I
Ruyler had half promised to go to a dinner that night at the house ofJohn Gwynne, whose wife would chaperon his wife afterward to the last ofthe Assembly dances.
Gwynne was his English friend who had abandoned the ancient titleinherited untimely when he was making a reputation in the House ofCommons, and become an American citizen in California, where he had alarge ranch originally the property of an American grandmother. Hismigration had been justified in his own eyes by his ready adaptation tothe land of his choice and to the opportunities offered in the rebuildingof San Francisco after the earthquake and fire, as well as in therenovation of its politics. He had made his ranch profitable, read law asa stepping-stone to the political career, and had just been elected toCongress. Ruyler was one of his few intimate friends and had promised togo to this farewell dinner if possible. A place would be kept vacant forhim until the last minute.
Gwynne had married Isabel Otis[A], a Californian of distinguished beautyand abilities, whose roots were deep in San Francisco, although she had"run a ranch" in Sonoma County. The Gwynnes and the Thorntons untilRuyler met Helene had been the friends whose society he had sought mostin his rare hours of leisure, and he had spent many summer week-ends attheir country homes. He had hoped that the intimacy would deepen afterhis marriage, but Helene during the past year had gone almost exclusivelywith the younger set, the "dancing squad"; natural enough considering herage, but Ruyler would have expected a girl of so much intelligence, tosay nothing of her severe education, to have tired long since of thatartificial wing of society devoted solely to froth, and gravitatednaturally toward the best the city afforded. But she had appeared to likethe older women better at first than later, although she accepted theirinvitations to large dinners and dances.
[Footnote A: See "Ancestors."]
Ruyler made up his mind to attend this dinner at Gwynne's, and telephonedhis acceptance before he left Long's. Business or no business, he shouldbe his wife's bodyguard hereafter. There were blackmailers in society asout of it, and it was possible that his ubiquity would frighten them off.Whether to demand his wife's confidence or not he was undecided. Betterlet events determine.
II
When he arrived at home he went directly to Helene's room, but pausedwith his hand on the knob of the door. He heard his mother-in-law's voiceand she was the last person he wished to meet until he was in a positionto tell her to leave the country. He was turning away impatiently whenMadame Delano lifted her hard incisive tones.
"And you promised me!" she exclaimed passionately. "I trusted you, Inever believed--"
Price retreated hurriedly to his own room, and it was not until hehad taken a cold shower and was half dressed that he permittedhimself to think.
That wretch had known, then! It was she who had been blackmailing herdaughter. And the poor child had been afraid to confide in him, to askhim for money. No wonder her eyes had flashed at the prospect of afortune of her own....
An even less welcome ray illuminated his mind at this point. His wife wasnot unversed in the arts of dissimulation herself. True, she was Frenchand took naturally to diplomatic wiles; true, also, the instinct ofself-preservation in even younger members of a sex that man in hiscenturies of power had made, superficially, the weaker, was rarely inert.
What woman would wish her husband to know disgraceful ancestral secretswhich were no fault of hers? A much older woman would not be aboveentombing them, if the fates were kind. But it saddened him to think thathis wife should be rushed to maturity along the devious way. Poor child,he must win her confidence as quickly as his limping wits would permitand shift her burden to his own shoulders.
Having learned through the medium of the house telephone that hismother-in-law had departed, he knocked at his wife's door. She opened itat once and there was no mark of agitation on her little oval face underits proudly carried crown of heavy braids. She was looking very lovely ina severe black velvet gown whose texture and depth cunningly matched hereyes and threw into a relief as artful the white purity of her skin andthe delicate pink of lip and cheek.
She smiled at him brilliantly. "It can't be true that you aregoing with me?"
"I've reformed. I shall go with you everywhere from this time forth. ButI thought I heard your mother's voice when I came in--"
"She often comes in about dressing time to see me in a new frock. Howheavenly that you will always go with me." Her voice shook a little andshe leaned over to smooth a possible wrinkle in her girdle.
"Will you come down to the library? We are rather early."
