"h.e.l.lo!" I called to him, just after we clipped Yonkers.

He looked up at me, smiling and nodding.

"Feel all right now, old man?" I inquired cheerily.

Billings looked at me hard, and then, dash it, he _winked_! And I began to wonder, by Jove, if it was just plain drunk.

CHAPTER XXII

MY DARLING IS SLANDERED

Three miles south of Irvington, Billings jumped wildly in the air and yelled for me to stop.

"A _coleopteran_!" he shrieked excitedly as I throttled down. "A _coleopteran_ struck me in the eye--one of the _hydrophilidae_ family!"

And hurling aside rugs and blankets, he twisted open the door and in a moment was in the road running back. It was then I went back to the crazy theory, for it was an open stretch of road and there wasn't a soul in sight. But it was so funny to see his fat figure waddling along there in the pajamas and bedroom slippers that Frances and I just threw back our heads and screamed. Couldn't help it, by Jove!

And the frump, jogging along behind, looked just as funny. I wasn't alarmed, for I knew she could control him. And, dash it, she did it by humoring him! For we saw her twist her veil about the fork of the stick he extended to her, and both of them went to slapping wildly at the air and the ground. Presently they both came waddling back, she with a b.u.t.terfly and he with a bug which he was craning at with a lens he had fished from his sleeve somewhere. He was trying to do this and at the same time hold together a great armful of gaudy weeds he had gathered.

Billings got in and then I helped her. "Awfully jolly good of you to humor his crazy whims," I whispered gratefully.

"Crazy!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, one foot on the running-board. "Why, he's just getting sane! He's been a born fool all his life! And now, Jacky, as you were saying of the _antennae_--" And she flopped eagerly by him and together they bent over the gla.s.s.

It was rum, but I was getting along so swimmingly with Frances that I didn't much care what they did. Seemed to be only about a minute more and we were clipping through the curves of the Wolhurst park--Frances pointed the way--and had slowed down under the _porte-cochere_.

The frump whispered to the man who opened the door.

"As quietly as possible, Wilkes," she said, "and without his father seeing him."

"The judge is away, miss," said the man. "He drove down to the village with Senator Soakem, who had to catch a train back to Albany; but I'm looking for him every--"

"Be quick, then," jerked the frump. "You know what to do."

"I guess I do, miss," answered the butler gloomily. "I've _had_ to do it often enough--Perkins and me. A good cold souse--that's the thing--and then bed. _I_ know!"

Billings waved his hand to the frump as he mounted the stairway inside.

And then, dash it, he kissed his fingers.

"_Vale!_" he chirped, leaning over the marble bal.u.s.trade. "_Vale, sed spero non semper!_ I will resume the discussion _in propria persona_."

And, by Jove, if she didn't come back at him quick as lightning, and with his own gibberish, too:

"_Confido et conquiesco!_" she cooed, waving her handkerchief.

Oh, it was tragical, dash it--that was the word, tragical! And yet the frump looked almost happy. And as for Frances, except for being amused, her brother's condition didn't seem to trouble her spirit at all. But then, dash it, I remembered she was used to him this way. She did not even wait, but with a bright smile and a murmured word to me, left her friend and myself to await Wilkes' report.

The frump kind of glared down the deserted vista of the fine old hall and shrugged her shoulders.

"Everybody loafing, as usual," she muttered sourly, and she hurled her coat at the carven back of a great cathedral chair--and missed it.

It was clear that her type scorned conventionalities and knew how to make themselves thoroughly at home.

"I hope you'll be made comfortable here, Mr. Lightnut," she said, peeling a glove with a jerk, "but I have my doubts."

And she gave a kind of hollow laugh.

I shifted distressfully. "Oh, really now," I began protestingly, but she marched right over me:

"I can a.s.sure you that a guest _here_ earns a martyr's crown," she said, lifting her eyebrows. Then she shook her head, her lips compressed.

I coughed. _Couldn't_ say the thing I _wanted_ to say, you know--seemed too devilish rude. Just have to stand it when they talk that way.

Pugsley says best thing to do is to purse up your lips and bob your head--you don't have to mean it.

So I just went through all this and threw in a shrug, too. Thought no use having her mad and working against me with Frances. Catch the idea?

Simple thing, you know, just to play her with my _finesse_.

"Awfully tiresome, these country places," I said sympathetically. I screwed my gla.s.s at a couple of footmen who came into view at the far end of the hall, and who were whispering and chuckling about something.

"Things seem to be run a bit loose, don't you know--that's a fact. Don't mind for myself, but fancy a girl might find it rather trying visiting here."

By Jove, how she opened her eyes at me--surprised, I knew, at finding me such a devilish keen observer. My sympathy touched her, too, for her eyeb.a.l.l.s shone moist of a sudden and I saw her lip tremble as she stared. Then she swallowed hard and slapped her gloves sharply across her palm.

"It's Francis that's to blame for that sort of thing," she rasped, nodding down the hall.

"Frances?" I e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed in protest. "Oh, here, I _say_, now--"

"You don't _know_ Francis, Mr. Lightnut!" Her jaw grounded with a snap, and what a look she gave me! "Wait till you do--you just wait!" And eyes and hands lifted to the ceiling.

I coughed again.

The cat! And _this_ was my darling's friend!

But her claws raked on: "I tell you you just can't be familiar with grooms and hail-fellow-well-met with footmen without demoralizing them--and that's what Francis does." She jerked this out viciously, and while I gasped, went on: "_You_ know very well, Mr. Lightnut, if you play cards and drink and carouse with your men-servants until two or three o'clock in the morning, you can't reasonably look for respect from them." She breathed heavily. "The trouble is, Francis has no self-respect--no _pride_!"

Her uplifted hands fumbled and jerked the hat from her tossing head.

"Sometimes," she breathed through her teeth, "when I think of Francis, I feel like I'd like to--" The words died behind her teeth as she ground them--yes, _ground_ them. She jabbed the pins into the hat savagely and at random and tossed it after the coat. And this time she put the ball--in a big Benares jar that stood against the wall.

But I was counting forty-four!

Ever try that when you were angry and wanted to insult somebody?

Preacher told us about it once at the old Harvard Union, and _I_ thought it a devilish good idea. Gives you time, you know, to think up the things to say that otherwise you would be turning over in your mind afterward as the scathing, clever things you _might_ have said.

So, by the twenty-eighth count, I had her; and jamming my hands almost through my pockets, I faced her with a withering frown.

"By Jove, if I were you, Miss--er--" Dash me if I hadn't forgotten her name! "If you feel that way, _I_ don't see why the de--H'm! I mean why do you stay on here and--er--_sacrifice_ yourself?" I drawled this in the most devilish sarcastic way! "I'd pack my jolly trunk and get as far away as I could."