shining eyed three-year-old, waved back at the big car as they entered the side gate of the woodsy Bronx Park.
Bobs smiled as the baby voice wafted to them, “Ohee, see funny cow!”
They were near the buffalo enclosure.
Then Ralph started the engine and slowly the car rolled along the little river and toward the country. Roberta, knowing that something was greatly troubling her friend, reached out a hand and laid it sympathetically upon his arm. Instantly his left hand closed over hers and his eyes turned toward her questioningly. “Bobs,” he said, “you’ve been a trump of a friend to me. I’m not going to try to tell you just now what it means. It’s another friend I want to talk about. Dick – Dick De Laney. You remember that I told you he has become almost as dear to me as a brother, since Desmond died. I was sure Dick would do anything for me. I had such faith in his loyalty, in his devoted friendship, but now he has done something I can’t understand.” Ralph paused and his companion saw that he was greatly affected. “Bobs, I’m taking this awfully hard. I – ”
Roberta was amazed. What had her old pal, Dick De Laney, done to so hurt her new friend? “Why, Ralph dear,” she said, for he had turned away as though too overcome with emotion for the moment to go on with his story. “What has Dick done? I know that it is nothing disloyal or dishonorable. You don’t know Dick as I do if you can doubt him for one moment. He would do what he believed was right, even if the consequences were to bring real suffering to him. He’s been that way ever since he was a little fellow. You may take my word for it, Ralph, that whatever Dick has done, his motive is of the highest. Now tell me what has hurt you so deeply?”
“Well, it’s this way,” the lad began. “I’ve missed Dick terribly, more, of course, before I met you, but I have been looking eagerly forward to the month he was to spend with me in the Orange Hills. I didn’t tell you that I expected him to arrive today. I wanted to surprise you, but instead I received a letter on the early morning mail and it informed me that, although the writer really did love me as though I were his brother, he thought it best not to visit me this summer; instead he had decided to travel abroad indefinitely and that he had engaged passage on a steamer that leaves Hoboken at noon today. What can it mean?”
The lad turned and was amazed at the expression in the face of the girl. “Why, Bobs,” he blurted out, “can it be – do you care so much because Dick is going away.”
“Oh, Ralph, of course I care. It’s all my fault. I knew Dick loved me. I guess I’ve always known it, and last April, when he was home for the spring vacation, I promised him that – Oh, I don’t remember just what I did promise, but I do know that I haven’t written often of late, and I guess he thinks I don’t care any more; and maybe that’s why he’s going away; but I do care, and, oh, Ralph, I can’t let him go without telling him. I always meant to tell him when he came home from college. I thought we were too young to be really engaged until then. Dick has been so patient, waiting all these years, and loving me so truly and so loyally. Can’t we stop him, or – at least can’t we see him before he sails?”
The expression in the fine face of the lad at her side plainly told the struggle that was going on within his heart. So, after all, Dick De Laney had been as loyal as a brother. He was going away to give Ralph a clear field.
Well, it was Ralph’s turn now to show the mettle he was made of. In a voice that might have betrayed his emotion if Roberta had not been so concerned with her own anxiety and regrets, he said:
“Of course, Bobs, we will try to reach the boat before it sails. We’ll ferry over to the Jersey side and then we’ll break the speed limit.”
CHAPTER XXVI.
A HAPPY REUNION
Dick De Laney was leaning over the railing of the big liner that was to take him away from the country that was home to him and from the girl he loved, whose happiness meant more to him than did his own, but, as he looked out over the choppy waters of the bay and toward the broad Atlantic he could see ahead of him nothing but years of loneliness.
Then it was that he heard a voice that was eagerly, tremulously calling his name. He whirled and beheld Roberta back of him, her hands outstretched. There were tears in her eyes as she said: “Dick, why did you do it? Why did you plan going away without saying good-bye? Even if you have changed your mind, even if you don’t care for me any more, it isn’t like you to just run away.”
Dick’s face, troubled at first, was radiant when the full meaning of the words reached his consciousness.
“Bobs,” he said, “why, Bobita, I thought you didn’t care; that is, I thought maybe you loved Ralph, and so – ”
“And so you were going away to let me have someone else, you dear old stupid! To think that I so nearly lost you just because I was so very sure that you loved me; that I never could lose you, and so I didn’t write about it.”
These two were holding each other’s hands and looking deep into each other’s eyes, entirely oblivious of their surroundings. Roberta continued:
“Dicky-boy, I’ve had my lesson, and when we are married, every day the first thing, instead of good morning, I am going to say I love you, which, after all, will mean the same thing.”
