The Rose in the Ring Part 20

In the railroad yards d.i.c.k Cronk hunted out his brother Ernie, and, standing over him in a manner so threatening that the astonished hunchback shrank down in fear, he bluntly accused him of informing on David Jenison.

"I know you did it, Ernie," he said, when the other began to whimper his denials. "You've done a lot of sneakin' things, but this is the sneakin'est. If you ever peach on anybody again, I'll--well, I won't say just what I'll do. It'll be good and plenty, you can be I on that."

"What'll you do?" sneered Ernie, but cravenly.

"Something I didn't do the first time," announced d.i.c.k with deadly levelness. Ernie turned very cold.

"You wouldn't hurt me?" he whined.

"I'm through talkin' about it," said d.i.c.k, turning away. "Just you remember, that's all."

Colonel Bob Grand descended upon the show the following afternoon. His customary advent was always somewhat in the nature of a hawk's visitation among a brood of chickens: it was quite as disturbing and equally as hateful. Moreover, like the hawk, he came when least expected.

"Oh, how I loathe that man," whispered Christine to David. She was waiting for her turn in the ring, just inside the great red and gold curtains at the entrance of the dressing-tent. Tom Sacks was peeping through the curtains at the haze-enveloped crowd in the main tent.

David and the slim girl in red were standing at the big gray horse's head and she was feeding sugar to the animal. The youth in the striped tights was a head taller than his companion--for David was then but an inch or two short of six feet and broadening into manhood.

Colonel Grand had just entered the dressing-tent with Christine's father, and was paying his most suave devotions to Mrs. Braddock across the way.

"When did he come?" asked David, filled with a sharp pity for the girl, who, as yet, could hardly have suspected the real object of his visits.

"An hour ago. David, why does he come so often?"

"I--I suppose he has business in these towns," he floundered uncomfortably.

"My mother hates him,--oh, how she hates him. I don't see why he can't see it and stay away from us. Of course, he's very rich, and he's a--a great friend of father's. They say Colonel Grand gambles and--and he leaves his wife alone at home for weeks at a time. I can't bear the sight of his face. It is like an animal's to me. Have you seen that African gazelle out in the animal top? The one with the eyes so close together and the long white nose? Well, that's how Colonel Grand looks to me. I've always hated that horrid deer, David. I see it in my dreams, over and over again, and it is always trying to b.u.t.t me in the face with that awful white nose. Isn't it odd that I should dream of it so much?"

"It's just a fancy, Christine. You'll--you'll outgrow it. All children have funny dreams," he said with a lame attempt at humor.

"I'm fifteen, David," she said severely. "I don't like you to say such things to me. But," and she beamed a smile upon him that fairly dazzled, "I do love the way you p.r.o.nounce my name. No one says it just as you do. I hate being called Christie. Don't you ever begin calling me Christie. Do you hear?"

"I've always loved Christine," he said frankly. Then he felt himself blush under the paint.

She hesitated, suddenly shy. "I've never liked David until now," she said. "I've always liked Absalom better. Reginald is my favorite name,--or Ethelbert. Still, as you say, I will doubtless outgrow them.

Besides, you are not David. You are poor little Jack Snipe."

Her warm smile faded as she turned her eyes in the direction of Colonel Grand. The troubled look came back to them at once; there was a subtle spreading of her dainty nostrils.

"How I hate his smile," she said in very low tones.

Without looking at David again she pa.s.sed through the curtains after Tom Sacks and made her way to the ring, a jaunty figure that gave no sign of the uneasiness that lurked beneath the joyous spangles.

David looked after her for a moment. He became suddenly conscious of the fact that Colonel Grand was staring at him across the intervening s.p.a.ce. Turning, he met the combined gaze of the three persons who formed the little group. There was a comprehensive leer on the face of the Colonel.

In that instant there flashed through David's mind the conviction that Colonel Bob Grand was to play an ugly and an important part in his life. Again there came over him, as once before, the insensate desire to strike that gray, puttyish face with all his might.

