Accustomed to playing roles on short notice, suggested by her own volatile caprices, she determined to meet this awkward circumstance on its own ground. She would enjoy being the mother of a lion, even if the fact that the lion was no longer a cub would make it difficult for her to be quite so kittenish as usual. She was giving herself a dress rehearsal, this morning, of the new part, and was almost matronly.
“You’ll love them, Bobby! … Such dears! … And—Bobby—” she held up a warning finger and twinkled it mysteriously—“I’ve asked my adorable Patricia Livingstone to come with her mother. We’ve been so anxious to see you two together. You’ll be enchanted with her!”
Bobby grinned amiably and said he was going to be happy to meet them all, especially someone his mother considered adorable. It was obvious she was preparing for this event as if it were a coronation, and he was resolved to humour her. God knew it was little enough he had ever been able to do for her pleasure. He would today atone for all his failures to be what she wanted him to be by going cheerfully into an affair which, he suspected, would establish his utter asshood as a fact beyond controversy in the opinion of any sensible person present.
Considering the will—in this instance—equivalent to the deed, he later scored up the party to his credit; though he was unable to attend it.
Bobby Merrick’s decision to request a four months’ leave had been based ostensibly upon an extended correspondence with Dr. Emil Arnstadt of Vienna. Arnstadt had been long at work on the coagulation cautery project before the Merrick invention was announced. Immediately he had sought full information about it which was promptly and cheerfully given. Then had sprung up the warmest attachment between them, leading to Arnstadt’s ardent hope that Doctor Merrick would come to Vienna for a leisurely conference on their mutual interests.
“We have much to give each other,” wrote Arnstadt. “It is well we should meet.”
In the scales alongside Arnstadt’s intriguing invitation was an importunate letter from Jack Dawson, down on all fours in supplication.
“No small matter, I tell you, to be asked into conference with Arnstadt! You’ve got to come. It’s equivalent to a command! You’ve got to come for my sake! You must realize I’ve never felt decent about the way I came here as the winner of a prize you tossed into my lap. You shouldn’t have done it. Of course, as it has all turned out, you’ve more achievement to your credit than had you written that exam in full for old Appleton and taken the persimmons you so jolly well deserved. I never had any illusions, old chap, about my winning the first honours and this prize. You handed them over to me because you thought I needed them more than you. I never felt easy about it. But—now that Arnstadt wants to do you this honour, don’t refuse. It will make me a heap more comfortable, I can tell you!”
But these pressing invitations to Vienna were not the actual driving reasons why Bobby Merrick had decided to spend the summer in Europe. The real tug, he was bound to admit, resided in the fact that Helen Hudson was conducting a small party of tourists through Italy and France. He had a hope of meeting her. She was interfering with his work, disturbing him in his sleep, making him restless, absentminded, distraught. However she might regard him, he must see her again, if to no better purpose than to change the torturing mental picture he carried of her, shamed and hurt by his unintended impudence. Some kind of reconciliation must be attempted. He had accepted his expulsion from his Fool’s Paradise, and no longer cherished the notion that he could reinstate himself with Helen; but it would be worth the trip to see her—let her be indignant, indifferent, or contemptuous. He must dispose somehow of this haunting picture of her, hurt and humiliated.
He had kept track of her movements through Joyce, who had quite voluntarily confided the essential facts of Helen’s sudden departure from Detroit the next morning after the execrable theatre party. It was apparent that Joyce had not been informed—and equally apparent that she very much wanted to know—what business had drawn her young stepmother impulsively out to Brightwood, that winter afternoon. In Joyce’s mind there seemed an inevitable sequence relating that event to Helen’s sudden departure for New York, early next day, on some unexplained errand.
Short of actually putting a thumbscrew on him, Joyce’s inquisitiveness to learn how much Bobby knew about it was persistent, ingenious, desperate; but she received small pay for the news she offered as bait.
Exactly why Helen Hudson wanted or needed employment badly enough to become a routing agent in the office of the Beamond and Grayson Travel Bureau, Joyce couldn’t imagine. It was so unlike her. She hated routine. She wasn’t used to taking orders or keeping hours. She was about as practical as a Persian kitten on a satin pillow.
Bobby had had to listen to an inordinate amount of this, astounded at his own patience, though in his honest moments he reflected that had Joyce not prattled so volubly of her own accord he would have been obliged to prime her to it.
He was thankful enough for her gift of garrulity
