A Husband by Proxy Part 8

"It wasn't for myself I asked," he hastened to add. "I'll act my part till you dismiss me. I only thought if another man were to come upon the scene----"

The far-off sound of a ringing house-bell came indistinctly to his ears. Dorothy looked up in his face with a startled light in her great brown eyes that awoke a new interest within him.

"The bell," she said. "I heard it! Who could be coming here to-night?"

She slipped to the door, drew it open an inch, and listened there attentively.

Garrison was listening also. The door to the outside steps, in the hall below, was opened, then presently closed with a slam. The caretaker had admitted a caller.

"Good! I'd like to see him!" said the voice of a man. "Upstairs?"

Dorothy turned to Garrison with her face as white as chalk.

"Oh, if you had only gone!" she said.

"What's the trouble?" he asked. "Who's come?"

"Perhaps you can slip in my room!" she whispered. "Please hurry!"

She hastened across the apartment to a door, with Garrison following.

The door was locked. She remembered she had locked it herself, from the farther side, since the advent of her uncle in the house.

She turned to lead him round, by the hall. But the door swung open abruptly, and a tall, handsome young man was at the threshold. His hat was on. He was dressed, despite the season, in an overcoat of extraordinary length, b.u.t.toned close round his neck. It concealed him from his chin to his heels.

"Why, h.e.l.lo, Dot!" he said familiarly, advancing within the room. "You and your Jerold weren't trying to run away, I hope."

Dorothy struggled against her confusion and alarm.

"Why, no," she faltered. "Cousin Ted, you've never met Mr. Fairfax.

Jerold, this is my cousin, Mr. Theodore Robinson."

"How do you do?" said Garrison, nodding somewhat distantly, since none of the Robinson group had particularly appealed to his tastes.

"How are you?" responded Dorothy's cousin, with no attempt to conceal an unfriendly demeanor. Crossing to Dorothy with deliberate intent to make the most of his relationship, he caught her by the arms.

"How's everything with you, little sweetheart?" he added in his way of easy intimacy. "What's the matter with my customary kiss?"

Dorothy, with every sign of fear or detestation upon her, seemed wholly unable to move. He put his arm roughly about her and kissed her twice.

Garrison, watching with feelings ill suppressed, beheld her shrink from the contact. She appeared to push her cousin off with small effort to disguise her loathing, and fled to Garrison as if certain of protection.

"What are you scared of?" said young Robinson, moving forward to catch her again, and laughing in an irritating way. "You used not to----"

Garrison blocked him promptly, subconsciously wondering where he had heard that laugh before.

"Perhaps that day has pa.s.sed," he said quietly.

The visitor, still with his hat on, looked Garrison over with anger.

"Jealousy already, hey?" he said. "If you think I'll give up my rights as a cousin you're off, understand?"

Garrison stifled an impulse to slap the fellow's face.

"What are your rights as a cousin, if I may ask?" he said.

"Wait and see," replied Robinson. "Dot was mighty fond of me once--hey, Dot?"

Garrison felt certain of his ground in suppressing the fellow.

"Whatever the situation may have been in the past," he said, "it is very much altered at present."

"Is that so?" demanded Theodore. "Perhaps you'll find the game isn't quite finished yet."

Dorothy, still white and overwrought, attempted to mediate between the two.

"I can't let you men start off like this," she said. "I--I'm fond of you both. I wish you would try to be friendly."

"I'm willing," said her cousin, with a sudden change of front that in no wise deceived Garrison, and he held forth his hand. "Will you shake?"

That Dorothy wished him to greet the fellow civilly, and not incur his ill-feeling. Garrison was sure. He took the proffered hand, as cold as a fish, and dropped it again immediately.

Theodore laughed, and stepped gracefully away, his long coat swinging outward with his motion. Garrison caught a gleam of red, where the coat was parted at the bottom--and he knew where he had heard that laugh before. The man before him was no other than the one he had seen next door, dressed in red fleshings as Satan.

It was not to be understood in a moment, and Theodore's parents had returned once more to the door. Indeed, the old man had beheld the momentary hand-clasp of the men, and he was nettled.

"Theodore!" he cried; "you're not making friends with a man who's sneaked off and married Dorothy, I hope! I wouldn't have believed it!"

"Why not?" said his son. "What's done is done."

His mother said: "Why have you got on an overcoat such a night as this?"

"Because I like it," said Theodore.

Garrison knew better. He wondered what the whole game signified.

The old man was glaring at him sharply.

"I should think for a man who has to leave at nine your time is getting short," he said. "Perhaps your story was invented."

Garrison took out his watch. The fiction would have to be played to the end. The hour lacked twenty minutes of nine. He must presently depart, yet he felt that Dorothy might need protection. Having made up his mind that a marriage had doubtless been planned between Dorothy and Theodore--on the man's part for the purpose of acquiring valuable property, probably veiled to Dorothy--he felt she might not be safe if abandoned to their power.

He had found himself plunged into complications on which it had not been possible to count, but notwithstanding which he meant to remain by Dorothy with the utmost resolution. He had not acknowledged that the charm she exercised upon him lay perilously close to the tenderest of pa.s.sions, but tried to convince himself his present desire was merely to see this business to the end.

It certainly piqued him to find himself obliged to leave with so much of the evening's proceedings veiled in mystery. He would have been glad to know more of what it meant to have this cousin, Theodore, masquerading as the devil in one house, and covering all the signs here at home. He was absolutely helpless in the situation. He knew that Dorothy wished him to depart. She could not, of course, do otherwise.

"Thank you," he said to the elder Robinson. "I must leave in fifteen minutes."

Dorothy looked at him strangely. She could not permit him to stay, yet she felt the need of every possible safeguard, now that her cousin had appeared. The strange trust and confidence she felt in Garrison had given her new hope and strength. To know he must go in the next few minutes, leaving her there with the Robinsons, afflicted her abruptly with a sense of desolation.