"But really, really!" protested the other with a helpless shrug to the ladies, who were gasping with dismay.
"You ruffian!" cried his wife.
"Egbert Floud," said Mrs. Effie fiercely, "you will apologize to Charles before you leave this room. The idea of forgetting yourself that way. Apologize at once!"
"Oh, very well," he grumbled, "I apologize like I"m made to." But he added quickly with even more irritation, "only don"t you get the idea it"s because I"m afraid of you."
"Tush, tush!" said Belknap-Jackson.
"No, sir; I apologize, but it ain"t for one minute because I"m afraid of you."
"Your bare apology is ample; I"m bound to accept it," replied the other, a bit uneasily I thought.
"Come right down to it," continued Cousin Egbert, "I ain"t afraid of hardly any person. I can be pushed just so far." Here he looked significantly at Mrs. Effie.
"After all I"ve tried to do for him!" she moaned. "I thought he had something in him."
"Darn it all, I like to be friendly with my friends," he bluntly persisted. "I call a man anything that suits me. And I ain"t ever apologized yet because I was afraid. I want all parties here to get that."
"Say no more, please. It"s quite understood," said Belknap-Jackson hastily. The other subsided into low mutterings.
"I trust you fully understand the situation, Ruggles--Colonel Ruggles," he continued to me.
"It"s preposterous, but plain as a pillar-box," I answered. "I can only regret it as keenly as any right-minded person should. It"s not at all what I"ve been accustomed to."
"Very well. Then I suggest that you accompany me for a drive this afternoon. I"ll call for you with the trap, say at three."
"Perhaps," suggested his wife, "it might be as well if Colonel Ruggles were to come to us as a guest." She was regarding me with a gaze that was frankly speculative.
"Oh, not at all, not at all!" retorted Mrs. Effie crisply. "Having been announced as our house guest--never do in the world for him to go to you so soon. We must be careful in this. Later, perhaps, my dear."
Briefly the ladies measured each other with a glance. Could it be, I asked myself, that they were sparring for the possession of me?
"Naturally he will be asked about everywhere, and there"ll be loads of entertaining to do in return."
"Of course," returned Mrs. Effie, "and I"d never think of putting it off on to you, dear, when we"re wholly to blame for the awful thing."
"That"s so thoughtful of you, dear," replied her friend coldly.
"At three, then," said Belknap-Jackson as we arose.
"I shall be delighted," I murmured.
"I bet you won"t," said Cousin Egbert sourly. "He wants to show you off." This, I could see, was ignored as a sheer indecency.
"We shall have to get a reception in quick," said Mrs. Effie, her eyes narrowed in calculation.
"I don"t see what all the fuss was about," remarked Cousin Egbert again, as if to himself; "tearing me to pieces like a pa.s.sel of wolves!"
The Belknap-Jacksons left hastily, not deigning him a glance. And to do the poor soul justice, I believe he did not at all know what the "fuss" had been about. The niceties of the situation were beyond him, dear old sort though he had shown himself to be. I knew then I was never again to be harsh with him, let him dress as he would.
"Say," he asked, the moment we were alone, "you remember that thing you called him back there that night--"blighted little mug," was it?"
"It"s best forgotten, sir," I said.
"Well, sir, some way it sounded just the thing to call him. It sounded bully. What does it mean?"
So far was his darkened mind from comprehending that I, in a foreign land, among a weird people, must now have a go at being a gentleman; and that if I fluffed my catch we should all be gossipped to rags!
Alone in my room I made a hasty inventory of my wardrobe. Thanks to the circ.u.mstance that the Honourable George, despite my warning, had for several years refused to bant, it was rather well stocked. The evening clothes were irreproachable; so were the frock coat and a morning suit. Of waistcoats there were a number showing but slight wear. The three lounge-suits of tweed, though slightly demoded, would still be vogue in this remote spot. For sticks, gloves, cravats, and body-linen I saw that I should be compelled to levy on the store I had laid in for Cousin Egbert, and I happily discovered that his top-hat set me quite effectively.
Also in a casket of trifles that had knocked about in my box I had the good fortune to find the monocle that the Honourable George had discarded some years before on the ground that it was "bally nonsense." I screwed the gla.s.s into my eye. The effect was tremendous.
Rather a lark I might have thought it but for the false military t.i.tle. That was rank deception, and I have always regarded any sort of wrongdoing as detestable. Perhaps if he had introduced me as a mere subaltern in a line regiment--but I was powerless.
