“Well, I clean forgot,” said Fleetwood; “what did I say, anyway? A man can’t always remember who’s divorced from who in this town.”
Harmon, whose civility to Selwyn had possibly been based on his desire for pleasant relations with Austin Gerard and the Arickaree Loan and Trust Company, looked at Fleetwood thoroughly vexed. But nobody could have suspected vexation in that high-boned smile which showed such very red lips through the blond beard.
Fane, too, smiled; his prominent soft brown eyes expressed gentlest good-humour, and he passed his hand reflectively over his unusually small and retreating chin. Perhaps he was thinking of the meeting in the Park that morning. It was amusing; but men do not speak of such things at their clubs, no matter how amusing. Besides, if the story were aired and were traced to him, Ruthven might turn ugly. There was no counting on Ruthven.
Meanwhile Selwyn, perplexed and worried, found young Erroll just entering the visitors’ room, and greeted him with nervous cordiality.
“If you can’t stay and dine with me,” he said, “I won’t put you down. You know, of course, I can only ask you once in a year, so we’ll stay here and chat a bit.”
“Right you are,” said young Erroll, flinging off his very new and very fashionable overcoat — a wonderfully handsome boy, with all the attraction that a quick, warm, impulsive manner carries. “And I say, Selwyn, it was awfully decent of you to—”
“Bosh! Friends are for that sort of thing, Gerald. Sit here—” He looked at the young man hesitatingly; but Gerald calmly took the matter out of his jurisdiction by nodding his order to the club attendant.
“Lord, but I’m tired,” he said, sinking back into a big arm-chair; “I was up till daylight, and then I had to be in the office by nine, and to-night Billy Fleetwood is giving — oh, something or other. By the way, the market isn’t doing a thing to the shorts! You’re not in, are you, Selwyn?”
“No, not that way. I hope you are not, either; are you, Gerald?”
“Oh, it’s all right,” replied the young fellow confidently; and raising his glass, he nodded at Selwyn with a smile.
“You were mighty nice to me, anyhow,” he said, setting his glass aside and lighting a cigar. “You see, I went to a dance, and after a while some of us cleared out, and Jack Ruthven offered us trouble; so half a dozen of us went there. I had the worst cards a man ever drew to a kicker. That was all about it.”
The boy was utterly unconscious that he was treading on delicate ground as he rattled on in his warmhearted, frank, and generous way. Totally oblivious that the very name of Ruthven must be unwelcome if not offensive to his listener, he laughed through a description of the affair, its thrilling episodes, and Mrs. Jack Ruthven’s blind luck in the draw.
“One moment,” interrupted Selwyn, very gently; “do you mind saying whether you banked my check and drew against it?”
“Why, no; I just endorsed it over.”
“To — to whom? — if I may venture—”
“Certainly,” he said, with a laugh; “to Mrs. Jack—” Then, in a flash, for the first time the boy realised what he was saying, and stopped aghast, scarlet to his hair.
Selwyn’s face had little colour remaining in it, but he said very kindly: “It’s all right, Gerald; don’t worry—”
“I’m a beast!” broke out the boy; “I beg your pardon a thousand times.”
“Granted, old chap. But, Gerald, may I say one thing — or perhaps two?”
“Go ahead! Give it to me good and plenty!”
“It’s only this: couldn’t you and I see one another a little oftener? Don’t be afraid of me; I’m no wet blanket. I’m not so very aged, either; I know something of the world — I understand something of men. I’m pretty good company, Gerald. What do you say?”
“I say, sure!” cried the boy warmly.
“It’s a go, then. And one thing more: couldn’t you manage to come up to the house a little oftener? Everybody misses you, of course; I think your sister is a trifle sensitive—”
“I will!” said Gerald, blushing. “Somehow I’ve had such a lot on hand — all day at the office, and something on every evening. I know perfectly well I’ve neglected Eily — and everybody. But the first moment I can find free—”
Selwyn nodded. “And last of all,” he said, “there’s something about my own affairs that I thought you might advise me on.”
