Part 16 (2/2)

”Only the other day.”

”Well, she ought to have told you long ago. I believe you'd have kept out if you'd known.”

”Wouldn't I? But of course she hated to tell the truth to me--”

”Well, if I'd known that you didn't know I'd have told you, all right. I wormed it out of Dad soon after you arrived, and at first I thought it was a good joke on Society, to say nothing of Price Ruyler, with his air of G.o.d having created heaven first, maybe, but New York just after. Then I got fond of you and I wouldn't have told for the world. But I would have put you on your guard if I'd known.”

”Oh, it doesn't matter. Even if Price doesn't find out about this, if he learns the other--who my father was, and that awful men have recognized my mother--I suppose he'll hate me, and in time I'll go back to Rouen--”

”Now, you don't think as ill as that of him, do you? He makes me so mad sometimes I could spit in his face, but if he's one thing he's true blue.

He's the straight masculine type with a streak of old romance that would make him love a woman the more, the sorrier he was for her, and the weaker she was--I mean so long as she was young. After this, just get to work on your character, kid. When you're thirty maybe he won't feel that it's his whole duty to protect you. You'll never be hard and seasoned like me, nor able to take care of yourself. I like danger, and excitement, and uncertainty, and mystery, and intrigue, and lying, and wriggling out of tight places. I'd have gone mad in this hole long ago, if I hadn't, for I don't care for sport. But you were intended to develop into what is called a 'fine woman,' surrounded by the right sort of man meanwhile. And Price Ruyler is the right sort. I'll say that much for him. He'd have driven me to drink, but he's just your sort--”

”And what am I doing? I am the most degraded woman in the world.”

”Oh, no, you're not. Not by a long sight. You don't know how much worse you could be. One woman who is here to-night I saw lying dead drunk in the road between San Mateo and Burlingame the other day when I was driving with Alice Thornd.y.k.e, and Alice is having her fourth or fifth lover, I forget which--”

”They are no worse than I.”

”Listen. He's coming. Got it ready?”

”I can't.”

”You must. He'll hound you in the _Merry Tattler_ until the whole town knows you're a welcher, and not a soul would speak to you. That is the one unpardonable sin--”

”I wish I'd told Price--”

”Oh, no, you don't. This is just a lovely way out. Glad he had the inspiration. h.e.l.lo, Nick.”

A man had groped his way between the trees and stood just under the window.

”What are you doing here?” asked Doremus sourly.

”Witness, witness, my dear Nick. Besides, poor Helene never would have come alone, so there you are.”

”To h.e.l.l with all this melodramatic business. It could have been done anywhere--”

”Not much. Dark corners for dark doings.”

”Well, hand it over.”

Ruyler had given his brain an icy shower bath as soon as he heard his wife's voice, and was now as cool and alert as even the detective could have wished. He did not wait for the promised impulse to his elbow; his hand shot up just ahead of Doremus's and closed over his wife's hand, which, he felt at once, held the ruby. At the same moment Spaulding caught Doremus by his medieval collar and shook him until the man's teeth chattered, then he slapped his face and kicked him.

”Now, you,” he said standing over the panting man, who was mopping his bleeding nose, and holding the electric torch so that it would s.h.i.+ne on his own face. ”You get out of California, d'you hear? You're a gambler and a blackmailer and a panderer to old women, and I've got some evidence that would drag you into court however it turned out, so's you'd find this town a live gridiron. So, git, while you can. Go while the going's good.”

Doremus, too shaken to reply, slunk off, and Spaulding after a glance upward, left as silently.

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