Outside Inn Part 23

Having arrived at some conclusion concerning this unprecedented attack upon his privacy, d.i.c.k was disposed to be kind to his unexpected visitor. The fact that Preston Eustace was in town and Betty had not seen him shed an entirely new light on her recklessness. Like every other incident in Betty's history her love-affair had been very conspicuously featured.

"The interesting things about me just at present are--" he was just about to say "six s.h.i.+rts of imported gingham" but he bethought himself that she would be certain to demand to see them, so he finished lamely with--"my game of golf, and my new dogs."

"What kind of dogs?"

"Belgian police dogs."

"Where do you keep them?"

"I haven't taken them over yet."

"I heard that you had bought a place up in Westchester, but I asked Nancy, and she said she didn't know. I don't think Nancy appreciates you, d.i.c.k."

"That so often happens."

"I mean that seriously."

"It's a serious matter--being appreciated. The only person who I ever thought really appreciated me was Billy's old aunt. Every time she saw me she used to say to me, 'You're such a clean-looking young man I can't take my eyes off you.'"

"You _are_ clean-looking, and awfully good-looking too."

"Do you mind if I smoke, Betty?" d.i.c.k carefully disengaged his hand from her clinging fingers, and a look of something like intelligence pa.s.sed between them, before Betty turned her ingenuous child's stare on him again.

"Not if you'll give me a cigarette, too."

d.i.c.k fumbled through his pockets.

"It's awfully stupid, but I haven't any about me," he said, fingering what he knew that she knew to be the well filled case he always carried in his inner pocket. He did not approve of women smoking.

But "Poor d.i.c.ky!" was all she said.

"Your fifteen minutes are up, Betty," he said presently, taking out his watch.

"Well, I suppose I'll have to go then."

d.i.c.k rose politely.

"You really don't care whether I go or stay, do you?" she sighed.

"I would rather have you go, Betty," he said gravely.

Betty's eyes filled with sudden tears, that d.i.c.k to his surprise realized were genuine.

"I wanted you to want me to stay," she said incoherently.

"I suppose you're just a miserable little thing that doesn't want to be alone," he concluded. "Come, I'll take you home."

The telephone bell on the table beside him rang sharply.

"I'm just going out," he said to Billy, on the wire. "Betty is here with a fit of the blues. I'm going to take her home. Ride up with us, will you?"

"He'll meet us down-stairs in ten minutes," he said. "I'll order a taxi."

"I don't want to see Billy," Betty said rebelliously. She rose suddenly, pulling on her gloves, and took a step forward as if about to brush by him petulantly, but as she did so she staggered, put her hand to her eyes, and fell forward against his breast.

d.i.c.k picked up the limp little body, and made his way to the couch where he deposited it gently among the stiff red pillows there. Then he began to chafe her hands, to push back the tumbled hair from which the fur hat had been displaced, and finally fallen off, and to call out her name remorsefully.

"Betty, dear, dearest," he cried, "I didn't know, I didn't dream,--I thought you were just trying it on. I'm so sorry, dear, I am so sorry."

She moaned softly, and he bent over her again more closely. Then he gathered her up in his arms.

"Betty, dear, Betty," he said again.

She opened her eyes. Her two soft arms stole up around his neck, and she lifted her lips.

"You little devil," d.i.c.k cried, almost at the same instant that he kissed her.

"She deserves to be spanked," he told Billy grimly at the door. "She got in my apartment when I was out, and insisted on staying there till I came in, to make me a visit."

"He doesn't understand me," Betty complained, as she cuddled confidingly in the corner of the taxi-cab, "when I'm serious he doesn't realize or appreciate it, and he doesn't understand the nature of my practical jokes."

"I don't like--practical jokes," d.i.c.k said. "Have you seen Preston Eustace, Billy?"

"I haven't seen Caroline," Billy said, as if that disposed of all the interrogatory remarks that might be addressed to him in the present or the future.

"It's a nice-looking river," Betty said, looking out at the softly gleaming surface of the Hudson, as their cab took the drive. "It looks strange to-night, though, laden with all kinds of queer little boats.

I wonder how it would feel to be drifting down it, or up it, on a barque or a barkentine--I don't know what a barkentine is--all dead like Elaine or Ophelia,--with your hands neatly folded across your breast?"

"For heaven sake's, Betty," Billy cried, "I don't like your style of conversation. I'm in a state of gloom myself, to-night."

"I didn't say I was in a state of gloom," Betty said. They rode the rest of the way in silence, but when d.i.c.k got out of the cab to open her door for her, she whispered to him, "I'm awfully ashamed, d.i.c.k,"

before she fled up-stairs through the darkened hallway of her own home.

"Queer little thing,--Betty," Billy said as d.i.c.k stepped back to the cab again, "you never know where you have her. Full of the deuce as she can stick. Unscrupulous little rascal, too, but made of good stuff."

"Don't you think so?" Billy inquired presently as d.i.c.k did not answer.

"Think what?"

"That Betty's a queer sort of girl."

d.i.c.k took his pipe out of his pocket and began stuffing it full of tobacco. When this was satisfactorily accomplished, he struck a match on his boot heel, and lit the mixture, drawing at it critically meanwhile.

"d.a.m.n' queer," he admitted, between puffs.

CHAPTER XV