Flaming Youth

CHAPTER XXXII

"Go on, Pat."

"Aren't you shocked?" Her eyes darted up at him, at once supplicating and defiant, from out the tangle of her vagrant hair.

"Not a bit. We doctors don't judge. We help."

"Oh, Bobs! You are divine. I want to know—it's awfully hard to put it—to know whether—if he'll know—when we're married."

"He?" Osterhout groped in a murk of bewilderment. "Who?"

"Monty, of course. Don't be dumb."

"Monty? Isn't Monty the man?"

"Oh, no!"

For the moment Osterhout was startled clean out of his professional attitude. "Who is?" he said sternly.

Instantly Pat was mutinous. "I won't tell you."

"I'm sorry I asked it. It's none of your doctor's affair who he is. You want me to tell you whether your husband, when you marry, will know that you have had experience before."

"Yes," answered Pat under her breath.

"I'll answer you as I always answer that question."

"Always! Have you had it asked you before?"

[Pg 304]
A slight, melancholy, tolerant smile lifted the corners of the strong mouth. "My dear, every doctor who has had among his patients specimens of the modern, high-strung girl has had that problem put up to him. The answer is simple; no, he won't know—unless you tell him."

She drew a soft breath of relief, but almost at once her face darkened, as the import of his last words made its way to her quick sensitiveness. "Do you want me to tell him?"

"That is not a question for a physician to answer."

Pat stamped her foot. "Stop being one, then. Be Bobs again. Shall I tell him, Bobs?"

"Has he ever told you anything of that nature?"

"No. Perhaps there isn't anything to tell. Though I don't suppose he's exactly one of them dam' virgins. What do you know about him?"

Osterhout gave himself full time to debate the answer within himself before responding. "There was a raid last year on a notorious roadhouse near here. Several of our best youth—if you reckon them by family—were caught. Montgomery Standish was one of them."

"Ugh!" shuddered Pat. "A vile joint like that! Why didn't you tell me before, Bobs?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "You'd have to go pretty wide of your own set to find a boy with a clean record. Monty is no worse than the rest."

"What beasts men are!"

"He might say, if he knew anything: 'What crooks girls are!'"

"You don't mean that it's the same thing," said Pat beneath her breath. "He goes to a rotten place, probably drunk——"

"Undoubtedly."

"And—and—— Oh, it makes me sick to think of it! It[Pg 305] isn't the same. I may have been a silly little fool, but—oh, Bobs! Can't you understand?"

"Who was the man, Bambina?"

At the old term of affection her face softened. "Can't you guess, Bobs, dear?" she whispered.

A blinding, burning illumination lighted up his memory of a hundred small, vitally significant facts, against which the sudden certainty stood forth, black and stark.

"Cary Scott, by God!"

Pat's face was set. Her eyes, sombre but fearless, answered him.

"The damned scoundrel!"