Skippy Bedelle Part 56

JUST as there are professional conversationalists and professional sponges, Miss Potterman was a professional beauty. There was nothing accidental or temporary about her. She was complete, perfect, and she knew her loveliness. After five years' triumphant progress in society she was accustomed to the petrifying effect of her sudden presence on a beauty-wors.h.i.+pping s.e.x. She did not walk as other mortals walk, but floated in fragrantly and Skippy stood staring rock-still, as though Hippo had flashed the head of Medusa. None of which by the way was lost on the keenly observant Hippo.

"I beg pardon, I'm Skippy," he said shaking himself.

"Mr. Bedelle, isn't it?" said Miss Potterman in the tones that angels are supposed to employ.

Skippy saw no one else. In another moment he was seated on the window-seat entranced, dazed and blissfully content with his fate, docile as the rabbit in the presence of the boa constrictor.

"I'm so glad Corny is in your house," said Miss Potterman with a smile in the irresistible eyes. "You will watch over him, won't you, Mr.

Bedelle?"

"Will I? You bet I will!"

"You see he's my only brother and we didn't want him to go to boarding school--not just yet. That is, mother and I. Dad insisted on it. I don't think he's always, well--quite appreciated Cornelius."

"I understand," said Skippy, averting his look. Even in the intoxication of her presence he could appreciate Dad.

"You see, Corny's different from other boys, Mr. Bedelle. He's more like a grown-up person. He has a wonderful mind and such an unusual personality. I don't want him to lose it all and be just like every other boy. And some boys, I'm afraid, won't understand him just at first. You will look after him, protect him, won't you?"

"I'd promise _you_ anything," said Skippy recklessly, which is the privilege of sixteen in the presence of twenty-five.

Miss Potterman smiled without surprise and laid her hand gently a moment on his arm in the deadliest of feminine gestures.

"Corny's told me how kind you have been already."

Skippy looked incredulous.

"Indeed he has. Really he's quite fond of you already."

"I say, Sis," said Nuisance at this moment, "hasn't Skippy got a whang-dinger of a room?"

And he approached with the layer cake and the eclairs.

"What a wonderful spread," said Miss Potterman, "but really you have been too extravagant!"

Something in Skippy's sudden look decided Hippo to keep the secret, but he revenged himself on the cake in a way that made his sister exclaim:

"Corny, where _are_ your manners?"

"'S all right. I'll buy another," said Hippo, who then winked brazenly at Skippy.

"I'll murder him, I will," said Skippy wrathfully to himself. "I'd strip the hide off him, if it--if it weren't for--" Then he raised his eyes and beheld the reason why, smiling at him with perfect faith.

"I'm afraid we've spoiled Corny just a little," she said hesitating.

"Oh, that's all right."

"Is--is there much of that dreadful hazing?"

"Well, sometimes," said Skippy, who always placed the proper value on his services.

"Oh dear, I've heard such dreadful things have happened," said Miss Potterman, thoroughly alarmed.

"That's only when accidents happen."

"Accidents!"

"Don't worry, Miss Potterman," said Skippy with the manner of a Grand Duke. "Fellows do get rough sometimes, but I'll look after him."

Miss Potterman again laid her hand on his arm.

"Thank you."

She stayed but half an hour. The door closed. The birds fled from the windows and the daffodils retired under the carpet.

"Whew!" said Snorky explosively.

Skippy fell back on a chair and fanned himself.

"What's the use?" he said disconsolately.

"Women are our inferiors," said Snorky wickedly.

"What eyes!"

"Woman is like a harp--"

"Woman!" said Skippy rousing himself indignantly. "You don't call that a woman! That's Maude Adams and Lorna Doone and--and the Gibson Girl rolled into one!"

"Don't blame you," said Snorky heavily. "It ain't right to let anything as wonderful as that roam around loose. Skippy, it's all wrong."

"You're right there."

"Well," said Snorky reflectively, "she turned up in time. We'd have had Nuisance ready for the undertaker by the morning."

"My hands are tied," said Skippy glumly. "I've promised."

"Me too, but how are we going to stick it out?"

"Well, we'll have to treat Nuisance with moral influences," said Skippy thoughtfully. "It will be longer, longer and harder."

They dined with Miss Potterman at the Inn and that and a walk about the campus under the stars completed the devastation. Before it was over Skippy actually heard himself called "Jack," had shaken hands on an eternal friends.h.i.+p, promised to write from time to time of Hippo's progress and needs, agreed to defend him from bodily injury and promised to accompany him home for the short Thanksgiving recess. The final touch came when Miss Potterman sought to press upon him a large bill in case Hippo should be peris.h.i.+ng of thirst or hunger.

Skippy put it away. It hurt to do so, it choked him, but he did it.

"Not from you--I couldn't," he said huskily. "I--well, I just couldn't."

That night as he stood at his bureau and looked into the eyes of the past, at Mimi and Dolly and Jennie and Vivi the hunter of scalps, he spoke.