Читать книгу Magnificent Obsession - Lloyd C. Douglas - Страница 16

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"YOU say he's different," pursued Joyce interestedly. "How do you mean—different? Sober, perhaps?"

Masterson chuckled.

"Don't be a fool!" she growled. "You know very well what I meant."

He returned his empty glass to the silver tray on the table, settled himself comfortably into the cushions of the garden swing, and so frankly considered the slender shapeliness of the girl in the wicker chair that she shifted her position uneasily.

"Yes," he replied, reverting tardily to her question, "he's all of sober, and then some. He's owlish...morose...prowls the night like Hamlet...has an idea that people resent his having been saved from drowning."

"How absurd! Did he tell you that?"

"As much as."

She thumbed the pages of the novel that lay in her lap and frowned.

"Well—and what is he proposing to do about it?...Sulk?"

Young Masterson indicated by a slow shake of the head, eyes half closed, that the problem was too vast for him, and meditatively tapped the end of a fresh cigarette on the arm of the swing.

"You'll discover for yourself that Bobby is greatly altered since his accident. I can't quite make him out. Yesterday, when I saw him at Windymere, I expected to find him in better spirits. He is almost well now; has been walking about on the grounds for days. But he seems thoroughly preoccupied. I suggested it might improve his disposition if we threw together a little cocktail, and he said, 'You know where the makings are: help yourself.' I shook up enough for both of us, but he wouldn't join me; and when I ragged him about it, he replied, from about ten miles off, that he'd 'another plan in mind.'

"'Something that doesn't include gin, evidently,' I suggested; and he nodded cryptically.

"'Something like that,' he replied. You know about how little he discloses through that poker face of his, when he decides to be incomunicado."

"So—you dared him to tell you, I suppose."

"No; I just kidded him a little, but he didn't take it very nicely. Just sat—and posed for 'The Thinker.' 'What's the big idea?' I said. 'Gone over to Andy Volstead?'"

"What did he say?" demanded Joyce, as the pause lengthened.

"He said, 'Hell, no!' and then mumbled, down in his throat, that he'd gone over to Nancy Ashford."

"And who's Nancy Ashford?" she inquired, sharply, flushing with annoyance over her disclosure.

"You ought to know," smugly enjoying her vexation. "She is the superintendent of Brightwood Hospital."

"Oh—you mean Mrs. Ashford. I hadn't thought of her as Nancy. They must have become quite well acquainted. Why, she's an old lady."

"Well—so much the better; wouldn't you say?"

She met his banter with a grimace.

"You spend too much of your time thinking up story plots, Tommy. It's affecting your mind."

"Maybe so," agreed Masterson dryly. He stretched his long arms over the back of the swing and regarded her with an inquisitive smile. "Your own story grows more exciting every minute. What else do you want to know about Bobby?"

Joyce offered him the concession of a crooked smile.

"Did he say whether he was coming in soon?"

"Nary a word on that. However, he may not feel himself quite up to it yet...Rather awkward situation, you'll admit."

She nodded, and there was a moment's silence.

"You have Bobby and me all wrong, Tom. We were together pretty steadily...in December...before Helen came..."

Masterson broke in with an unpleasant chuckle.

"I'm surprised that you remember anything about December," he teased. "My own recollection of it is very pale."

"Yes; I'll admit it was rather dreadful. Especially the evening we celebrated your birthday. That must have been a mighty rough night on the sea. Incidentally, I have not seen Bobby since. When he finished at the university in February, he sailed for France to visit his mother, without a line to me that he was going. I had two short letters from him later. Then he turns up at home; next day this dreadful thing happens to us."

She hesitated before going on.

"So—now you know exactly how thick we are. Does it sound—romantic like?"

"Of course, you're bound to keep it in mind," observed Masterson soberly, "that Bobby feels quite terribly about the—the thing that occurred out there at the lake. Never having met Helen, he is a bit shy about meeting her now. He may fear she would be slightly prejudiced against him, under the circumstances."

"I'm afraid she is," agreed Joyce reluctantly. "Entirely natural that she would be."

"How is Helen, by the way?"

"Oh, she's steady—the darling! Want to see her? I'll tell her you're here."

She rose, handing Masterson her book.

"Helen has been entertaining a queer little lady for the past hour or more, but I think she is free now. The caller was one of father's patients, I presume. So many people have been here lately...all sorts...people we had never heard of who come with tearful gratitude to tell us what father had been to them. Really, it has kept us quite stirred up. I wish they wouldn't...And letters?...To-day there was a long one from a man in Maine hinting that father had saved his life, somehow, years ago. He didn't state the particulars...Seemed rather secretive, as if there were some big mystery behind it; as if there were something he wanted to tell, but couldn't. Very queer...I'll go and call Helen."