He went directly to the safe and took out the ruby and clasped the chainabout her neck. The chain was long and the great jewel took a deeper andmore mysterious color from the somber background of her bodice.
Helene gasped. "Am I to wear it to-night? That would be too wonderful.This is the last great night in town."
"Why not? I shall be there to mount guard. You shall always wear it whenI am able to go out with you."
She lifted her radiant face, although it remained subtly immobile with anew and almost formal self-possession. "I am even more delighted than Iwas yesterday, for at the fete there will be so much novelty to distractattention. You always think of the nicest possible things."
When they were in the taxi he put his arm about her.
"I wonder," he began gropingly, "if you would mind not going out when Icannot go with you? I'll go as often as I can manage. There arereasons--"
He felt her light body grow rigid. "Reasons? You told me onlyyesterday--"
"I know. But I have been thinking it over. That is rather a fast lot yourun with. I know, of course, they are F.F.C.'s, and all the rest of it,but if I ever drove up to the Club House in Burlingame in the morning andsaw you sitting on the veranda smoking and drinking gin fizzes--"
"You never will! I could not swallow a gin fizz, or any nasty mixeddrink. And although I have had my cigarette after meals ever since I wasfifteen, I never smoke in public."
"I confess I cannot see you in the picture that rose for some perversereason in my mind; but--well, you really are too young to go about somuch without your husband--"
"I am always chaperoned to the large affairs. Mrs. Gwynne takes me to theFairmont to-night."
"I know. But scandal is bred in the marrow of San Francisco. Its socialhistory is founded upon it, and it is almost a matter of principle toreplace decaying props. Do you mind so much not going about unless I canbe with you?"
"No, of course not." Her voice was sweet and submissive, but her body didnot relax. She added graciously: "After all, there are so many luncheons,and we often dance in the afternoon."
He had not thought of that! What avail to guard her merely in theevening? It was not her life that was in danger....
And he seemed as immeasurably far from obtaining her confidence asbefore. He had always understood that the ways of matrimonial diplomacywere strewn with pitfalls and wished that some one had opened a schoolfor married men before his time.
He made another clumsy attempt. The cab was swift and had almost coveredthe long distance between the Western Addition and Russian Hill. "Otherthings have worried me. You are so generous. Society here as elsewherehas its parasites, its dead beats, trying to limp along by borrowing,gambling, 'amusing,' doing dirty work of various sorts. It has worried melest one or more of these creatures may have tried to impose on you withhard luck tales--borrow--"
She laughed hysterically. "Price, you are too funny! I do lendoccasionally--to the girls, when their allowance runs out before thefirst of the month; but I don't know any dead beats."
He plunged desperately. "Your mother's voice sounded rather agitated forher. Of course I did not stop to listen, but it occurred to me that shemay have been gambling in stocks, or have got into some bad land deal.She is so confoundedly close-mouthed--if she wants money send her to me."
Helene sat very straight. Her little aquiline profile against the passingstreet lights was as aloof as imperial features on an ancient coin.
"Really, Price, I don't think you can be as busy as you pretend if youhave time to indulge in such flights of imagination. Maman has nevertried to borrow a penny of me, and she is the last person on earth togamble in stocks or any thing else. Or to buy land except on expertadvice. I think she has given up that idea, anyhow. She said this eveningshe thought it was time for her to visit our people in Rouen."
"Oh, she did! Helene, I must tell you frankly that I heard her reproachyou for having broken a promise, and she spoke with deep feeling."
It was possible that the Roman profile turned white, but in the dusk ofthe car he could not be sure. His wife, however, merely shrugged hershoulders and replied calmly:
"My dear Price, if that has worried you, why didn't you say so at once? Iam rather ashamed to tell you, all the same. Maman has been at me latelyto persuade you to let her have the ruby for a week. She is dreadfullysuperstitious, poor maman, and is convinced it would bring her sometremendous good fortune--"
"I have never met a woman who, I could swear, was freer fromsuperstition--"
Price closed his lips angrily. Of what use to tax her feminine defensesfurther? He had known her long enough to be sure she would rather tellthe truth than lie. It was evident that she had no intention of loweringher barriers, and he must play the game from the other end: get the proofhe needed and engineer his mother-in-law out of the United States.
