Foster Townsend, with a chuckle, declared it sounded all right to him. It was evident that his visitor had already captured his fancy. Esther, who had been watching Bob intently, now spoke.
“The Welfare Society has persuaded Seymour to take the part of Ralph Rackstraw in our ‘Pinafore’ play,” she said, quickly. “It is ever so kind of him to do it and I am sure I don’t know what we should have done if he had refused. There is nobody else in town, or near it, who can sing that part as it should be sung.”
Covell lifted a hand in protest. “Between you and me, Griffin,” he said, with a doubting shake of the head, “that ‘care-free’ business I boasted of is all counterfeit. I am shaking in my shoes. These good people don’t know what they have been let in for. By the time I get to the place in that performance where I announce that I ‘go to a dungeon cell,’ I’m betting that the audience will be perfectly satisfied to have me go there, provided I don’t come back. Oh, Josephine!” with a laughing glance at Esther, “I am sorry for you!”
Esther laughed, too, and declared that she was not afraid. Townsend chuckled. Bob Griffin’s smile was more than ever a product of main strength and determination. He had seen at least a half dozen performances of “Pinafore”—in those days every child on the street knew the most of it by heart—and he remembered only too well the love scenes between Rackstraw and the captain’s daughter. He and Seymour Covell had never been friends during their studio days in New York. They were acquaintances, that was all, and never once during that acquaintanceship had he hailed Bob affectionately as “old man” or expressed delight in meeting him. Bob recalled very distinctly a certain air of condescending amusement in the Covell attitude toward him and the other fellows who took their work in deadly earnest. Covell had talent, too. When he cared to take the trouble he could draw or paint well; but he seldom cared. He had been a favorite with the instructors, with members of his own crowd—chaps who, like himself, were fond of a good time and were liberally supplied with money—and the girls adored him, even the uncomely ones upon whom he wasted little attention. There was always a cluster of femininity about the Covell drawing board when the day’s lesson was over.
And there were stories about him. He had the reputation of being a lady-killer and, if the stories were true, a ruthless one. Of all the men on earth this Seymour Covell was the very last whom Bob Griffin cared to see in Esther Townsend’s company, and the thought of his holding her in his arms and singing love ditties in her ear—even “in public on the stage”—was unbearable. He was living in the same house with her; he had made himself a favorite there already, just as he always did wherever and whenever he cared to try. Captain Townsend liked him immensely, that was plain enough. Yes, and Esther liked him, too. She ought to have more discernment. She ought to see the sort of fellow he was.
Bob Griffin was an even-tempered young man and as sensible as the average, but he was young and head over heels in love. The manner in which Covell appealed to Esther and hinted at understandings and confidences between them made him furious. He was jealous, and growing more so every minute.
There was further conversation among the four, although Covell did the most of the talking. He was curious concerning Bob’s progress with his painting; much interested in the beach studio, and proclaimed his intention of visiting it some day soon.
“Griffin has the gift; we all used to tell him so,” he declared. “He will go far, that was the general prophecy among the crowd at the old Abattoir. I was one of the loudest prophets.”
Which was a lie and Bob was strongly tempted to tell him so. But Foster Townsend put in a word.
“Griffin is going far now,” he announced. “He is sailing for Paris in a week or so to keep on with his painting over there.”