“Exciting yarn?”
Nicholas puffed energetically for a moment, like a leaky bellows, and replied, “The inspector is just questioning the cook, Bobby, and she says she knows the shot was fired at exactly eleven-ten, because that is the time she always puts out the cat.”
“You should be pretty well acquainted with the kitchen habits of that cook, by this time, Grandpère. It’s the same one, isn’t it, in all these stories?”
“By no means, sir,” protested Nicholas. “The last cook was a man!”
Bobby was restless to be by himself and eager to divert his grandfather to his novel so that he might escape. The emotional strain of the past hour had been decidedly wearing. The confidence he had extended to the old man represented many days of serious thought; and nights too when he had paced his room for hours considering his tentative decision from every possible angle of objection. Now that he had resolved upon his course, it was only fair that he should inform his grandfather. He had done so. He had made a conscious effort to avoid a dramatic moment. He hated scenes; he had been brought up on them. But old Nicholas had passed through quite too much despair and anxiety not to be raised to an exalted mood by the young fellow’s calm announcement of a programme committing him to a task at once expensively sacrificial and, as to duration, interminable.
For a moment, after Bobby had flung out the words, the old man had sat stupefied and incredulous. He had put down his fork. His jaw sagged and his chin chopped up and down as in a shaking palsy. The deep wrinkles about his mouth had joined the wrinkles about his eyes, in a series of half-circles, as he peered across the table. He dug his gnarled old fingers into the snowy cloth, rested his weight on his elbows and demanded, in a rasping treble, “How’s that, Robert? I don’t believe I caught what you just said! Say that again!”
Bobby had said it again, slowly, calmly, convincingly. Old Nicholas’ seamed face twitched, and he rubbed the corners of his cavernous eyes with the back of his mottled hand.
“You are a brave boy!” he said, his voice breaking.
Then, ashamed of his weakness, he violently cleared his throat, straightened his back, and declared with dignity, “I congratulate you, sir! I cannot remember when any member of my tribe has made a decision of greater moment than yours! May God—bless you!” The benediction was spoken with a quaver … It was almost too much for both of them.
For an hour thereafter, Bobby had outlined his future plans with a breadth of scope and clarity of detail certifying to the vast amount of time and thought he had spent on them, the old man following every word with eager nods of his leonine head, and occasional hard bangings of his fist upon the table to emphasize his approval. “Yes, sir,” he would shout, tumultuously, “you can do it! You will do it! You have it in you! I always thought you had!” His mood was reminiscent of the good old days when it required a deal of table-pounding to convince the directors that a radical and immediate change of policy was necessary to meet new conditions, no matter what it cost.
Now that the first tidal wave of enthusiasm had broken and surfed, Bobby wanted the subject temporarily dismissed. He had lived with his problem—eaten it, dreamed it, walked the floor with it, gone to the mat with it, cajoled it, cursed it, for a month; and, having now brought it to something like a climax, he was ready to see it tabled.
Sensing his grandson’s restlessness as he stood toying with a paperweight, Nicholas deliberately located his place in the book, meticulously polished his glasses, and smiled a very obvious adieu.
“Think I’ll step out for a little stroll, if you are to be reading, Grandpère,” said Bobby.
Nicholas nodded several times; puffed noisily, contentedly, buried himself in his story.
Immediately Bobby’s back was turned, however, he put down the book and stared after the receding figure, his old eyes wide with a new interest to which he had not yet become accustomed. Bobby looked back, as he passed through the doorway, and grinned. Nicholas caught up his book, frowned heavily over some abstruse passage he had just come upon, and puffed mightily on his long cigar.
Changing his pumps for tennis shoes and his dinner coat for a light sweater, Bobby let himself out through the carriage door, upon the driveway. There was a half moon in an unclouded sky and a few fireflies. He trudged aimlessly on the drive, left it for the grass, wandered along the narrow path by the rose arbor, found himself near the huge twin pillars of the gate, strolled out upon the highway. It was not a busy thoroughfare, but a narrow, gravelled motor-road serving chiefly the widely-spaced country estates fronting on the western shore of the lake. It was very quiet tonight. Hands in pockets, head tilted forward in moody meditation, he strode along indifferent to his random journey, his eyes becoming accommodated to the gloom.
He was glad he had told his grandfather. Tomorrow he would drive down to Brightwood and tell Nancy Ashford. It was like having strong anchors to windward that these two people should share his secret. He hoped Nancy Ashford would be content to say, “Very proper! Much as I expected!” and let it go at that. He wasn’t much of a success in moments crammed with sentimentality. It was all right in the case of Grandpère, of course. He was an old man, and a bit mellow. But he hoped Nancy would be sensible.
Bobby had walked a mile. A hundred yards ahead of him, at a sharp bend of the road, a pair of glaring headlights tilted at a precarious angle indicated that a car had listed heavily to starboard … In the ditch, he surmised. He