“Married, Bobs! When are we to be married?”
The girl laughed at the lad’s eagerness, but as many passengers were appearing on deck, she replied, demurely, “Sometime, of course, and live happily ever after.”
It was hard for Dick not to shout, but, instead, he said:
“Come along, dear, and I’ll cancel my passage, and then I’ll go home with you and tell you what all this means to me. I can’t very well here.” Then, as he glanced about, he inquired: “How did you get here, Bobs? Did you come alone?”
“No, Ralph brought me.” Her conscience rebuked her, for she had completely forgotten the existence of her other friend. “He was as hurt as I was because you were going away without seeing him,” she told Dick.
“Poor old Ralph,” was all he said. “I certainly am sorry for him, but I suppose it can’t be helped.”
“Sorry for Ralph? Why?” Roberta’s expression of surprised inquiry was so frank that the lad knew his pal had never spoken of his love.
Dick was even more puzzled when, upon reaching the dock, he saw his friend Ralph leap toward them with hands outstretched. Joyfully he exclaimed: “Great. I know by your radiant faces that you’ve made up. I congratulate you both. I certainly am glad that we made it on time.” Then after a hearty hand-shaking: “What put that wild notion of flight into your head, old man? You can’t get rid of us that easy, can he, Bobs? My detective-partner here has been telling me that she has been engaged to you ever since she wore pinafores, or was it a little later?”
Roberta laughed. “I believe I had on a riding habit that day, didn’t I, Dick?”
Ralph turned away after a fleeting glance at the girl’s face as it was uplifted to his roommate. He had not dreamed that she could be as beautiful as that expression of love had made her.
Dick was replying, “Oh, it doesn’t much matter when it happened, dear. The big thing is that it did happen at all.”
Then, when they were in the big green car (the front seat was wide enough to hold all three of them), Dick began to ask questions.
“How is Gwen now?” was the first of them. He was pleased to hear that the girl, but a year Roberta’s senior, was much better and visiting his sister, Phyllis.
Then it was that Bobs thought of something. “Why, Ralph,” she said, “you never did have an opportunity to meet my beautiful sister, Gwendolyn, did you? She hasn’t been strong enough to visit with strangers, and now she has gone away for a whole month.”
Dick smiled as he said to the driver: “Bobs is giving herself a compliment when she calls Gwendolyn beautiful, for the family resemblance between the two girls is very striking.”
Roberta laughed. “I should say that it must be, Dick. Did I ever write you about the time a stage manager thought that I was Gwen, and I actually had to do a song and dance? I laugh every time I think of it. Gloria said afterwards that it was a natural mistake, for though I am not as sylph-like as my sister, we do look very much the same.”
Ralph smiled, but he made no response. His thought was commenting: “As though anyone could be like you, Bobs.”
It was noon when the Pensinger mansion was reached, and Roberta told the lads that she wasn’t going to ask them in just then, as she had to do some writing for Mr. Jewett that must be delivered that afternoon, but she invited them both to supper, if they weren’t afraid to eat her cooking. Dick said he certainly would reappear as soon as she would permit him to come, but Ralph had an engagement with his Dad. As that was not unusual, Bobs did not think that this time it was an excuse to remain away, as indeed it was.
Roberta turned at the house door to wave to the lads in the car that was starting away. Vaguely she wondered what they would talk about. How little she knew of the aching heart that one of them was so bravely trying to hide.
CHAPTER XXVII.
REVELATIONS THAT DO NOT REVEAL
The two lads who were close as brothers rode for some time in silence after having left Roberta at the Pensinger mansion. It took skillful driving to cross the crowded streets at First, Second and Third, but after that the way was open to Central Park and, when at last they were riding down one of the wide, tree-shaded avenues, Ralph turned his gaze from the road and smiled at his friend.
The eyes of Dick were searching.
“And all this means what, to you?” he asked earnestly.
“That I wrote the letter to which you are referring, hastily, on an impulse, before I was really acquainted with Miss Vandergrift. I know now that she isn’t the girl for me, and I also know that she is the girl for you, and I sincerely congratulate you both. Now I say, Dick, you aren’t going to spoil my plans for a house party in the Orange Hills by bolting, are you? Ma Mere will be back tomorrow, and she wrote that I might have my friends for a week as soon as the house has been aired out. You know it has been closed all winter.”
“Indeed, I’m not going anywhere.” Dick felt greatly relieved, for he believed that Ralph was telling him the truth. He knew that his college pal was impulsive and often did things in more of a headlong manner than he would had he given the matter thought. “Of course he admires my Bobs; no one could help that, but I’m glad that he doesn’t really love her,” Dick was thinking. “He’s had sorrow enough as it is.” Aloud he asked, “Who are you going to ask?”