Gerald, proud, enchanted, stood very straight; the older man continued gravely:
“I’ve a little capital to invest — not very much. Suppose — and this, I need not add, is in confidence between us — suppose I suggested to Mr. Neergard—”
“Oh,” cried young Erroll, delighted, “that is fine! Neergard would be glad enough. Why, we’ve got that Valleydale tract in shape now, and there are scores of schemes in the air — scores of them — important moves which may mean — anything!” he ended, excitedly.
“Then you think it would be all right — in case Neergard likes the idea?”
Gerald was enthusiastic. After a while they shook hands, it being time to separate. And for a long time Selwyn sat there alone in the visitors’ room, absent-eyed, facing the blazing fire of cannel coal.
How to be friends with this boy without openly playing the mentor; how to gain his confidence without appearing to seek it; how to influence him without alarming him! No; there was no great harm in him yet; only the impulse of inconsiderate youth; only an enthusiastic capacity for pleasure.
One thing was imperative — the boy must cut out his card-playing for stakes at once; and there was a way to accomplish that by impressing Gerald with the idea that to do anything behind Neergard’s back which he would not care to tell him about was a sort of treachery.
Who were these people, anyway, who would permit a boy of that age, and in a responsible position, to play for such stakes? Who were they to encourage such — ?
Selwyn’s tightening grasp on his chair suddenly relaxed; he sank back, staring at the brilliant coals. He, too, had forgotten.
Now he remembered, in humiliation unspeakable, in bitterness past all belief.
Time sped, and he sat there, motionless; and gradually the bitterness became less perceptible as he drifted, intent on drifting, back through the exotic sorcery of dead years — back into the sun again, where honour was bright and life was young — where all the world awaited happy conquest — where there was no curfew in the red evening glow; no end to day, because the golden light had turned to silver; but where the earliest hint of dawn was a challenge, and where every yellow star whispered “Awake!”
And out of the magic she had come into his world again!
Sooner or later he would meet her now. That was sure. When? Where? And of what significance was it, after all?
Whom did it concern? Him? Her? And what had he to say to her, after all? Or she to him?
Not one word.
About midnight he roused himself and picked up his hat and coat.
“Do you wish a cab, please?” whispered the club servant who held his coat; “it is snowing very hard, sir.”
CHAPTER III
UNDER THE ASHES
He had neither burned nor returned the photograph to Mrs. Ruthven. The prospect perplexed and depressed Selwyn.
He was sullenly aware that in a town where the divorced must ever be reckoned with when dance and dinner lists are made out, there is always some thoughtless hostess — and sometimes a mischievous one; and the chances were that he and Mrs. Jack Ruthven would collide, either through the forgetfulness or malice of somebody or, through sheer hazard, at some large affair where Destiny and Fate work busily together in criminal copartnership.
And he encountered her first at a masque and revel given by Mrs. Delmour-Carnes where Fate contrived that he should dance in the same set with his ci-devant wife before the unmasking, and where, unaware, they gaily exchanged salute and hand-clasp before the jolly mêlée of unmasking revealed how close together two people could come after parting for ever and a nig
ht at the uttermost ends of the earth.
When masks at last were off there was neither necessity nor occasion for the two surprised and rather pallid young people to renew civilities; but later, Destiny, the saturnine partner in the business, interfered; and some fool in the smoking room tried to introduce Selwyn to Ruthven. The slightest mistake on their parts would have rendered the incident ridiculous; and Ruthven made that mistake.
That was Selwyn’s first encounter with the Ruthvens. A short time afterward at the opera Gerald dragged him into a parterre to say something amiable to one of the débutante Craig girls — and Selwyn found himself again facing Alixe.
If there was any awkwardness it was not apparent, although they both knew that they were in full view of the house.
A cool bow and its cooler acknowledgment, a formal word and more formal reply; and Selwyn made his way to the corridor, hot with vexation, unaware of where he was going, and oblivious of the distressed and apologetic young man, who so contritely kept step with him through the brilliantly crowded promenade.
