Part 36 (1/2)
”What if it is?” she retorted; but her breath was coming quicker.
”I'll tell you; you can get up and ring him up and tell him you expect him to-night.”
She shook her head, eyeing him all the while.
”I won't do it, Jack. What do you want him for? He can't play with the people who play here; he doesn't know the rudiments of play. He's only a boy; his money is so tied up that he has to borrow if he loses very much. There's no sport in playing with a boy like that--”
”So you've said before, I believe, but I'm better qualified to judge than you are. Are you going to call him up?”
”No, I am not.”
He turned paler. ”Get up and go to that telephone!”
”You little whippet,” she said slowly, ”I was once a soldier's wife--the only decent thing I ever have been. This bullying ends now--here, at this instant! If you've any dirty work to do, do it yourself. I've done my share and I've finished.”
He was astonished; that was plain enough. But it was the sudden overwhelming access of fury that weakened him and made him turn, hand outstretched, blindly seeking for a chair. Rage, even real anger, were emotions he seldom had to reckon with, for he was a very tired and bored and burned-out gentleman, and vivid emotion was not good for his arteries, the doctors told him.
He found his chair, stood a moment with his back toward his wife, then very slowly let himself down into the chair and sat facing her. There was moisture on his soft, pallid skin, a nervous twitching of the under lip; he pa.s.sed one heavily ringed hand across his closely shaven jaw, still staring at her.
”I want to tell you something,” he said. ”You've got to stop your interference with my affairs, and stop it now.”
”I am not interested in your affairs,” she said unsteadily, still shaken by her own revolt, still under the shock of her own arousing to a resistance that had been long, long overdue. ”If you mean,” she went on, ”that the ruin of this boy is your affair, then I'll make it mine from this moment. I've told you that he shall not play; and he shall not. And while I'm about it I'll admit what you are preparing to accuse me of; I _did_ make Sandon Craig promise to keep away; I _did_ try to make that little fool Scott Innis promise, too; and when he wouldn't I informed his father... . And every time you try your dirty bucket-shop methods on boys like that, I'll do the same.”
He swore at her quite calmly; she smiled, shrugged, and, imprisoning her knees in her clasped hands, leaned back and looked at him.
”What a ninny I have been,” she said, ”to be afraid of you so long!”
A gleam crossed his faded eyes, but he let her remark pa.s.s for the moment. Then, when he was quite sure that violent emotion had been exhausted within him:
”Do you want your bills paid?” he asked. ”Because, if you do, Fane, Harmon & Co. are not going to pay them.”
”We are living beyond our means?” she inquired disdainfully.
”Not if you will be good enough to mind your business, my friend. I've managed this establishment on our winnings for two years. It's a detail; but you might as well know it. My a.s.sociation with Fane, Harmon & Co.
runs the Newport end of it, and nothing more.”
”What did you marry me for?” she asked curiously.
A slight colour came into his face: ”Because that d.a.m.ned Rosamund Fane lied about you.”
”Oh! ... You knew that in Manila? You'd heard about it, hadn't you--the Western timber-lands? Rosamund didn't mean to lie--only the t.i.tles were all wrong, you know... . And so you made a bad break, Jack; is that it?”
”Yes, that is it.”
”And it cost you a fortune, and me a--husband. Is that it, my friend?”
”I can afford you if you will stop your meddling,” he said coolly.