Some time, however, he would have it out with his wife. Being a businessman and always alert to outwit the other man, he wanted neither intriguenor mystery in his home, but a serene happiness founded upon perfectconfidence. He found it impossible to remain appalled or angry at hiswife's readiness of resource in guarding a family secret that must haveshocked the youth in her almost out of existence.
He patted her hand, and felt its chill within the glove.
"It was like you never to have mentioned it," he murmured. "For, ofcourse, it is quite impossible."
"That is what I told her decidedly to-night, and I do not think she willask again. It hurts me to refuse dear maman anything. Her devotion to mehas been wonderful--but wonderful," she added on a defiant note.
"A mother's devotion, particularly to a girl of your sort, does not makeany call upon my exclamation points. But here we are."
* * * * *
The car rolled up the graded driveway Gwynne had built for the old SanFrancisco house that before his day had been approached by an almostperpendicular flight of wooden steps. They were late and the companyhad assembled: the Thorntons, Trennahans, and eight or ten youngpeople, all of whom would be chaperoned by the married women to thedance at the Fairmont.
Russian Hill had escaped the fire, but Nob Hill had been burnt down toits bones, and the Thorntons and Trennahans had not rebuilt, preferring,like many others, to live the year round in their country homes and usethe hotels in winter.
The moment Helene entered the drawing-room it was evident that the rubywas to make as great a sensation as the soul of woman could desire. Eventhe older people flocked about her and the girls were frank and shrill intheir astonishment and rapture.
"Helene! Darling! The duckiest thing--I never saw anything so perfectlydandy and wonderful! I'd go simply mad! Do, just let me touch it! Icould eat it!"
Mrs. Thornton, who at any time scorned to conceal envy, or pretendindifference, looked at the great burning stone with a sigh and turned toher husband.
"Why didn't you manage to get it for me?" she demanded. "It would be farmore suitable--a magnificent stone like that!--on me than on that baby."
"My darling," murmured Ford anxiously, "I never laid eyes on the thingbefore, or on one like it. I'll find out where Ruyler got it, and try--"
"Do you suppose I'd come out with a duplicate? You should have thought ofit years ago. You always promised to take me to India."
"It should be on you!" He gazed at her adoringly. Her hair was dressedin a high and stately fashion to-night. She wore a gown of gold brocadeand a necklace and little tiara of emeralds and diamonds; she waslooking very handsome and very regal. Thornton was a thin, dark, nervouswisp of a man, who had borne his share of the burdens laid upon his cityin the cataclysm of 1906, but if his wife had demanded an enormoushistoric ruby he would have done his best to gratify her. But how thedeuce could a man--
Mrs. Gwynne was holding the stone in her hand and smiling into itsflaming depths without envy. She was one of those women of dazzling whiteskin, black hair and blue eyes, who, when wise, never wear any jewels butpearls. She wore the Gwynne pearls to-night and a shimmering white gown.
Ruyler glanced round the fine old room with the warm feeling ofsatisfaction he always experienced at a San Francisco function, where thewomen were almost as invariably pretty as they were gay and friendly. Hedid not like the younger men he met on these occasions as well as he didmany of the older ones; the serious ones would not waste their time onsociety, and there were too many of the sort who were asked everywherebecause they had made a cult of fashion, whether they could afford it ornot. A few were the sons of wealthy parents, and were more dissipatedthan those obliged to "hold down" a job that provided them with moneyenough above their bare living expenses to make them useful andpresentable.
Ruyler looked upon both sorts as cumberers of the earth, and onlytolerated them in his own house when his wife gave a party and dancingmen must be had at any price.
There was one man here to-night for whom he had always held particulardetestation. His name was Nicolas Doremus. He was a broker in a smallway, but Ruyler guessed that he made the best part of his income atbridge, possibly poker. He lived with two other men in a handsomeapartment in one of the new buildings that were changing the old skylineof San Francisco. His dancing teas and suppers were admirably appointedand the most exclusive people went to them.
