The Turmoil Booth Tarkington (best reads .txt) 📖

two disappeared in the hall. She heard Bibbs offering to “help” Lamhorn with his overcoat and the latter rather curtly declining assistance, these episodes of departure being followed by the closing of the outer door. She ran into the hall.

“What’s the matter with you?” she cried, furiously. “What do you mean? How did you dare come in there when you knew⁠—”

Her voice broke; she made a gesture of rage and despair, and ran up the stairs, sobbing. She fled to her mother’s room, and when Bibbs came up, a few minutes later, Mrs. Sheridan met him at his door.

“Oh, Bibbs,” she said, shaking her head woefully, “you’d oughtn’t to distress your sister! She says you drove that young man right out of the house. You’d ought to been more considerate.”

Bibbs smiled faintly, noting that Edith’s door was open, with Edith’s naive shadow motionless across its threshold. “Yes,” he said. “He doesn’t appear to be much of a man’s man. He ran at just a glimpse of one.”

Edith’s shadow moved; her voice came quavering: “You call yourself one?”

“No, no,” he answered. “I said, ‘just a glimpse of one.’ I didn’t claim⁠—” But her door slammed angrily; and he turned to his mother.

“There,” he said, sighing. “That’s almost the first time in my life I ever tried to be a man of action, mother, and I succeeded perfectly in what I tried to do. As a consequence I feel like a horse-thief!”

“You hurt her feelin’s,” she groaned. “You must ’a’ gone at it too rough, Bibbs.”

He looked upon her wanly. “That’s my trouble, mother,” he murmured. “I’m a plain, blunt fellow. I have rough ways, and I’m a rough man.”

For once she perceived some meaning in his queerness. “Hush your nonsense!” she said, good-naturedly, the astral of a troubled smile appearing. “You go to bed.”

He kissed her and obeyed.

Edith gave him a cold greeting the next morning at the breakfast-table.

“You mustn’t do that under a misapprehension,” he warned her, when they were alone in the dining-room.

“Do what under a what?” she asked.

“Speak to me. I came into the smoking-room last night on purpose,” he told her, gravely. “I have a prejudice against that young man.”

She laughed. “I guess you think it means a great deal who you have prejudices against!” In mockery she adopted the manner of one who implores. “Bibbs, for pity’s sake promise me, don’t use your influence with papa against him!” And she laughed louder.

“Listen,” he said, with peculiar earnestness. “I’ll tell you now, because⁠—because I’ve decided I’m one of the family.” And then, as if the earnestness were too heavy for him to carry it further, he continued, in his usual tone, “I’m drunk with power, Edith.”

“What do you want to tell me?” she demanded, brusquely.

“Lamhorn made love to Sibyl,” he said.

Edith hooted. “She did to him! And because you overheard that spat between us the other day when I the same as accused her of it, and said something like that to you afterward⁠—”

“No,” he said, gravely. “I know.”

“How?”

“I was there, one day a week ago, with Roscoe, and I heard Sibyl and Lamhorn⁠—”

Edith screamed with laughter. “You were with Roscoe⁠—and you heard Lamhorn making love to Sibyl!”

“No. I heard them quarreling.”

“You’re funnier than ever, Bibbs!” she cried. “You say he made love to her because you heard them quarreling!”

“That’s it. If you want to know what’s between people, you can⁠—by the way they quarrel.”

“You’ll kill me, Bibbs! What were they quarreling about?”

“Nothing. That’s how I knew. People who quarrel over nothing!⁠—it’s always certain⁠—”

Edith stopped laughing abruptly, but continued her mockery. “You ought to know. You’ve had so much experience, yourself!”

“I haven’t any, Edith,” he said. “My life has been about as exciting as an incubator chicken’s. But I look out through the glass at things.”

“Well, then,” she said, “if you look out through the glass you must know what effect such stuff would have upon me!” She rose, visibly agitated. “What if it was true?” she demanded, bitterly. “What if it was true a hundred times over? You sit there with your silly face half ready to giggle and half ready to sniffle, and tell me stories like that, about Sibyl picking on Bobby Lamhorn and worrying him to death, and you think it matters to me? What if I already knew all about their quarreling? What if I understood why she⁠—” She broke off with a violent gesture, a sweep of her arm extended at full length, as if she hurled something to the ground. “Do you think a girl that really cared for a man would pay any attention to that? Or to you, Bibbs Sheridan!”

He looked at her steadily, and his gaze was as keen as it was steady. She met it with unwavering pride. Finally he nodded slowly, as if she had spoken and he meant to agree with what she said.

“Ah, yes,” he said. “I won’t come into the smoking-room again. I’m sorry, Edith. Nobody can make you see anything now. You’ll never see until you see for yourself. The rest of us will do better to keep out of it⁠—especially me!”

“That’s sensible,” she responded, curtly. “You’re most surprising of all when you’re sensible, Bibbs.”

“Yes,” he sighed. “I’m a dull dog. Shake hands and forgive me, Edith.”

Thawing so far as to smile, she underwent this brief ceremony, and George appeared, summoning Bibbs to the library; Dr. Gurney was waiting there, he announced. And Bibbs gave his sister a shy but friendly touch upon the shoulder as a complement to the handshaking, and left her.

Dr. Gurney was sitting by the log fire, alone in the room, and he merely glanced over his shoulder when his patient came in. He was not over fifty, in spite of Sheridan’s habitual “ole Doc Gurney.” He was gray, however, almost as thin as Bibbs, and nearly always he looked drowsy.

“Your father telephoned me yesterday afternoon, Bibbs,” he said, not rising. “Wants me to look you over again. Come around here in front of me⁠—between me and the fire. I