Bob shook his head. He didn’t want to play at that game. But life was a game of hide-and-seek, all right. He permitted himself the luxury of smiling as he once more looked over at the hammer-thrower and applauded Gee-gee. Odd, the idea of the hammer-thrower being that person he (Bob) was supposed to be, had never occurred to the latter! But no one ever would suspect that face! “My face is my fortune, sir,” he might have said. The hammer-thrower caught Bob’s smile.
“‘Come and catch me,’” reiterated Gee-gee.
That might be applicable to the hammer-thrower. Bob, for the moment, felt as happy as a child who has discovered the solution of a puzzle. So that when Miss Gerald deigned casually to glance at him, she was surprised at his new expression. It seemed a long while since Bob had looked happy, but now he looked almost like his old self. Was it the near presence of the temperamental young thing that had wrought this change, Miss Gerald might well have asked herself.
Violet eyes looked now into temperamental dark ones. Gwendoline, too, was smiling—at the song. But it was that cryptic kind of a smile once more. Bob’s smile was a rather large cryptic counterpart of Miss Gerald’s. The temperamental little thing, though, didn’t smile. She seemed reading Miss Gerald’s soul. She was dropping a plumb-line deep down into it.
Then Miss Gerald turned again to the hammer-thrower, who talked to her just as if Bob hadn’t seen anything, or imagined he had. Gee-gee sat down, at the same time condescending to bestow upon Bob a triumphal look. He had dared to scoff at her histrionic talent, had he? Well, she had shown him—and them. Maybe with a little publicity, she would become a star of dazzling magnitude. At that moment, the world looked bright to Gee-gee.
CHAPTER XVIII—A FORMIDABLE ADVERSARY
What a merry mad wag that hammer-thrower really must be at heart! thought Bob. How he was chuckling inside, or laughing in his sleeve most of the time while he went around with that heavy, serious, reliable visage of his! And that ponderous manner?—What lively little imps of mischief or fancy it concealed! That simulated slow tread, too?—Bob surmised he could get around pretty fast on occasions, if he wanted to, or had to. He was dancing very seriously with Miss Gerald now, seeming to take dancing as a kind of a moral lesson. Oh, that “duty talk” to Bob! He would “consider” Bob’s case!—He wanted to ponder over it—he? And how painfully in earnest he had been when he had sprung what his father had said about not giving a fellow a shove when he was down!
Bob disentangled himself as soon as he could from the temperamental little thing and went into the billiard room, where he began to toy with the ivories. If there was one thing he could do, it was play billiards. But he retired to the seclusion of the billiard room now principally for the reason that he expected the hammer-thrower would follow him there. He felt almost sure the other would seek him. So, though Bob proceeded to execute one or two fancy shots with much skill, his thoughts were not on the ivories. He was considering his position in relation to the hammer-thrower. He (Bob) might entertain a profound conviction regarding the latter’s profession, but could he prove anything?
True, he now remembered and could point out that the latter had attended all those functions where losses had occurred. But that wasn’t in itself particularly significant. Other people, also, had attended all the functions in question. Bob couldn’t even actually swear he had seen the other in his room when he had dropped something from Bob’s window to some one lurking below. Bob hadn’t had the chance to recognize him on that occasion. As far as evidence went, the “boot was all on the other leg.” The hammer-thrower was obviously in a position to use Bob to pull chestnuts out of the fire for him.
But why had he not denounced Bob to the entire household, then and there, when he had discovered him before Gee-gee’s door? Perhaps the hammer-thrower didn’t yet know that any one knew there had been substituted one or two imitation articles of jewelry for real ones. If this were so, then from his point of view a denunciation of Bob might lead to an investigation which would reveal the fact that substitutions had occurred and in consequence he would be but curtailing the period of his own future activities in this decidedly fertile field. He hadn’t, of course, refrained through any feeling of charity or commiseration for Bob. He had, moreover, paved the way to use Bob in the future, if need be, by discreetly mentioning the incident to Miss Gerald. Bob might prove serviceable as an emergency man. All this had no doubt been floating through the hammer-thrower’s brain while he had stood there with that puzzled, aggrieved and righteous expression.