That was the second time — not counting distant glimpses in crowded avenues, in the Park, at Sherry’s, or across the hazy glitter of thronged theatres. But the third encounter was different.
It was all a mistake, born of the haste of a heedless and elderly matron, celebrated for managing to do the wrong thing, but who had been excessively nice to him that winter, and whose position in Manhattan was not to be assailed.
“Dear Captain Selwyn,” she wheezed over the telephone, “I’m short one man; and we dine at eight and it’s that now. Could you help me? It’s the rich and yellow, this time, but you won’t mind, will you?”
Selwyn, standing at the lower telephone in the hall, asked her to hold the wire a moment, and glanced up at his sister who was descending the stairs with Eileen, dinner having at that instant been announced.
“Mrs. T. West Minster — flying signals of distress,” he said, carefully covering the transmitter as he spoke; “man overboard, and will I kindly take a turn at the wheel?”
“What a shame!” said Eileen; “you are going to spoil the first home dinner we have had together in weeks!”
“Tell her to get some yellow pup!” growled Austin, from above.
“As though anybody could get a yellow pup when they whistle,” said Nina hopelessly.
“That’s true,” nodded Selwyn; “I’m the original old dog Tray. Whistle, and I come padding up. Ever faithful, you see.”
And he uncovered the transmitter and explained to Mrs. T. West Minster his absurd delight at being whistled at. Then he sent for a cab and sauntered into the dining-room, where he was received with undisguised hostility.
“She’s been civil to me,” he said; “jeunesse oblige, you know. And that’s why I—”
“There’ll be a lot of débutantes there! What do you want to go for, you cradle robber!” protested Austin— “a lot of water-bibbing, olive-eating, talcum-powdered débutantes—”
Eileen straightened up stiffly, and Selwyn’s teasing smile and his offered hand in adieu completed her indignation.
“Oh, good-bye! No, I won’t shake hands. There’s your cab, now. I wish you’d take Austin, too; Nina and I are tired of dining with the prematurely aged.”
“Indeed, we are,” said Mrs. Gerard; “go to your club, Austin, and give me a chance to telephone to somebody under the anesthetic age.”
Selwyn departed, laughing, but he yawned in his cab all the way to Fifty-third Street, where he entered in the wake of the usual laggards and, surrendering hat and coat in the cloak room, picked up the small slim envelope bearing his name.
The card within disclosed the information that he was to take in Mrs. Somebody-or-Other; he made his way through a great many people, found his hostess, backed off, stood on one leg for a moment like a reflective water-fowl, then found Mrs. Somebody-or-Other and was absently good to her through a great deal of noise and some Spanish music, which seemed to squirt through a thicket of palms and bespatter everybody.
“Wonderful music,” observed his dinner partner, with singular originality; “so like Carmen.”
“Is it?” he replied, and took her away at a nod from his hostess, whose daughter Dorothy leaned forward from her partner’s arm at the same moment, and whispered: “I must speak to you, mamma! You can’t put Captain Selwyn there because—”
But her mother was deaf and smilingly sensitive about it, so she merely guessed what reply her child expected: “It’s all settled, dear; Captain Selwyn arrived a moment ago.” And she closed the file.
It was already too late, anyhow; and presently, turning to see who was seated on his left, Selwyn found himself gazing into the calm, flushed face of Alixe Ruthven. It was their third encounter.
They exchanged a dazed nod of recognition, a meaningless murmur, and turned again, apparently undisturbed, to their respective dinner partners.
A great many curious eyes, lingering on them, shifted elsewhere, in reluctant disappointment.
As for the hostess, she had, for one instant, come as near to passing heavenward as she could without doing it when she discovered the situation. Then she accepted it with true humour. She could afford to. But her daughters, Sheila and Dorothy, suffered acutely, being of this year’s output and martyrs to responsibility.
Meanwhile, Selwyn, grimly aware of an accident somewhere, and perfectly conscious of the feelings which must by this time dominate his hostess, was wondering how best to avoid anything that might resemble a situation.
