Lieutenant Wetherill was quite overwhelmed with the warmth of the greeting he received from Ruth and settled down to enjoy it while it lasted. With a wicked glance of triumph at his rival he laid himself out to make his account of camp life as entertaining as possible. He produced a gorgeous box of bonbons and arranged himself comfortably for the afternoon, while Wainwright’s brow grew darker and his lips pouted out farther and farther under his petted little moustache. It was all a great bore to Ruth just now with her mind full of the annoyance about Cameron. At least she would have preferred to have had her talk with him and found out what he was with her own judgment. But anything was better than, a tête-à-tête with Wainwright just now; so she ate bonbons and asked questions, and kept the conversation going, ignoring Wainwright’s increasing grouch.
It was a great relief, however, when about half-past four the maid appeared at the door:
“A long distance telephone call for you, Miss Ruth.”
As Ruth was going up the stairs to her own private ’phone she paused to fasten the tie of her low shoe that had come undone and was threatening to trip her, and she heard Harry Wainwright’s voice in an angry snarl:
“What business did you have coming here to-day, you darned chump! You knew what I came for, and you did it on purpose! If you don’t get out the minute she gets back I’ll put her wise to you and the kind of girls you go with in no time. And you needn’t think you can turn the tables on me, either, for I’ll fix you so you won’t dare open your fool mouth!”
The sentence finished with an oath and Ruth hurried into her room and shut the door with a sick kind of feeling that her whole little world was turning black about her.
It was good to hear the voice of her cousin, Captain La Rue, over the ’phone, even though it was but a message that he could not come as he had promised that evening. It reassured her that there were good men in the world. Of course, he was older, but she was sure he had never been what people called “wild,” although he had plenty of courage and spirit. She had often heard that good men were few, but it had never seemed to apply to her world but vaguely. Now here of a sudden a slur had been thrown at three of her young world. John Cameron, it is true, was a comparative stranger, and, of course, she had no means of judging except by the look in his eyes. She understood in a general way that “rotten” as applied to a young man’s character implied uncleanness. John Cameron’s eyes were steady and clear. They did not look that way. But then, how could she tell? And here, this very minute she had been hearing that Bobbie Wetherill’s life was not all that it should be and Wainwright had tacitly accepted the possibility of the same weakness in himself. These were boys with whom she had been brought up. Selfish and conceited she had often thought them on occasion, but it had not occurred to her that there might be anything worse. She pressed her hands to her eyes and tried to force a calm steadiness into her soul. Somehow she had an utter distaste for going back into that library and hearing their boastful chatter. Yet she must go. She had been hoping all the afternoon for her cousin’s arrival to send the other two away. Now that was out of the question and she must use her own tact to get pleasantly rid of them. With a sigh she opened her door and started down stairs again.
It was Wainwright’s blatant voice again that broke through the Sabbath afternoon stillness of the house as she approached the library door:
“Yes, I’ve got John Cameron all right now!” he laughed. “He won’t hold his head so high after he’s spent a few days in the guard-house. And that’s what they’re all going to get that are late coming back this time. I found out before I left camp that his pass only reads till eleven o’clock and the five o’clock train is the last one he can leave Chester on to get him to camp by eleven. So I hired a fellow that was coming up to buddy-up to Cam and fix it that he is to get a friend of his to take them over to Chester in time for the train. The fellow don’t have to get back himself to-night at all, but he isn’t going to let on, you know, so Cam will think they’re in the same boat. Then they’re going to have a little bit of tire trouble, down in that lonely bit of rough road, that short cut between here and Chester, where there aren’t any cars passing to help them out, and they’ll miss the train at Chester. See? And then the man will offer to take them on to camp in his car and they’ll get stuck again down beyond Wilmington, lose the road, and switch off toward Singleton—you know, where we took those girls to that little out-of-the-way tavern that time—and you see Cam getting back to camp in time, don’t you?”
Ruth had paused with her hand on the heavy portiere, wide-eyed.