For the afternoon"s drive I chose the smartest of the lounge-suits, a Carlsbad hat which Cousin Egbert had bitterly resented for himself, and for top-coat a light weight, straight-hanging Chesterfield with velvet collar which, although the cut studiously avoids a fitted effect, is yet a garment that intrigues the eye when carried with any distinction. So many top-coats are but mere wrappings! I had, too, gloves of a delicately contrasting tint.
Altogether I felt I had turned myself out well, and this I found to be the verdict of Mrs. Effie, who engaged me in the hall to say that I was to have anything in the way of equipment I liked to ask for.
Belknap-Jackson also, arriving now in a smart trap to which he drove two cobs tandem, was at once impressed and made me compliments upon my tenue. I was aware that I appeared not badly beside him. I mean to say, I felt that I was vogue in the finest sense of the word.
Mrs. Effie waved us a farewell from the doorway, and I was conscious that from several houses on either side of the avenue we attracted more than a bit of attention. There were doors opened, blinds pushed aside, faces--that sort of thing.
At a leisurely pace we progressed through the main thoroughfares. That we created a sensation, especially along the commercial streets, where my host halted at shops to order goods, cannot be denied. Furore is perhaps the word. I mean to say, almost quite every one stared. Rather more like a parade it was than I could have wished, but I was again resolved to be a dead sportsman.
Among those who saluted us from time to time were several of the lesser townsmen to whom Cousin Egbert had presented me the evening before, and I now perceived that most of these were truly persons I must not know in my present station--hodmen, road-menders, grooms, delivery-chaps, that sort. In responding to the often florid salutations of such, I instilled into my barely perceptible nod a certain frigidity that I trusted might be informing. I mean to say, having now a position to keep up, it would never do at all to chatter and pal about loosely as Cousin Egbert did.
When we had done a fairish number of streets, both of shops and villas, we drove out a winding roadway along a tarn to the country club. The house was an unpretentious structure of native wood, fronting a couple of tennis courts and a golf links, but although it was tea-time, not a soul was present. Having unlocked the door, my host suggested refreshment and I consented to partake of a gla.s.s of sherry and a biscuit. But these, it seemed, were not to be had; so over pegs of ginger ale, found in an ice-chest, we sat for a time and chatted.
"You will find us crude, Ruggles, as I warned you," my host observed.
"Take this deserted clubhouse at this hour. It tells the story. Take again the matter of sherry and a biscuit--so simple! Yet no one ever thinks of them, and what you mean by a biscuit is in this wretched hole spoken of as a cracker."
I thanked him for the item, resolving to add it to my list of curious Americanisms. Already I had begun a narrative of my adventures in this wild land, a thing I had tentatively ent.i.tled, "Alone in North America."
"Though we have people in abundance of ample means," he went on, "you will regret to know that we have not achieved a leisured cla.s.s. Barely once in a fortnight will you see this club patronized, after all the pains I took in its organization. They simply haven"t evolved to the idea yet; sometimes I have moments in which I despair of their ever doing so."
As usual he grew depressed when speaking of social Red Gap, so that we did not tarry long in the silent place that should have been quite alive with people smartly having their tea. As we drove back he touched briefly and with all delicacy on our changed relations.
"What made me only too glad to consent to it," he said, "is the sodden depravity of that Floud chap. Really he"s a menace to the community. I saw from the degenerate leer on his face this morning that he will not be able to keep silent about that little affair of ours back there.
Mark my words, he"ll talk. And fancy how embarra.s.sing had you continued in the office for which you were engaged. Fancy it being known I had been a.s.saulted by a--you see what I mean. But now, let him talk his vilest. What is it? A mere disagreement between two gentlemen, generous, hot-tempered chaps, followed by mutual apologies.
A mere nothing!"
I was conscious of more than a little irritation at his manner of speaking of Cousin Egbert, but this in my new character I could hardly betray.
When he set me down at the Floud house, "Thanks for the breeze-out," I said; then, with an easy wave of the hand and in firm tones, "Good day, Jackson! See you again, old chap!"
I had nerved myself to it as to an icy tub and was rewarded by a glow such as had suffused me that morning in Paris after the shameful proceedings with Cousin Egbert and the Indian Tuttle. I mean to say, I felt again that wonderful thrill of equality--quite as if my superiors were not all about me.
Inside the house Mrs. Effie addressed the last of a heap of invitations for an early reception--"To meet Colonel Marmaduke Ruggles," they read.