CHAPTER VI
JONES DEMONSTRATES
Jones entered the room with a stride that was intended to be impressive. Unhappily, the one or two persons who observed it merely laughed, and this did not tend to sweeten his temper. He glared round the room, and presently saw Susan dancing with some one he did not know; his eyes searched the company again. He was looking for Tom; the desire uppermost in his mind just then was once and for all to prevent that young man from ever thinking of Susan in the light of a lover, or even as a friend. “This thing got to stop at once,” he muttered. “I must demonstrate.”
What he intended to do, precisely what steps he proposed to take to banish all amorous thoughts or conjugal ambitions from the mind of the offending Tom Wooley, he did not know himself. He was perfectly satisfied that just then he was bent upon the accomplishment of an utterly heroic task; something had to be done and he was the man to do it. He smiled proudly as he thought of his entire devotion to duty. His eyes soon found the man he was looking for.
Tom was still leaning against the wall, and still engaged in following Susan’s movements with reproachful glances. The influence of those two drinks was upon him still, and he too imagined that he presented a romantic figure, that his appearance at that moment constituted an eloquent appeal even to hard-hearted Sue. She had seen him all the time without appearing to do so. Now and then her upper lip curled with conscious contempt. Susan had no respect for the lover sighing like a furnace; such a man was “too soft,” in her opinion.
It happened that Jones caught sight of Tom at a moment when the latter’s gaze was more than usually ardent. Susan was whirling by her ex-intended at the moment, and her eyes caught his; the next moment she was a couple of yards away. But Jones saw what he instantly believed to be an exchange of meaning glances. Straightway he became convinced that a most dishonest plot was being hatched against his domestic happiness.
Nothing could, in his opinion, surpass the dignity with which, to the intense amazement and confusion of the dancers, he strode across the room towards where Tom was standing. He shouldered the men aside, brushed the women away as if they did not count, disturbed and brought to an abrupt termination the dancing, and so, of course, aroused the ire of a score of persons at once. Notwithstanding his tremendous dignity, he found the maintenance of his equilibrium a task of exceeding difficulty; he could not for the life of him understand why the floor was so uneven and why the electric lights would persist in moving out of place. Nevertheless he succeeded in planting himself before Tom, and then, with portentous solemnity, and unheeding the indignant wonder of the guests, he addressed his rival.
“Mr. Wooley,” said he, “I don’t want no quarrel to mar the felicity of this festivity; but I shall have to interrogate you on one point: where did y’u know Susan from?”
Tom was startled, both by the question put to him and by the attitude of the questioner. At the moment his mind was unpleasantly dominated by a sense of Jones’s height and strength. He discreetly answered, “From home.”
“I know you must know her from home,” replied Jones severely, “for I am not a fool, though you seem to take me for one. But . . . but that is not the question. The position is this: what did you have to do wid her at home?”
Tom realized that it might not be safe to tell the truth. He hurriedly explained that he had known Susan casually, through her being a friend of his sister—a being of hitherto unknown existence.