Ruyler knew his history in a general way. His father had made a fortunein "Con. Virginia" in the Seventies, and his mother for a few years hadbeen the social equal of the women who now patronized her son. Butunfortunately the gambling microbe settled down in Harry Doremus' veins,and shortly after his son was born he engaged his favorite room at theCliff House and blew out his brains. His wife was left with a largehouse, which as a last act of grace he had forborne to mortgage and madeover to her by deed. She immediately advertised for boarders, and as hercooking was excellent and she had the wit to drop out of society and giveher undivided attention to business, she prospered exceedingly.
She concentrated her ambitions upon her only child; sent him to a privateschool patronized by the sons of the wealthy, and herself taught himevery ingratiating social art. She wanted him to go to college, but bythis time "Nick" was nineteen and as highly developed a snob as hermaternal heart had planned. Knowing that he must support himselfeventually, he was determined to begin his business career at once, andbelieved, with some truth, that there was a prejudice in this broad fieldagainst college men. He entered the brokerage firm of a bachelor who hadoccupied Mrs. Doremus' best suite for fifteen years, and made asatisfactory clerk, the while he cultivated his mother's old friends.
When Mrs. Doremus died he sold the house and good will for a considerablesum, and, combining it with her respectable savings, formed a partnershipwith two other young fellows, whose fathers were rich, but old-fashionedenough to insist that their sons should work. Nick did most of the work.His partners, during the rainy season, sat with their feet on theradiator and read the popular magazines, and in fine weather upheld theoutdoor traditions of the state.
The firm had a slender patronage, as Ruyler happened to know, but Doremuswas a member of the Pacific Union Club, and although he dined out everynight, he must have spent six or seven thousand a year. It was amiablyassumed that his social services,--he played and sang and oftenentertained exacting groups throughout an entire evening--his fetchingand carrying for one rich old lady, accounted for his ability to keep outof debt and pay for his many extravagances; but Ruyler knew that he wasprincipally esteemed at the small green table, and he vaguely recalled ashe looked over his head to-night that he had heard disconnected murmursof less honorable sources of revenue.
As Ruyler turned away with a frown he met Gwynne's eyes traveling fromthe same direction. "I didn't ask him," he said apologetically. "Hate mentoo well dressed. Looks as if he posed for tailors' ads in the weeklies.Never could stand the social parasite anyhow, but Aileen Lawton askedIsabel to let her bring him, as they are going to open the ball to-nightwith some new kind of turkey trot.
"Glad I'm off for Washington. California's the greatest place on earth inthe dry season, but I'd have passed few winters here if it hadn't beenfor the work we all had to do, and even then it would have been heavygoing without my wife's companionship."
Ruyler sighed. Should he ever enjoy his wife's companionship? And intowhat sort of woman would she develop if forced along crooked ways by uglysecrets, blackmail, perpetual lying and deceit? He longed impatiently forthe decisive interview with Spaulding on the morrow. Then, at least hecould prepare for action, and, after all, even of more importance nowthan winning his wife's confidence and saving her from mental anguish,was the averting of a scandal that would echo across the continentstraight into the ears of his half-reconciled father.
IV
It was about halfway through dinner that the primitive man in him routedevery variety of apprehension that had tormented him since two o'clockthat afternoon.
Trennahan, another distinguished New Yorker, who had made his home inCalifornia for many years, had taken in Mrs. Gwynne, and his SpanishCalifornia wife sat at the foot of the table with the host. Ford hadbeen given a lively girl, Aileen Lawton, to dissipate the financialanxieties of the day, and, to Ruyler's satisfaction, Mrs. Thornton hadfallen to his lot and he sat on the left of Isabel. In this little groupat the head of the table, his chosen intimates, who were more interestedin the affairs of the world than in Consummate California, Ruyler hadforgotten his wife for a time and had not noticed with whom she had gonein to dinner.
But during an interval when Mrs. Thornton's attention had been capturedby the man on her right, and the others drawn into a discussion overthe merits of the new mayor, Price became aware that Doremus sat besidehis wife halfway down the table on the opposite side, and that theywere talking, if not arguing, in a low tone, oblivious for the momentof the company.