“Well, I did invite all four of the Vandergrift girls, but Bobs is the only one who has accepted. The oldest and youngest sisters are free but a few hours each day; the rest of their time they devote to Settlement work and they feel that they are especially needed now that it is vacation in the schools. Gwendolyn, however, may come, as of course I have invited your sister Phyllis and her guests.”
Dick looked at Ralph with the light of a new inspiration in his eyes. “I say, wouldn’t it be great if you could care for my sister Phyl? Then you would be my brother in very truth.”
Ralph laughed. “Dicky-boy,” he said, “are you turning matchmaker? It’s too late for that, old man. Bobs tells me that Phyllis is engaged to a fine chap from up Boston way. His name is Arden Wentworth.”
“Gee, that’s great news! Arden is a chap after my own heart, but I didn’t think that he ever could win Phyl. She must have changed a lot this last year.”
“Why, how’s that?” Ralph looked around inquiringly. “His father has piled up a few millions. That ought to please any girl.”
“That’s just where the shoe pinches, so to speak,” was the reply. “Arden, being a red-blooded young American, refused to just spend his father’s money and so he put on overalls and began at the bottom in one of his dad’s factories. He said he wanted to prove to himself, even if the world didn’t care, that he had brains enough to make good without help. Phyl wouldn’t speak to him after that, hoping that, for her sake, he would give it up; but he didn’t, and so I thought it was all off between them.”
“Well, something must have happened, for Bobs tells me that they are really engaged, and so, of course I have also invited Arden. By the way, you know Gwendolyn Vandergrift. What kind of a chap ought I to ask for her? Harry Birch is in town. I thought she might like him.” And so the lads talked over the plans for the coming house party, and so successfully did Ralph play his part that his pal did not for one moment suspect that his friend was secretly wishing that he might have sailed away in Dick’s place on the boat which, that noon, had left for distant shores.
But night is darkest before the dawn.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE HOUSE PARTY
Ralph and Dick were out on the wide velvety lawn which surrounded the handsome rambling summer home of the Caldwaller-Corys.
The gay awnings, palms and boxes of flowers gave the house a festive appearance, while the many colored lanterns strung about the garden suggested that some merriment was planned for the evening.
Mrs. Caldwaller-Cory, who seemed very young to be the mother of a junior member of an ancient law firm, emerged from the house closely followed by Roberta Vandergrift.
Bobs, in an attractive summer dress and wide flower-wreathed hat, looked very different from the girl who, while on the East Side, dressed in a simple dark tailor-made suit and a neat, narrow-brimmed hat.
“Aren’t your guests late, my son?” the hostess inquired. Ralph looked at his watch for the tenth time in as many minutes.
“They certainly are,” he replied, “late by a full hour now, and I am almost inclined to think that they had a breakdown. They were coming in Jack Beardsley’s tallyho, and he said he would time the drive from New York so that they would reach us promptly at two-thirty, and now it is nearing four.”
Just at that moment a butler crossed the lawn and, beckoning Ralph to one side, told him that someone awaited him at the telephone. Excusing himself, the lad fairly ran indoors. As he had expected, it was the voice of his friend, Jack Beardsley, that greeted him. “I say, Ralph, are you alone so that no one will get wise to what I am going to say?”
“Yes,” was the reply.
“We don’t want to worry her sister needlessly. There really is no cause for that, but we’ve been delayed at the Orange Hills Inn because Gwendolyn Vandergrift, who isn’t as strong as she thought, has found riding in the tallyho too hard. She’s got grit, that girl has! Never complained, but kept up as long as she could that she need not trouble anyone until she just keeled over and fainted. She’s better now, and Phyllis thought that if you would come over after her with that little runabout of yours, made comfortable with blankets and pillows, it wouldn’t be as hard for Miss Vandergrift as this old tallyho of mine. Mrs. Buscom, the innkeeper’s wife, will look out for her, and so, if you are coming, we’ll start along, as I want to make the steep grade with this lumbering vehicle of mine before dark.”
“Sure thing, I’ll get there all right. I’ll take a short cut through the hills, so you won’t pass me, but don’t be alarmed. I’ll probably get back here in The Whizz as soon as you do in the tallyho, so I won’t say anything to her sister, Roberta, as yet. So long.”
Again Ralph was acting on impulse. His first desire had been to take Bobs with him, but if he did there would not be room to make the invalid sister comfortable on the return trip, and, moreover, it wouldn’t be fair to Dick.
