Chapter 62
"Yes."
He looked down at the book on his knees and began to furrow the pages absently.
"Phil," she said, "have you heard anything this summer--lately--about the Ruthvens?"
"No."
"Nothing at all?"
"Not a word."
"You knew they were at Newport as usual."
"I took it for granted."
"And you have heard no rumours?--no gossip concerning them? Nothing about a yacht?"
"Where was I to hear it? What gossip? What yacht?"
His sister said very seriously: "Alixe has been very careless."
"Everybody is. What of it?"
"It is understood that she and Jack Ruthven have separated."
He looked up quickly: "Who told you that?"
"A woman wrote me from Newport.... And Alixe is here and Jack Ruthven is in New York. Several people have--I have heard about it from several sources. I'm afraid it's true, Phil."
They looked into each other's troubled eyes; and he said: "If she has done this it is the worse of two evils she has chosen. To live with him was bad enough, but this is the limit."
"I know it. She cannot afford to do such a thing again.... Phil, what is the matter with her? She simply cannot be sane and do such a thing--can she?"
"I don't know," he said.
"Well, I do. She is not sane. She has made herself horridly conspicuous among conspicuous people; she has been indiscreet to the outer edge of effrontery. Even that set won't stand it always--especially as their men folk are quite crazy about her, and she leads a train of them about wherever she goes--the little fool!
"And now, if it's true, that there's to be a separation--what on earth will become of her? I ask you, Phil, for I don't know. But men know what becomes eventually of women who slap the world across the face with over-ringed fingers.
"If--if there's any talk about it--if there's newspaper talk--if there's a divorce--who will ask her to their houses? Who will condone this thing? Who will tolerate it, or her? Men--and men only--the odious sort that fawn on her now and follow her about half-sneeringly. They'll tolerate it; but their wives won't; and the kind of women who will receive and tolerate her are not included in my personal experience.
What a fool she has been!--good heavens, what a fool!"
A trifle paler than usual, he said: "There is no real harm in her. I know there is not."
"You are very generous, Phil--"
"No, I am trying to be truthful. And I say there is no harm in her. I have made up my mind on that score." He leaned nearer his sister and laid one hand on hers where it lay across the hammock's edge:
"Nina;
"It has long been my conclusion," she said under her breath.
He stared at the floor out of gray eyes grown dull and hopeless.
"Phil," whispered his sister, "suppose--suppose--what happened to her father--"
"I know."
She said again: "It was slow at first, a brilliant eccentricity--that gradually became--something else less pleasant. Oh, Phil! Phil!"
"It was softening of the brain," he said, "was it not?"
"Yes--he entertained a delusion of conspiracy against him--also a complacent conviction of the mental instability of others. Yet, at intervals he remained clever and witty and charming."
"And then?"
"Phil--he became violent at times."
"Yes. And the end?" he asked quietly.
"A little child again--quite happy and content--playing with toys--very gentle, very pitiable--" The hot tears filled her eyes. "Oh, Phil!" she sobbed and hid her face on his shoulder.
Over the soft, faintly fragrant hair he stared stupidly, lips apart, chin loose.
A little later, Nina sat up in the hammock, daintily effacing the traces of tears. Selwyn was saying: "If this is so, that Ruthven man has got to stand by her. Where could she go--if such trouble is to come upon her?
To whom can she turn if not to him? He is responsible for her--doubly so, if her condition is to be--_that_! By every law of manhood he is bound to stand by her now; by every law of decency and humanity he cannot desert her now. If she does these--these indiscreet things--and if he knows she is not altogether mentally responsible--he cannot fail to stand by her! How can he, in G.o.d's name!"
"Phil," she said, "you speak like a man, but she has no man to stand loyally by her in the direst need a human soul may know. He is only a thing--no man at all--only a loathsome accident of animated decadence."
He looked up quickly, amazed at her sudden bitterness; and she looked back at him almost fiercely.
"I may as well tell you what I've heard," she said; "I was not going to, at first; but it will be all around town sooner or later. Rosamund told me. She learned--as she manages to learn everything a little before anybody else hears of it--that Jack Ruthven found out that Alixe was behaving very carelessly with some man--some silly, callow, and probably harmless youth. But there was a disgraceful scene on Mr.
Neergard's yacht, the _Niobrara_. I don't know who the people were, but Ruthven acted abominably.... The _Niobrara_ anch.o.r.ed in Widgeon Bay yesterday; and Alixe is aboard, and her husband is in New York, and Rosamund says he means to divorce her in one way or another! Ugh! the horrible little man with his rings and bangles!"
She shuddered: "Why, the mere bringing of such a suit means her social ruin no matter what verdict is brought in! Her only salvation has been in remaining inconspicuous; and a sane girl would have realised it. But"--and she made a gesture of despair--"you see what she has done.... And Phil--you know what she has done to you--what a mad risk she took in going to your rooms that night--"
"Who said she had ever been in my rooms?" he demanded, flus.h.i.+ng darkly in his surprise.
"Did you suppose I didn't know it?" she asked quietly. "Oh, but I did; and it kept me awake nights, worrying. Yet I knew it must have been all right--knowing you as I do. But do you suppose other people would hold you as innocent as I do? Even Eileen--the sweetest, whitest, most loyal little soul in the world--was troubled when Rosamund hinted at some scandal touching you and Alixe. She told me--but she did not tell me what Rosamund had said--the mischief maker!"
His face had become quite colourless; he raised an unsteady hand to his mouth, touching his moustache; and his gray eyes narrowed menacingly.
"Rosamund--spoke of scandal to--Eileen?" he repeated. "Is that possible?"
"How long do you suppose a girl can live and not hear scandal of some sort?" said Nina. "It's bound to rain some time or other, but I prepared my little duck's back to shed some things."
"You say," insisted Selwyn, "that Rosamund spoke of me--in that way--to Eileen?"