The deferential bend was absent from the neck of the adroit socialexplorer, his head was alertly poised above the lovely young matron whosebeauty, wealth, and foreign personality, to say nothing of the importanceof her husband, gave her something of the standing of royalty in thearistocratic little republic of San Francisco Society. There was a vaguethreat in that poise, as if at any moment venom might dart down andstrike that drooping head with its crown of blue-black braids. SuddenlyHelene lifted her eyes, full of appeal, to the round pale blue orbs thatat this moment openly expressed a cold and ruthless mind.
Ruyler endeavored to piece together those disconnected whispers--lettersdiscovered or stolen--blackmail--but such whispers were too often thewhiffs from energetic but empty minds, always floating about and neverseeming to bring any culprit to book.
Had this man got hold of his wife's secret?
But this merely sequacious thought was promptly routed. The young man,who was undeniably good looking and was rumored to possess a certain coldcharm for women--although, to be sure, the wary San Francisco heiress hadso far been impervious to it--was now leaning over Mrs. Price Ruyler witha coaxing possessive air, and the appeal left Helene's eyes as she smiledcoquettishly and began to talk with her usual animation; but still in atone that was little more than a murmur.
She moved her shoulder closer to the man she evidently was bent uponfascinating, and her long eyelashes swept up and down while her blackeyes flashed and her pink color deepened.
There was a faint amusement mixed with Doremus' habitual air of amiabledeference, and somewhat more of assurance, but he was as absorbed asHelene and had no eyes for Janet Maynard, on his left, whose fortune raninto millions.
For a moment Ruyler, who had kept his nerve through several years ofracking strain which, even an American is seldom called upon to survive,wondered if he were losing his mind. To business and all its fluctuationsand even abnormalities, he had been bred; there was probably no conditionpossible in the world of finance and commerce which could shatter hisself-possession, cloud his mental processes. But his personal life hadbeen singularly free of storms. Even his emotional upheaval, when he hadfallen completely in love for the first time, had lacked that torment ofuncertainty which might have played a certain havoc, for a time, withthose quick unalterable decisions of the business hour; and even hisengagement had only lasted a month.
It was true that during the past six months he had worried off and onabout the shadow that had fallen upon his wife's spirits and affected hisown, but, when he had had time to think of it, before yesterday morning,he had assumed it was due to some phase of feminine psychology which hehad never mastered. That she could be interested in another man never hadcrossed his mind, in spite of his passing flare of jealousy. She wasstill passionately in love with, him, for all her vagaries--or so he hadthought--
Ruyler was conscious of a riotous confusion of mind that really made himapprehensive. Had he witnessed that scene on the dummy--thisafternoon?--it seemed a long while ago--had he heard those portentouswords of his mother-in-law to his wife?--had they meant that she hadwarned her daughter against the bad blood in her veins, extracted apromise--broken!--to walk in the narrow way of the dutifulwife--mercifully spared by a fortunate marriage the terrible temptationsof the older woman's youth? Had Helene confessed ... in desperate need ofhelp, advice? ... Doremus was just the bounder to compromise a woman andthen blackmail her.... Good God! What was it?
For all his mental turmoil he realized that here alone was the onlypossible menace to his life's happiness. His mother-in-law's past was abitter pill for a proud man to swallow, and there was even thepossibility of his wife's illegitimacy, but, after all, those werematters belonging to the past, and the past quickly receded to limbothese days.
Even an open scandal, if some one of the offal sheets of San Franciscogot hold of the story and published it, would be forgotten in time. Butthis--if his wife had fallen in love with another man--and women had nodiscrimination where love was concerned--(if a decent chap got a lovelygirl it was mainly by luck; the rotters got just as good)--then indeed hewas in the midst of disaster without end. The present was chaos and thefuture a blank. He'd enlist in the first war and get himself shot....
