Part 6 (1/2)

She is so confoundedly close-mouthed--if she wants money send her to me.”

Helene sat very straight. Her little aquiline profile against the pa.s.sing street 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 you have time to indulge in such flights of imagination. Maman has never tried to borrow a penny of me, and she is the last person on earth to gamble in stocks or any thing else. Or to buy land except on expert advice. I think she has given up that idea, anyhow. She said this evening she 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 reproach you for having broken a promise, and she spoke with deep feeling.”

It was possible that the Roman profile turned white, but in the dusk of the car he could not be sure. His wife, however, merely shrugged her shoulders and replied calmly:

”My dear Price, if that has worried you, why didn't you say so at once? I am rather ashamed to tell you, all the same. Maman has been at me lately to persuade you to let her have the ruby for a week. She is dreadfully superst.i.tious, poor maman, and is convinced it would bring her some tremendous good fortune--”

”I have never met a woman who, I could swear, was freer from superst.i.tion--”

Price closed his lips angrily. Of what use to tax her feminine defenses further? He had known her long enough to be sure she would rather tell the truth than lie. It was evident that she had no intention of lowering her barriers, and he must play the game from the other end: get the proof he 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 business man and always alert to outwit the other man, he wanted neither intrigue nor mystery in his home, but a serene happiness founded upon perfect confidence. He found it impossible to remain appalled or angry at his wife's readiness of resource in guarding a family secret that must have shocked 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, of course, it is quite impossible.”

”That is what I told her decidedly to-night, and I do not think she will ask again. It hurts me to refuse dear maman anything. Her devotion to me has been wonderful--but wonderful,” she added on a defiant note.

”A mother's devotion, particularly to a girl of your sort, does not make any call upon my exclamation points. But here we are.”

The car rolled up the graded driveway Gwynne had built for the old San Francisco house that before his day had been approached by an almost perpendicular flight of wooden steps. They were late and the company had a.s.sembled: the Thorntons, Trennahans, and eight or ten young people, all of whom would be chaperoned by the married women to the dance at the Fairmont.

Russian Hill had escaped the fire, but n.o.b Hill had been burnt down to its bones, and the Thorntons and Trennahans had not rebuilt, preferring, like many others, to live the year round in their country homes and use the hotels in winter.

The moment Helene entered the drawing-room it was evident that the ruby was to make as great a sensation as the soul of woman could desire. Even the older people flocked about her and the girls were frank and shrill in their astonishment and rapture.

”Helene! Darling! The duckiest thing--I never saw anything so perfectly dandy and wonderful! I'd go simply mad! Do, just let me touch it! I could eat it!”

Mrs. Thornton, who at any time scorned to conceal envy, or pretend indifference, looked at the great burning stone with a sigh and turned to her husband.

”Why didn't you manage to get it for me?” she demanded. ”It would be far more suitable--a magnificent stone like that!--on me than on that baby.”

”My darling,” murmured Ford anxiously, ”I never laid eyes on the thing before, 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 of it years ago. You always promised to take me to India.”

”It should be on you!” He gazed at her adoringly. Her hair was dressed in a high and stately fas.h.i.+on to-night. She wore a gown of gold brocade and a necklace and little tiara of emeralds and diamonds; she was looking very handsome and very regal. Thornton was a thin, dark, nervous wisp of a man, who had borne his share of the burdens laid upon his city in the cataclysm of 1906, but if his wife had demanded an enormous historic ruby he would have done his best to gratify her. But how the deuce could a man--

Mrs. Gwynne was holding the stone in her hand and smiling into its flaming depths without envy. She was one of those women of dazzling white skin, black hair and blue eyes, who, when wise, never wear any jewels but pearls. She wore the Gwynne pearls to-night and a s.h.i.+mmering white gown.

Ruyler glanced round the fine old room with the warm feeling of satisfaction he always experienced at a San Francisco function, where the women were almost as invariably pretty as they were gay and friendly. He did not like the younger men he met on these occasions as well as he did many of the older ones; the serious ones would not waste their time on society, and there were too many of the sort who were asked everywhere because they had made a cult of fas.h.i.+on, whether they could afford it or not. A few were the sons of wealthy parents, and were more dissipated than those obliged to ”hold down” a job that provided them with money enough above their bare living expenses to make them useful and presentable.

Ruyler looked upon both sorts as c.u.mberers of the earth, and only tolerated them in his own house when his wife gave a party and dancing men must be had at any price.

There was one man here to-night for whom he had always held particular detestation. His name was Nicolas Doremus. He was a broker in a small way, but Ruyler guessed that he made the best part of his income at bridge, possibly poker. He lived with two other men in a handsome apartment in one of the new buildings that were changing the old skyline of San Francisco. His dancing teas and suppers were admirably appointed and the most exclusive people went to them.