"But she didn"t say she wouldn"t marry you, did she?"
"N-o-o-o!"
"She didn"t ask you to change your name, did she?"
"N-o-o-o!"
"And do you mean to say that just for one unfortunate remark--a remark that any one might have made in the agitation of the moment--you"re deliberately turning your back on her, and her broken heart!"
"Oh, she"s red-hot, too, you know, over what I said about the Van Coorts."
"She couldn"t have realized that you belonged to the Connecticut Joneses. I didn"t know it!"
"Well, it"s all off now," he said.
It was a mile to the depot. For Jones it was a mile of reproaches, scoldings, lectures and insults. For myself I shall ever remember it as the mile of my life. I pleaded, argued, extenuated and explained. My lifelong happiness--Freddy --the Seventy-second Street house--were walking away from me in the dark while I jerked unavailingly at Jones" coat-tails.
The whole outfit disappeared into a car, leaving me on the platform with the ashes of my hopes. Of all obstinate, mulish, pig headed, copper-riveted--
I was lucky enough to find Eleanor crying softly to herself in a corner of the veranda. The sight of her tears revived my fainting courage. I thought of Bruce and the spider, and waded in.
"Eleanor," I said, "I"ve just been seeing poor Jones off."
She sobbed out something to the effect that she didn"t care.
"No, you can"t care very much," I said, "or you wouldn"t send a man like that--a splendid fellow--a member of one of the oldest and proudest families of Connecticut to his death."
"Death?"
"Well, he"s off for j.a.pan to-morrow. They"re getting through fifty doctors a week out there at the front. They"re shot down faster than they can set them up."
I was unprepared for the effect of this on Eleanor. For two cents she would have fainted then and there. It"s awful to hear a woman moan, and clench her teeth, and pant for breath.
"Oh, Eleanor, can"t you do anything?"
"I am helpless, Ezra. My pride--my woman"s pride"
"Oh, how can you let such trifles stand between you? Think of him out there, in his tattered j.a.panese uniform--so far from home, so lonely, so heartbroken--standing undaunted in that rain of steel, while--"
"Oh, Ezra, stop! I can"t bear it! I can"t bear it!"
"Is the love of three years to be thrown aside like an old glove, just because--"
Her face was so wild and strained that the lies froze upon my tongue.
"Oh, Ezra, I could follow him barefooted through the snow if only he--"
"He"s leaving Grand Central to-morrow at ten forty-five," I said.
She fumbled at her neck, and almost tore away the diamond locket that reposed there.
"Take him this," she whispered hoa.r.s.ely. "Take it to him at once, and say I sent it. Say that I beg him to return--that my pride crumbles at the thought of his going away so far into danger."
I put the locket carefully into my pocket.
"And, Eleanor, try and don"t rub him the wrong way about his name. Is it worth while? There have to be Joneses, you know."
"Tell him," she burst out, "tell him--oh, I never meant to wound him--truly, I didn"t . . . a name that"s good enough for him is good enough for me!"
The next morning at nine I pulled up my Porcher-m.u.f.flin car before Jones" door. He was sitting at his table reading a book, and he made no motion to rise as I came in. He gave me a pale, expressionless stare instead, such as an ancient Christian might have worn when the call-boy told him the lions were ready in the Colosseum. Resignation, obstinacy and defiance--all nicely blended under a turn-the-other-cheek exterior. He looked woebegone, and his thin, handsome face betrayed a sleepless night and a breakfastless morning. I could feel that my presence was the last straw to this unfortunate medical camel.
I threw in a genial remark about the weather, and took a seat.
Jones hunched himself together, and squirmed a sad little squirm.
"Mr. Westoby," he said, "I once made use of a very strong expression in regard to you. I said, if you remember, that I"d be obliged if you"d keep your paws--"
"Don"t apologize," I interrupted. "I forgot it long ago."
"You"ve taken me up wrong," he continued drearily. "I should like you to consider the remark repeated now. Yes, sir, repeated."
"Oh, bosh!" I exclaimed.
"You have a very tough epidermis," he went on. "Quite the toughest epidermis I have met with in my whole professional career. A paper adequately treating your epidermis would make a sensation before any medical society."
Somehow I couldn"t feel properly insulted. The whole business struck me as irresistibly comical. I lay back in my chair--my uninvited chair--and roared with laughter.
I couldn"t forbear asking him what treatment he"d recommend.
He pointed to the door, and said laconically: "Fresh air."
I retorted by laying the diamond locket before him.
"My dear fellow," I said, as he gazed at it transfixed, "don"t let us go on like a pair of fools. Eleanor charged me to give you this, and beg you to return."
I don"t believe he heard me at all. That flashing trinket was far more eloquent than any words of mine. He laid his head in his hands beside it, and his whole body trembled with emotion.
He trembled and trembled, till finally I got tired of waiting. I poked him in the back, and reminded him that my car was waiting down stairs. He rose with a strange, bewildered air, and submitted like a child to be led into the street. He had the locket clenched in his hand, and every now and then he would glance at it as though unable to believe his eyes. I shut him into the tonneau, and took a seat beside my chauffeur.
"Let her out, James," I said.
James let her out with a vengeance. There was a sunny-haired housemaid at the Van Coorts" . . . and it was a crack, new four-cylinder car with a direct drive on the top speed. Off we went like the wind, jouncing poor Jones around the tonneau like a pea in a pill-box. But he didn"t care. Was he not seraphically whizzing through s.p.a.ce, obeying the diamond telegram of love? In the general whizzle and bang of the whole performance he even ventured to raise his voice in song, and I could overhear him behind me, adding a lyrical finish to the hum of the machinery.
It was a walloping run, and we only throttled down on the outskirts of Morristown. You see I had to coach him about that j.a.panese war business, or else there might be trouble! So I leaned over the back seat and gently broke it to him I thought I had managed it rather well. I felt sure he could understand, I said, the absolute need of a little--embellishing and--
"Let me out," he said.
I feverishly went on explaining.
"If you don"t let me out I"ll climb out," he said, and began to make as good as his word over the tonneau.
Of course, there was nothing for it but to stop the car.