From a Bench in Our Square Part 25

"Let me catch you snooping around here again and I'll break every bone in your body," the Little Red Doctor answered him.

"I guess this Square's free to everybody. I guess you don't own it,"

said the youth, retreating to his car.

Notwithstanding the unimpeachable exact.i.tude of this surmise, he was seen no more in that locality. Judge, then, of our dismay, locally, at learning, not a fortnight later, from a fellow employee of Mayme's, that she had been met at closing time by a swell young guy in a cherry-colored rattler, who took her away to dine with him. Catechized upon the point, later on, by a self-appointed committee of two consisting of the Little Red Doctor and myself, Mayme said vaguely that it was all right; we didn't understand. This is, I believe, the usual formula. The last half of it at least, was true.

About that time we, in common with the rest of the Nation, took that upon our minds which was even more important than Mayme McCartney's love affair. War loomed imminently before us. It was only a question of the fitting time to strike; and Our Square was feverishly reckoning up its military capacity. The great day of the declaration came. The Nation had drawn the sword. In the week following, Our Square was invaded.

She descended upon us from the somber sumptuousness of a gigantic limousine, the majestic, the imposing, the formidable, the authoritative Mrs. S. Berthelin. We knew at once who she was, because she led, by the ear, as it were, her hopeful progeny, young David. I do not mean that she had an actual auricular grip on him, but the effect upon his woe-begone and brow-beaten person was the same. He suggested vividly a spoiled and pretty lapdog being sternly conveyed to a detested bath. She suggested a vivified bouquet of artificial flowers. We hastily rallied our forces to meet her; the Little Red Doctor, the Bonnie La.s.sie, and myself. Mrs. Berthelin opened her exordium in a tone of high philippic, not even awaiting the formalities of introduction. But when I insisted upon these, and she learned that the Bonnie La.s.sie was Mrs. Cyrus Staten, she cringed. Despite a desire to keep out of the society columns quite as genuine as that of Mrs. Berthelin's to get in, the Cyrus Statens frequently figure among the s.h.i.+ning Ones, a fact almost painfully appreciated by our visitor. After that it was easy to get her into the Bonnie La.s.sie's house, where her eloquence could not draw a crowd. To get young David there was not quite so easy. He made one well-timed and almost successful effort to bolt, and even evinced signs of balking on the steps.

His punishment was awaiting him. No sooner were we all settled in the Bonnie La.s.sie's studio than the mother proceeded to regale us with a history and forecast of his career, beginning with his precocious infant lispings and terminating with his projected, though wholly indefinite, marriage into the Highest Social Circles. To do David justice, he squirmed.

"Have you got him a job as a general in the army yet, ma'am?" inquired the Little Red Doctor suavely.

It was quite lost upon Mrs. Berthelin. She informed us that a commission as Captain in the Quartermaster's Department was arranged for, and she expected to have the young officer a.s.signed to New York so that he could live at home in the comfort and luxury suitable to his wealth and condition. And what she wanted us to understand clearly was that no designing little gutter-snipe was to be allowed to compromise David's future. She concluded with an imaginative and most unflattering estimate of Mayme McCartney's character, manners, and morals, in the midst of which I heard a gasp.

It came from Mayme, standing, wide-eyed and white, in the doorway. The front door had been left ajar, and, seeing the Berthelins' monogrammed car outside, she had come in. The oratress turned and stared.

"That's a lie," said Mayme McCartney steadily. "I'm as straight a girl as your own daughter. Ask him."

She pointed to the stricken David. Pointing may not be ladylike, but it can be extremely effective. David's head dropped into his hands.

"Oh, Ma!" he groaned.

"Don't call me 'Ma,'" snapped the goaded Mrs. Berthelin. "And this is the girl?" She looked Mayme up and down. Mayme did the same by her and did it better.

"I could give you a lorny-yette and beat you at the frozen-stare trick,"

said the irrepressible Mayme at the conclusion of the duel which ended in her favor.

The Little Red Doctor gurgled. I saw the Bonnie La.s.sie's eyelids quiver, but her face was cold and impa.s.sive as she turned to the visitor.

"Mrs. Berthelin," said she, "you have made some very damaging statements, before witnesses, about Miss McCartney's character. What proof have you?"

"Why, he wants to _marry_ her!" almost yelled the mother. "She's trapped him."

"That's another lie," said Mayme.

"He told me himself that he was going to marry you."

"Did he? Then he's wrong. I wouldn't marry him with a bra.s.s ring,"

a.s.serted Mayme.

"You wouldn't mar--You wouldn't _what_?" demanded the mother, outraged and incredulous.

"You heard me. He knows it, too. I don't like the family--what I've seen of them," observed Mayme judicially. "Besides, he's yellow."

David's shamed face emerged into view. "I'm not," he gulped. "She--she made me."

"Captain!" said Mayme with a searing scorn in her voice.

"Quartermaster's Department! Safety first! When half the little fifteen-per tape-snippers in the Emporium are breakin' their fourteen-inch necks volunteerin' early and often to get where the fightin' is."

David Berthelin stood on his feet, and his pretty face wore an ugly expression.

"Let me out of here," he growled.

"David!" said his mother. "Where are you going?"

"To enlist."

"Davey!" It was a shriek. "You shan't."

"I will."

"I won't let you."

"You can go to--"

"Buddy!" Mayme's voice, magically softened, broke in. "Cut out the rough stuff. You better go home and think it over. Bein' a private is no pink-silk picnic."

"I'd rather see a son of mine dead than a common soldier!" cried Mrs.

Berthelin.

The Bonnie La.s.sie, very white, rose. "You must leave this house," she said. "At once. Think yourself fortunate that I cannot bring myself to betray a guest. Otherwise I should report you to the authorities."

Young David addressed Mayme in the words and tone of a misunderstood and aggrieved pet. "You think I'm no good. I'll show you, Mayme. Wait till I come back--if I ever do come back--and you'll be sorry."

"Hero stuff," commented the Little Red Doctor. "It'll all have oozed out of his fingertips this time to-morrow."

"Will you show me a place to enlist?" challenged the boy. "And," he added with a malicious grin, "will you enlist with me?"

"Sure!" said the Little Red Doctor. "I'll show you. But they won't take me." He bestowed a bitter glance on his twisted foot. "Come along."

They went off together, while Mrs. Berthelin scandalized Our Square by an exhibition of hysterics involving language not at all in accord with the rich respectability of her apparel and her limousine.

We waited at the Bonnie La.s.sie's for the Little Red Doctor's return. He came back alone. I thought that I detected a pathetic little gleam of disappointment in Mayme's deep eyes.

"He's done it," said the Little Red Doctor. And I was sorry for him, so much was there of tragic envy in his face.

"Did you give him your blessing?" I asked.

"I did. He shook hands like a man. There's maybe something in that boy, if it weren't for the old h.e.l.l-cat of a mother. However, she won't have much chance. He's off to-morrow."

"Will he write?" said Mayme in a curious, strained voice.

"He will. He'll report to me from time to time."

"Didn't he--wasn't there any message?"