Instead of two or three dozen small tables, scattered among the palms of the winter garden, their hostess had preferred to construct a great oval board around the aquarium. The arrangement made it a little easier for Selwyn and Mrs. Ruthven. He talked to his dinner partner until she began to respond in monosyllables, which closed each subject that he opened and wearied him as much as he was boring her. But Bradley Harmon, the man on her right, evidently had better fortune; and presently Selwyn found himself with nobody to talk to, which came as near to embarrassing him as anything could, and which so enraged his hostess that she struck his partner’s name from her lists for ever. People were already glancing at him askance in sly amusement or cold curiosity.
Then he did a thing which endeared him to Mrs. T. West Minster and to her two disconsolate children.
“Mrs. Ruthven,” he said, very naturally and pleasantly, “I think perhaps we had better talk for a moment or two — if you don’t mind.”
She said quietly, “I don’t mind,” and turned with charming composure. Every eye shifted to them, then obeyed decency or training; and the slightest break in the gay tumult was closed up with chatter and laughter.
“Plucky,” said Sandon Craig to his fair neighbour; “but by what chance did our unfortunate hostess do it?”
“She’s usually doing it, isn’t she? What occupies me,” returned his partner, “is how on earth Alixe could have thrown away that adorable man for Jack Ruthven. Why, he is already trying to scramble into Rosamund Fane’s lap — the horrid little poodle! — always curled up on the edge of your skirt!”
She stared at Mrs. Ruthven across the crystal reservoir brimming with rose and ivory-tinted water-lilies.
“That girl is marked for destruction,” she said slowly; “the gods have done their work already.”
But whatever Alixe had been, whatever she now was, she showed to her little world only a pale brunette symmetry — a strange and changeless lustre, varying as little as the moon’s phases; and like that burnt-out planet, reflecting any flame that flared until her clear, young beauty seemed pulsating with the promise of hidden fire.
Selwyn, outwardly amiable and formal, was saying in a low voice: “My dinner partner is quite impossible, you see; and I happen to be here as a filler in — commanded to the presence only a few minutes ago. It’s a pardonable error; I bear no malice. But I’m sorry for you.”
There was a silence; Alixe straightened her slim figure, and turned; but young Innis, who had
taken her in, had become confidential with Mrs. Fane. As for Selwyn’s partner, she probably divined his conversational designs on her, but she merely turned her bare shoulder a trifle more unmistakably and continued her gossip with Bradley Harmon.
Alixe broke a tiny morsel from her bread, sensible of the tension.
“I suppose,” she said, as though reciting to some new acquaintance an amusing bit of gossip— “that we are destined to this sort of thing occasionally and had better get used to it.”
“I suppose so.”
“Please,” she added, after a pause, “aid me a little.”
“I will if I can. What am I to say?”
“Have you nothing to say?” she asked, smiling; “it need not be very civil, you know — as long as nobody hears you.”
To school his features for the deception of others, to school his voice and manner and at the same time look smilingly into the grave of his youth and hope called for the sort of self-command foreign to his character. Glancing at him under her smoothly fitted mask of amiability, she slowly grew afraid of the situation — but not of her ability to sustain her own part.
They exchanged a few meaningless phrases, then she resolutely took young Innis away from Rosamund Fane, leaving Selwyn to count the bubbles in his wine-glass.
But in a few moments, whether by accident or deliberate design, Rosamund interfered again, and Mrs. Ruthven was confronted with the choice of a squabble for possession of young Innis, of conspicuous silence, or of resuming once more with Selwyn. And she chose the last resort.
“You are living in town?” she asked pleasantly.
“Yes.”
“Of course; I forgot. I met a man last night who said you had entered the firm of Neergard & Co.”
“I have. Who was the man?”
“You can never guess, Captain Selwyn.”
“I don’t want to. Who was he?”
“Please don’t terminate so abruptly the few subjects we have in reserve. We may be obliged to talk to each other for a number of minutes if Rosamund doesn’t let us alone. . . . The man was ‘Boots’ Lansing.”
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 329