Page:Leon Wilson - Ruggles of Red Gap.djvu/301

Rh know. My impression was that the Honourable George had been sent to escort him to the Belknap-Jackson house."

"Well, that's what I thought, too, but I guess the Judge forgot it, or mebbe he thinks the guy will mix in better with Mis' Kenner's crowd. Anyway, there they was, and it probably didn't make any difference to the guy himself. He likely thought he could while away the tejum there as well as he could while it any place, all of them being such good scouts. And the Judge has certainly got a case on Mis' Kenner, so mebby she asked him to drop in with any friend of his. She's got him bridle-wise and broke to all gaits." He visibly groped for an illumining phrase. "He—he just looks at her."

The simple words fell upon my ears with a sickening finality. "He just looks at her." I had seen him "just look" at the typing-girl and at the Brixton milliner. All too fearfully I divined their preposterous significance. Beyond question a black infamy had been laid bare, but I made no effort to convey its magnitude to my guileless informant. As I left him he was mildly bemoaning his own lack of skill on the pianoforte.

"Darned if I don't wish I'd 'a' took some lessons on the piano myself like that guy done. It certainly does help to while away the tejum when you got friends in for the afternoon. But then I was just a hill-billy. Likely I couldn't have learned the notes good."

It was a half-hour later that I was called to the telephone to listen to the anguished accents of Belknap-Jackson.

"Have you heard it?" he called. I answered that I had.

"The man is a paranoiac. He should be at once confined in an asylum for the criminal insane."