"Bob's a jackass," was Jack's commentary. I had heard something like it before, that day. "He'll turn up all right;"—and Jack lit a cigar and picked up his paper.
"And Betty Annesley is going to call to-morrow night," said Nancy, her voice overflowing with reproach. Her eyes even sparkled with tears. "I did so want them to meet."
I called myself a villain. But I had given my promise; and I was in love myself.
"I don't see what we can do. When Bob makes up his mind to do anything, he generally does it." Jack, believing he had demolished the subject, opened his Morning Post and fell to studying the latest phases of the Venezuelan muddle.
Nancy began to cry softly; she loved the scalawag as only sisters know how to love. And I became possessed with two desires; to console her and to punch Mr. Robert's head.
"It has always been this way with him," Nancy went on, dabbing her eyes with her two-by-four handkerchief. "We never dreamed that he was going into the Army till he came home one night and announced that he had successfully passed his examinations for West Point. He goes and gets shot, and we never know anything about it till we read the papers. Next, he resigns and goes abroad without a word or coming to see us. I don't know what to make of Bobby; I really don't."
I took her hand in mine and kissed it, and told her the rascal would turn up in due time, that they hadn't heard the last of him for that winter.
"He's only thoughtless and single-purposed," interposed Jack.
"Single-purposed!" I echoed.
"Why, yes. He gets one thing at a time in his brain, and thinks of nothing else till that idea is worn out. I know him."