Chapter 29
"What 'doings'?" he inquired.
"Mr. Erroll's, sir. Last night he evidentially found difficulty with the stairs and I seen him asleep on the parlour sofa when I come down to answer the milkman, a-smokin' a cigar that wasn't lit, with his feet on the angelus."
"I'm very, very sorry, Mrs. Greeve," he said--"and so is Mr. Erroll. He and I had a little talk to-day, and I am sure that he will be more careful hereafter."
"There is cigar-holes burned into the carpet," insisted Mrs. Greeve, "and a mercy we wasn't all insinuated in our beds, one window-pane broken and the gas a blue an' whistlin' streak with the curtains blowin'
into it an' a strange cat on to that satin dozy-do; the proof being the repugnant perfume."
"All of which," said Selwyn, "Mr. Erroll will make every possible amends for. He is very young, Mrs. Greeve, and very much ashamed, I am sure. So please don't make it too hard for him."
She stood, little slippered feet planted st.u.r.dily in the first position in dancing, fat, bare arms protruding from the kimona, her work-stained fingers linked together in front of her. With a soiled thumb she turned a ring on her third finger.
"I ain't a-goin' to be mean to n.o.body," she said; "my gentlemen is always refined, even if they do sometimes forget theirselves when young and sporty. Mr. Erroll is now a-bed, sir, and asleep like a cherub, ice havin' been served three times with towels, extra. Would you be good enough to mention the bill to him in the morning?--the grocer bein'
sniffy." And she handed the wadded and inky memorandum of damages to Selwyn, who pocketed it with a nod of a.s.surance.
"There was," she added, following him to the door, "a lady here to see you twice, leavin' no name or intentions otherwise than business affairs of a pressin' nature."
"A--lady?" he repeated, halting short on the stairs.
"Young an' refined, allowin' for a automobile veil."
"She--she asked for me?" he repeated, astonished.
"Yes, sir. She wanted to see your rooms. But havin' no orders, Captain Selwyn--although I must say she was that polite and ladylike and," added Mrs. Greeve irrelevantly, "a art rocker come for you, too, and another for Mr. Lansing, which I placed in your respective settin'-rooms."
"Oh," said Selwyn, laughing in relief, "it's all right, Mrs. Greeve. The lady who came is my sister, Mrs. Gerard; and whenever she comes you are to admit her whether or not I am here."
"She said she might come again," nodded Mrs. Greeve as he mounted the stairs; "am I to show her up any time she comes?"
"Certainly--thank you," he called back--"and Mr. Gerard, too, if he calls."
He looked into Boots's room as
"Come in, Phil," he called out; "and look at the d.i.n.ky chair somebody sent me!" But Selwyn shook his head.
"Come into my rooms when you're ready," he said, and closed the door again, smiling and turning away toward his own quarters.
Before he entered, however, he walked the length of the hall and cautiously tried the handle of Gerald's door. It yielded; he lighted a match and gazed at the sleeping boy where he lay very peacefully among his pillows. Then, without a sound, he reclosed the door and withdrew to his apartment.
As he emerged from the bedroom in his dressing-gown he heard the front door-bell below peal twice, but paid no heed, his attention being concentrated on the chair which Nina had sent him. First he walked gingerly all around it, then he ventured nearer to examine it in detail, and presently he tried it.
"Of course," he sighed--"bless her heart!--it's a perfectly impossible chair. It squeaks, too." But he was mistaken; the creak came from the old stairway outside his door, weighted with the tread of Mrs. Greeve.
The tread and the creaking ceased; there came a knock, then heavy descending footsteps on the aged stairway, every separate step protesting until the incubus had sunk once more into the depths from which it had emerged.
As this happened to be the night for his laundry, he merely called out, "All right!" and remained incurious, seated in the new chair and striving to adjust its stiff and narrow architecture to his own broad shoulders. Finally he got up and filled his pipe, intending to try the chair once more under the most favourable circ.u.mstances.
As he lighted his pipe there came a hesitating knock at the door; he jerked his head sharply; the knock was repeated.
Something--a faintest premonition--the vaguest stirring of foreboding committed him to silence--and left him there motionless. The match burned close to his fingers; he dropped it and set his heel upon the sparks.
Then he walked swiftly to the door, flung it open full width--and stood stock still.
And Mrs. Ruthven entered the room, partly closing the door behind, her gloved hand still resting on the k.n.o.b.
For a moment they confronted one another, he tall, rigid, astounded; she pale, supple, relaxing a trifle against the half-closed door behind her, which yielded and closed with a low click.
At the sound of the closing door he found his voice; it did not resemble his own voice either to himself or to her; but she answered his bewildered question:
"I don't know why I came. Is it so very dreadful? Have I offended you?... I did not suppose that men cared about conventions."
"But--why on earth--did you come?" he repeated. "Are you in trouble?"
"I seem to be now," she said with a tremulous laugh; "you are frightening me to death, Captain Selwyn."
Still dazed, he found the first chair at hand and dragged it toward her.
She hesitated at the offer; then: "Thank you," she said, pa.s.sing before him. She laid her hand on the chair, looked a moment at him, and sank into it.
Resting there, her pale cheek against her m.u.f.f, she smiled at him, and every nerve in him quivered with pity.
"World without end; amen," she said. "Let the judgment of man pa.s.s."
"The judgment of this man pa.s.ses very gently," he said, looking down at her. "What brings you here, Mrs. Ruthven?"
"Will you believe me?"
"Yes."
"Then--it is simply the desire of the friendless for a friend. Nothing else--nothing more subtle, nothing of effrontery; n-nothing worse. Do you believe me?"
"I don't understand--"
"Try to."
"Do you mean that you have differed with--"
"Him?" She laughed. "Oh, no; I was talking of real people, not of myths.
And real people are not very friendly to me, always--not that they are disagreeable, you understand, only a trifle overcordial; and my most intimate friend kisses me a little too frequently. By the way, she has quite succ.u.mbed to you, I hear."
"Who do you mean?"
"Why, Rosamund."
He said something under his breath and looked at her impatiently.
"Didn't you know it?" she asked, smiling.
"Know what?"