No Hero | Page 5

thought it
would be a nice little change for Bob, and it was quite a chance; he
must do a certain amount of work, you see. Well, they only went at the
beginning of the month, and already they have had enough of each
other's society."
"You don't mean that they've had a row?"
Catherine inclined a mortified head.
"Bob never had such a thing in his life before, nor did I ever know
anybody who succeeded in having one with Bob. It does take two, you
know. And when one of the two has an angelic temper, and tact enough
for twenty--"
"You naturally blame the other," I put in, as she paused in visible
perplexity.
"But I don't, Duncan, and that's just the point. George is devoted to Bob,
and is as nice as he can be himself, in his own sober, honest, plodding
way. He may not have the temper, he certainly has not the tact, but he
worships Bob and has come back quite miserable."
"Then he has come back, and you have seen him?"
"He was here last night. You must know that Bob writes to me every
day, even from Cambridge, if it's only a line; and in yesterday's letter
he mentioned quite casually that George had had enough of it and was
off home. It was a little too casual to be quite natural in old Bob, and
there are other things he has been mentioning in the same way. If any
instinct is to be relied upon it is a mother's, and mine amounted almost
to second sight. I sent Master George a telegram, and he came in last

night."
"Well?"'
"Not a word! There was bad blood between them, but that was all I
could get out of him. Vulgar disagreeables between Bob, of all people,
and his greatest friend! If you could have seen the poor fellow sitting
where you are sitting now, like a prisoner in the dock! I put him in the
witness-box instead, and examined him on scraps of Bob's letters to me.
It was as unscrupulous as you please, but I felt unscrupulous; and the
poor dear was too loyal to admit, yet too honest to deny, a single
thing."
"And?" said I, as Bob's mother paused again.
"And," cried she, with conscious melodrama in the fiery twinkle of her
eye--"and, I know all! There is an odious creature at the hotel--a widow,
if you please! A 'ripping widow' Bob called her in his first letter; then it
was 'Mrs. Lascelles'; but now it is only 'some people' whom he escorts
here, there, and everywhere. Some people, indeed!"
Catherine smiled unmercifully. I relied upon my nod.
"I needn't tell you," she went on, "that the creature is at least twenty
years older than my baby, and not at all nice at that. George didn't tell
me, mind, but he couldn't deny a single thing. It was about her that they
fell out. Poor George remonstrated, not too diplomatically, I daresay,
but I can quite see that my Bob behaved as he was never known to
behave on land or sea. The poor child has been bewitched, neither more
nor less."
"He'll get over it," I murmured, with the somewhat shaky confidence
born of my own experience.
Catherine looked at me in mild surprise.
"But it's going on now, Duncan--it's going on still!"

"Well," I added, with all the comfort that my voice would carry, and
which an exaggerated concern seemed to demand: "well, Catherine, it
can't go very far at his age!" Nor to this hour can I yet conceive a
sounder saying, in all the circumstances of the case, and with one's
knowledge of the type of lad; but my fate was the common one of
comforters, and I was made speedily and painfully aware that I had
now indeed said the most unfortunate thing.
Catherine did not stamp her foot, but she did everything else required
by tradition of the exasperated lady. Not go far? As if it had not gone
too far already to be tolerated another instant longer than was
necessary!
"He is making a fool of himself--my boy--my Bob--before a whole
hotelful of sharp eyes and sharper tongues! Is that not far enough for it
to have gone? Duncan, it must be stopped, and stopped at once; but I
am not the one to do it. I would rather it went on," cried Catherine
tragically, as though the pit yawned before us all, "than that his mother
should fly to his rescue before all the world! But a friend might do it,
Duncan--if--"
Her voice had dropped. I bent my ear.
"If only," she sighed, "I had a friend who would!"
Catherine was still looking down when I looked up; but the droop