Helene had a charming light coquetry, wholly French, and she exercised itindiscriminately, much to the delight of the old beaux, for she loved toplease, to be admired; she had an innocent desire that all men shouldthink her quite beautiful and irresistible. Even her husband had neverseen her in an unbecoming deshabille; she coquetted with himshamelessly, whenever she was not too gloriously serious and intent onlyupon making him happy. Until lately--
This was by no means her ordinary form.
He had come upon too many couples in remote corners of conservatories,had been a not unaccomplished principal in his own day ... there was,beyond question, some deep understanding between her and this man.
Suddenly Ruyler's gaze burned through to his wife's consciousness. Shemoved her eyes to his, flushed to her hair, then for a moment lookedalmost gray. But she recovered herself immediately and further showed herremarkable powers of self-possession by turning back to her partner andtalking to him with animation instead of plunging into conversation withthe man on her right.
At the same moment Ruyler became subtly aware that Mrs. Thornton waslooking at his wife and Doremus, and as his eyes focused he saw her long,thin, mobile mouth curl and her eyes fill with open disdain. The mist inhis brain fled as abruptly as an inland fog out in the bay before one ofthe sudden winds of the Pacific. In any case, his mind hardly could haveremained in a state of confusion for long; but that his young wife wasbeing openly contemned by the cleverest as well as the most powerfulwoman in San Francisco was enough to restore his equilibrium in a flash.Whatever his wife's indiscretions, it was his business to protect heruntil such time as he had proof of more than indiscretion. And in thisinstance he should be his own detective.
He turned to Mrs. Thornton.
"Going on to the Fairmont?" he asked.
"Oh, yes, I have a new gown--have you admired it? Arrived from Paris lastnight--and I am chaperoning two of these girls. You are not, of course?"
"I did intend to, but it's no go. Still, I may drop in late and take mywife home--"
"Let me take her home." Was his imagination morbid, or was theresomething both peremptory and eager in Mrs. Thornton's tones? "I'mstopping at the Fairmont, of course, but Fordy and I often take a driveafter a hot night and a heavy supper."
"If you would take her home in case I miss it. I must go to the office--"
"I'd like to. That's settled." This time her tones were warm andfriendly. Ruyler knew that Mrs. Thornton did not like his wife, but herfriendliness toward him, since her return from Europe three or fourmonths ago, had increased, if anything. His mind was now working with itsaccustomed keen clarity. He recalled that there had been no surprisemixed with the contempt in her regard of his wife and Doremus.... He alsorecalled that several times of late when he had met her at theFairmont--where he often lunched with a group of men--she had regardedhim with a curious considering glance, which he suddenly vocalized as:"How long?"
This affair had been going on for some time, then. Either it was commontalk, or some circumstance had enlightened Mrs. Thornton alone.
He glanced around the table. No one appeared to be taking the slightestnotice of one of many flirtations. At least, whatever his wife'sinfatuation, he could avert gossip. Mrs. Thornton might be a tigress, butshe was not a cat.
"When do you go down to Burlingame?" she asked.
"Not for two or three weeks yet. I don't fancy merely sleeping in thecountry. But by that time things will ease up a bit and I can get downevery day in time to have a game of golf before dinner."
"Shall Mrs. Ruyler migrate with the rest?"
"Hardly."
"It will be dull for her in town. No reflections on your charmingsociety, but of course she does not get much of it, and she will miss heryoung friends. After all, she is a child and needs playmates."
Ruyler darted at her a sharp look, but she was smiling amiably. Doremusand the men he lived with, in town had a bungalow at Burlingame and theybought their commutation tickets at precisely the fashionable moment."She will stay in town," he said shortly. "She needs a rest, and SanFrancisco is the healthiest spot on earth."
"But trying to the nerves when what we inaccurately call the trade windsbegin. Why not let her stay with me? Of course she would be lonely in herown house, and is too young to stay there alone anyhow, but I'd like toput her up, and you certainly could run down week-ends--possibly oftener.American men are always obsessed with the idea that they are twice asbusy as they really are."
"You are too good. I'll put it up to Helene. Of course it is for her todecide. I'd like it mighty well." But grateful as he was, his uneasinessdeepened at her evident desire to place her forces at his disposal.