His dad wouldn’t arrive with the big car until five-thirty, and so The Whizz would have to do. Sending word out to the group on the lawn that the tallyho had been delayed but would soon arrive, Ralph donned his leather coat, cap and goggles and made his way out through a back entrance and down to the garage. Soon thereafter he was speeding over a country road which led among the hills and was a short cut of many miles to the Inn. He broke the speed limit whenever the dirt road was smooth enough to permit him to do so, but, although he frightened many a flock of birds from the hedges, no one arose from the wayside tangle to bid him go more slowly.
When at last he drew up at the Inn, the kind Mrs. Buscom appeared and smilingly informed him that the young lady was quite rested and that the tallyho had been gone for half an hour. She was about to lead the way into the dim, old-fashioned parlor of the Inn when new arrivals delayed her, and so Ralph went in alone.
The blinds in the old-fashioned parlor of the Inn were drawn, and, having come in from the dazzling sunshine, Ralph at first could scarcely see, but a girl, who had been seated in a haircloth rocker, arose and advanced toward him. She wore a rose-colored linen hat and dress. For a moment the lad paused and stared as though at an apparition.
“Bobs!” he ejaculated. Then he laughed as he extended his hand. “Miss Vandergrift, honestly, just for a second I thought that I was seeing a vision. I had quite forgotten that you and your sister so closely resemble each other, though, to be sure, you are taller than Bobs; but pardon me for not introducing myself. I am Ralph Cory, of whom, perhaps, you have heard.”
“And I am Gwendolyn Vandergrift, of whom I am sure that you have heard, else you would not have come for me,” the girl smiled; and, to his amazement, Ralph found that his heart was pounding like a trip-hammer. “If you are sure that you are rested, Miss Vandergrift,” he said, “we will start back at once. I’ve brought soft pillows galore, and a jolly soft lap robe. I do hope you’ll be comfortable.”
On the porch of the Inn, Gwen turned and, holding out a frail hand, she said to the kindly woman: “Thank you, Mrs. Buscom, for having taken such good care of me. I shall stop again on our way back to town.”
The bustling little woman helped arrange the pillows and tucked in the blanket. Then to Ralph she said as the machinery started: “Do take care of the pretty dear. It’s like a flower she is, and ought to be sheltered from the rough winds of the world.”
“I’ll do that little thing, Mrs. Buscom. Good-bye. Wish us luck!”
Ralph drove slowly at first, but Gwen said, “I’m so well packed in pillows, Mr. Cory, it won’t jar me in the least if you go faster.” And so the speed increased. It was late afternoon and the highway was deserted. “I’d like to overtake the tallyho,” Ralph remarked. “If I thought you wouldn’t mind the pace we’d have to hit.”
Gwendolyn smiled up trustingly. “I have perfect faith in your driving,” she said. “I know you will take care of me.”
Ralph, looking into the face of the girl at his side, again had the strange feeling that it was Bobs, only different, and – Oh, what was the matter with him, anyway? Was it possible that he liked the difference?
Bobs had always been a frank comrade, more like another boy, when he came to think of it, but this girl, who was equally beautiful, was depending upon him to take good care of her.
A fifteen-minute spurt brought them to the top of a hill and in the valley below they saw the tallyho.
Ralph stopped a brief moment on the plateau, leaped out to be sure that The Whizz was in perfect condition, and then anxiously inquired, “Are you sure you’re game? Loop the loop won’t be in it.”
Gwen nodded. “I’ll like it,” she assured him. The color had mounted to her cheeks and her eyes sparkled. “All right! Hold fast! Here goes!” Then The Whizz went like a red streak down that hill on which, as Ralph had observed from the top, there was nothing to impede their progress.
They overtook the tallyho and slowed up that they need not startle the horses. They had reached the outer boundaries of the Caldwaller-Cory estate.
“Suppose I get back in the tallyho with the others,” Gwen said, “then Bobs won’t know that I had a fainting spell. If she knew it, she would feel that she ought to take me right home, and I don’t want to go.” Her smile at Ralph seemed to imply that he was her fellow-conspirator.
“I’m not going to let you go,” he heard himself saying.
So the change was made. Ralph turned The Whizz into a rear entrance, used only by delivery autos, and in that way reached the garage.
He had asked Jack Beardsley to give him time to get out on the lawn before he arrived, and so the three, who were still seated around a tea table under a spreading oak, saw Ralph coming from the house at the same time that the tallyho entered the front gate.
They little dreamed of all that had happened.
