The Honorable Percival Part 16

"Is she?" persisted Bobby.

"Is she what?"

"The girl you let down easy?"

"Well, really, Miss Boynton--"

"Roberta," corrected Bobby.

"Very well, Roberta. It's your time to read to me. May I choose a letter?"

"No, I'll choose one myself."

"But that isn't fair. I let you select any one you liked."

She thought it over, then somewhat reluctantly held out three envelops.

It was so evident that she was trying to keep back the bulky one with the bold address that Percival instantly selected it.

"Some of it's secrets," she warned him, "and you mustn't peep."

"Of course not. But who is it from?"

"That wasn't in the game. I didn't ask you."

"You didn't need to; but go ahead."

"It's all about the ranch," said Bobby, looking over the pages and smiling to herself. "They've had an awful row with the new broncho-buster, and Hal had to punch his head for being cruel to the horses. I knew that fellow wasn't any good." She read on for a while to herself. "Says the shooting promises to be great this year. My! but I hate to miss it!"

"Whatever do you find to shoot?"

"A little of everything from teal duck to Canada goose."

"Really!" exclaimed Percival, with interest. "And do you shoot?"

"Oh, yes, some. I'm not as good as the boys. You see, I have to use Pa Joe's old No. 10 choke-bore shot-gun, when I really ought to have a 16-bore fowling-piece."

Here was a new and wholly unsuspected bond of sympathy between them.

Percival would have plunged at once into a dissertation on a subject upon which he considered himself an authority had not the fluttering sheets of the letter stirred vague misgivings in his bosom.

"You aren't playing fair!" he cried. "You are telling me what is in your letter without reading it to me."

"So I am!" She looked over page after page. "Here, this will do. It says: 'I wish you could have been along last night when I hit the trail for the Lower Ranch. You know what that old road looks like in the moonlight, all deep black in the gorges, and white on the cliffs, and not a dog-gone sound but the hoof-beats of your horse and the clank of the bridle-chains. Why, when you come out in the open and the wind gets to ripping 'cross the gra.s.s-fields, and the moon gets busy with every little old blade, and there's miles of beauty stretched out far as your eye can reach, I'd back it against any sight in the world. Only last night I wasn't thinking much about the scenery. I was thinking--'"

Bobby stopped short, declaring that she had a cinder in her eye.

"Can't be a cinder, out here in the bay," protested Percival.

"Well, it's whatever they have out here."

"And sha'n't I ever know what your friend was thinking?"

"He was probably thinking of his dinner," said Bobby, gazing at him rea.s.suringly with her free eye.

After she had departed to make sure that the steamer got properly under way, he tortured himself with suspicions. What possible secrets could she have with this unknown friend, who waxed sentimental over moonlit trails and wind-swept gra.s.sfields? Had not some one told him of an unhappy love-affair? He searched his memory. Suddenly there came to him the disturbing figure of a stalwart young man on a broncho, with leather overalls, jingling spurs, a silk handkerchief knotted about his throat, and a pair of keen, humorous eyes lighting up a sun-bronzed face.

Then he smiled at his quick alarm. Hadn't she told him it was one of her foster-brothers, one of those lads whom he persisted in regarding as children? It was the most natural thing in the world that an impulsive, big-hearted creature like Bobby would be on terms of affectionate intimacy with those boys with whom she had been brought up.

He did not feel fully rea.s.sured, however, until he put the question to her flatly:

"That letter you were reading me," he said at his first opportunity--"you won't mind telling me if it is from that chap I saw at the station?"

"I don't mind telling you. But you mustn't tell the captain."

"The captain? Oh, to be sure. Doesn't fancy your friends, the Fords. I remember."

From that time on he boldly and openly entered the lists for Bobby's favor. The ten days he had allowed himself to drift with the tide of his inclination were pa.s.sing with incredible swiftness, and he resorted to every means, from the subtlest strategy to the most domineering insolence, to monopolize every waking moment of her time.

She responded to all his suggestions with flattering promptness until preparations were set on foot to hold a huge gymkhana, in which everybody on board should take part. The enterprise fired her enthusiasm instantly. She was a born organizer, and the prospect of a whole day devoted to sports captivated her. The project served as a peg on which she and Percival hung their first quarrel.

"Of course I'm going into it," she exclaimed hotly, "and so are you."

"The idea!" said Percival. "I shouldn't think of it for a moment. Fancy me chasing an egg around the deck in a teaspoon, and all that sort of thing!"

"But there are lots of other contests. There's the long jump, and the tug-of-war--"

"And pinning tails on donkeys," added Percival, bitterly. "Dare say you'd like to see me doing that."

"I'd like to see you doing anything that would make you more sociable,"

flashed Bobby.

For the rest of the day Percival sulked in the smoking-room, raging at the time that was stolen from him, and given to the making of silly rules and the buying of trifling prizes.

On the morning of the sports he arrayed himself in one of the white creations of G. Lung Fat's, giving special attention to the accessories of his toilet. Then, with marked indifference to the games, which were the all-absorbing topic of the day, he had his chair moved to the far side of the deck, and sat there in superior isolation during the whole morning.

But even there he could not avoid hearing what was taking place; shouts of laughter, groans, and jeers over a failure, and frantic applause over a victory, were wafted to him constantly. Now and then some one hurried by with the information that Andy Black had won the quoits prize or that Andy Black had won the bottle-race. His lip curled contemptuously at sports that required a mere trickster's turn of the wrist or an animal's sense of direction. He would like to see Andy attempt a long jump or a mile race. Imagine the fat pink-and-white youth on a polo pony!

At luncheon Andy's praises were pa.s.sed from lip to lip. The affair had a.s.sumed an international significance. A Scotchman, a German, a j.a.panese, and an American were striving for first place. The captain's patriotism ran so high that he offered to set up the handsomest dinner the Astor Hotel in Shanghai could afford if Andy came out victorious.

In vain Percival sought to hold Bobby's attention. The tapers in her eyes were lighted for Andy, and he was obliged to undergo the new and intolerable sensation of sitting in a darkened niche and watching the candles burn at an adjoining shrine.

The slightest hint of deflection in one upon whom he had bestowed his favor maddened him. He had showered upon this ungrateful girl attentions the very husks of which would have sustained several English girls he knew through a lifetime of patient waiting. He recalled their unswerving loyalty with a glow at his heart.

Ah, he thought, one must look to England for ideal womanhood. Where else was to be found that beautiful deference, that blind reliance, that unswerving loyalty--At the word "loyalty" a stabbing memory of Lady Hortense punctured his eloquence.

During the afternoon he found it impossible to escape the games. The potato and three-legged races brought the contestants to his side of the deck, and his reading was constantly interrupted by an avalanche of noisy spectators who rushed through the cross pa.s.sages from one side of the boat to the other, exhibiting a perfectly ridiculous amount of excitement.

Andy, it seemed, had only one more entry to win before claiming the day's champions.h.i.+p.

"He'll get it!" Percival overheard the captain saying gleefully to Mrs.

Weston. "None of 'em are in it with America when it comes to sports."