He had been kept out of the ring during the early part of the performance, while Artful d.i.c.k and other cunning scouts were satisfying themselves that the Pinkerton man actually had given up the chase. As a matter of fact, the disgusted operative had been completely fooled, and was well on his way to Philadelphia, cheris.h.i.+ng the prospect of a laugh at the expense of the superintendent who had sent him on the wild-goose chase.

David kept a wary eye open for the danger signal, which, however, was not to come. He saw the Braddocks and Colonel Grand leave the dressing-tent and pa.s.s into the open air. This time Braddock walked ahead with his unyielding wife. Apparently he was expostulating with her. She looked neither to right nor left, but walked on with her face set and her eyes narrowed as if in pain. Colonel Grand, the picture of insolent a.s.surance, sauntered behind them, a beatific smile on his lips.

The Virginian was sitting on a property trunk, dejectedly staring at the ground when Christine returned from the ring. Thunders of applause had told him when the act was over; the change of tune by the band announced the beginning of the next act--that of the strong man and his wife. How well David remembered these sudden transitions. He almost longed to be out there now, in the thick of it, with good old Joey Grinaldi at his side, dodging the ringmaster's lash and grinning at the jokes of the veteran.

The girl came straight up to him, her anxious gaze sweeping the interior. She was about to speak to him, but changed her mind and hurried on to her dressing-room. An instant later she was back, greatly agitated. "Where is my mother?" she asked.

"They went away a few minutes ago," replied David, as unconcernedly as possible.

"Where? Where did they go, David?" she cried, her voice low with alarm.

"To the side-show, I think," prevaricated he.

He saw the look of relief struggling into her face.

"She--she always cries when she goes out with them together," she murmured piteously. "Oh, David, I'm so worried. I don't know why--I don't know what it is that causes me to feel this way. But I am frightened--always frightened."

He took her little hand between his own; it was trembling perceptibly.

Very gently he sought to rea.s.sure her, his heart so full that his voice was husky with the emotion that crowded up from it.

"Nothing ever can happen to your mother, Christine--nothing. Please don't worry, little girl. Colonel Grand can't--won't do anything to hurt her. Your father won't let that happen. He won't--"

"David, I am not so sure of that," she said slowly, looking straight into his eyes and speaking almost in a monotone. He started. For a moment he was speechless.

"You must not say that, Christine," he said.

"I don't know why I said it," she responded, nervously biting her nether lip. Then she smiled, her white teeth gleaming against the carmine. "She'll be back presently, I know. I'm so silly."

"You are very young, you'll have to admit, after this display," he chided. She left him.

Joey Grinaldi came in a few minutes later and took his _protege_ off to the ring, with the a.s.surance that "the coast" was clear. All the rest of the afternoon David's heart ached with a dull pain. He could hardly wait for the time to come when he could return to the dressing-tent. At last, he raced from the ring, pursued by the inflated bladder in the hand of Joey Grinaldi, their joint mummery over for the afternoon.

Christine was sitting on the trunk that he had occupied so recently; Mrs. Braddock was nowhere in sight.

"David," she said slowly, as he drew up panting, "they did not go to the side-show."

He was spared the necessity of an answer by the providential return of the girl's mother. She came in alone from the main tent. A glance showed them both that she had been crying. Christine sprang forward with a little cry and slipped her arm through her mother's.

As they pa.s.sed by David the mother's stiff, tense lips were moving painfully. He heard her say, as if to herself:

"I cannot--I will not endure it any longer. I cannot, my child."

David stood before her the next instant, his face writhing with fury, his hands clenched.

"Is--is there anything I can do, Mrs. Braddock? Tell me! Can I do anything for you?" he cried.

She stared for a moment, as if bewildered. Then her face lightened. The tears sprang afresh to her eyes.

"No, David," she said gently. "There is nothing you can do."

"But if there should be anything I can do--" he went on imploringly.

She shook her head and smiled.