CHAPTER X.
APPEARANCES AND DISAPPEARANCES.
"Now for Sir Galahad in jail!" said Harry, touching the bay with the point of his whip.
"He was an awfully virtuous cad!" laughed Kennedy. Sunburst had offered to convey Idler safely home, while Kennedy, the black-eyed, accompanied Harry, himself none the better for his morning bottle-bout, to the clubhouse in town. On the way they would make the visit to Robert.
There was evidently a strong dash of the Arnold blood in Harry. He showed more resemblance to his cousin than to the proud, thin-lipped woman who had sat through Floyd's preliminary trial. A stranger might even confuse them at the first glance, though Harry was five years the older of the two. It could not be gainsaid that he bore his age well. His movements were leopard-like in their swiftness and ease and his eyes shone with mesmeric power. The little darkness under their lids might be a peculiarity of complexion, but occasionally, in moments of repose, a shadow, no more, seemed to cross the cheek and make it look worn. His companions had noticed that the cue-point wavered a trifle in his hands of late and that his masse shots sometimes failed to draw the balls. But he was still facile princeps among gentlemen boxers of the city; and his long, brown arms were a delight to watch on the river, crossing and recrossing in the graceful rhythm of the practiced oarsman.
Arnold's true nature was hard to judge, for circumstances had conspired to spoil him from the cradle. A comely child, he had been allowed to carry the knickerbocker period of tossing curls and gratified whims far into his teens, and the discovery that her darling was a man, and no longer a painted picture to be gazed at and displayed, had come upon his mother suddenly, like an unforeseen catastrophe. It had cost her many a pang to realize that she, who aspired to be sole mistress of his heart, shared now only a divided affection with a score of alien interests. Still she continued to indulge and anticipate his desires. They were rich and social station was her birthright. But it was with a jealous gnawing in her heart that she would sign the check for his new pleasure yacht or watch him pat the neck of his steeplechaser Aladdin.
The dislike she bore to Robert Floyd was a natural consequence of his uncle's partiality. The families were outwardly upon good terms. If early influence counts, there could not well be much similarity of taste between the youth whose steps had been guided by the virile head of Benjamin Arnold and the idol of that indulgent, worldly mother who never forgot that she belonged to the Brewsters of Lynn.
"Hold her ten minutes," said Harry, giving the reins to Kennedy at the outer gate of the jail. His name was a sufficient passport to the officer who guarded the outer turnstile, and he was directed across a bricked yard to the jail building proper. Here a more detailed explanation was exacted. Harry answered the questions suavely but not without some suppressed impatience. A few moments of delay, which he beguiled with an incessant finger-tattoo, and he was conducted to murderers' row.
"This isn't much like home, Rob," was his greeting, fortified by a hand extended through the cell bars. Floyd pressed it somewhat coldly.
"I'm grateful for the visit, Harry," he said.