The Younger Set Part 84

Then he went home, very tired with a mental la.s.situde that depressed him and left him drowsy in his great arm-chair before the grate--too drowsy and apathetic to examine the letters and doc.u.ments laid out for him by his secretary, although one of them seemed to be important--something about alienation of affections, something about a yacht and Mrs.

Ruthven, and a heavy suit to be brought unless other settlement was suggested as a balm to Mr. Ruthven.

To dress for dinner was an effort--a purely mechanical operation which was only partly successful, although his man aided him. But he was too tired to continue the effort; and at last it was his man alone who disembarra.s.sed him of his heavy clothing and who laid him among the bedclothes, where he sank back, relaxed, breathing loudly in the dreadful depressed stupor of utter physical and neurotic prostration.

Meaningless to him the hurriedly intrusive attorneys--his own and Ruthven's--who forced their way in that night--or was it the next, or months later? A weight like the weight of death lay on him, mind and body. If he comprehended what threatened, what was coming, he did not care. The world pa.s.sed on, leaving him lying there, nerveless, exhausted, a derelict on a sea too stormy for such as he--a wreck that might have sailed safely in narrower waters.

And some day he'd be patched up and set afloat once more to cruise and operate and have his being in the safer and smaller seas; some day, when the nerve crash had subsided and the slow, wounded mind came back to itself, and its petty functions were once more resumed--its envious scheming, its covetous capability, its vicious achievement. For with him achievement could embody only the meaner imitations of the sheer colossal _coups_ by which the great financiers gutted a nation with kid-gloved fingers, and changed their gloves after the operation so that no blood might stick to Peter's pence or smear the corner-stones of those vast and shadowy inst.i.tutions upreared in rest.i.tution--black silhouettes against the infernal sunset of lives that end in the shadowy death of souls.

Even before Neergard's illness Ruthven's domestic and financial affairs were in a villainous mess. Rid of Neergard, he had meant to deal him a crashing blow at the breakaway which would settle him for ever and incidentally bring to a crisis his own status in regard to his wife.

Whether or not his wife was mentally competent he did not know; he did not know anything about her. But he meant to. Selwyn's threat, still fairly fresh in his memory, had given him no definite idea of Alixe, her whereabouts, her future plans, and whether or not her mental condition was supposed to be permanently impaired or otherwise.

That she had been, and probably now was, under Selwyn's protection he believed; what she and Selwyn intended to do he did not know. But he wanted to know; he dared not ask Selwyn--dared not, because he was horribly afraid of Selwyn; dared not yet make a legal issue of their relations, of her sequestration, or of her probable continued infirmity, because of his physical fear of the man.

But there was--or he thought that there had been--one way to begin the matter, because the matter must sooner or later be begun: and that was to pretend to a.s.sume Neergard responsible; and, on the strength of his wife's summer sojourn aboard the _Niobrara_, turn on Neergard and demand a reckoning which he believed Selwyn would never hear of, because he did not suppose Neergard dared defend the suit, and would sooner or later compromise. Which would give him what he wanted to begin with, money, and the entering wedge against the wife he meant to be rid of in one way or another, even if he had to swear out a warrant against Selwyn before he demanded a commission to investigate her mental condition.

Ruthven was too deadly afraid of Selwyn to begin suit at that stage of the proceedings. All he could do was to start, through his attorneys, a search for his wife, and meanwhile try to formulate some sort of definite plan in regard to Gladys Orchil; for if that featherbrained youngster went abroad in the spring he meant to follow her and not only have the Atlantic between him and Selwyn when he began final suit for freedom, but also be in a position to ride off any of the needy household cavalry who might come caracolling and cavorting too close to the young girl he had selected to rehabilitate the name, fortune, and house of Ruthven.

This, in brief, was Ruthven's general scheme of campaign; and the entire affair had taken some sort of shape, and was slowly beginning to move, when Neergard's illness came as an absolute check, just as the first papers were about to be served on him.

There was nothing to do but wait until Neergard got well, because his attorneys simply scoffed at any suggestion of settlement _ex curia_, and Ruthven didn't want a suit involving his wife's name while he and Selwyn were in the same hemisphere.

But he could still continue an un.o.btrusive search for the whereabouts of his wife, which he did. And the chances were that his attorneys would find her without great difficulty, because Selwyn had not the slightest suspicion that he was being followed.

In these days Selwyn's life was methodical and colourless in its routine to the verge of dreariness.

When he was not at the Government proving grounds on Sandy Hook he remained in his room at Lansing's, doggedly forcing himself into the only alternate occupation sufficient to dull the sadness of his mind--the preparation of a history of British military organisation in India, and its possible application to present conditions in the Philippines.

He had given up going out--made no further pretense; and Boots let him alone.

Once a week he called at the Gerards', spending most of his time while there with the children. Sometimes he saw Nina and Eileen, usually just returned or about to depart for some function; and his visit, as a rule, ended with a cup of tea alone with Austin, and a quiet cigar in the library, where Kit-Ki sat, paws folded under, approving of the fireside warmth in a pleasureable monotone.

On such evenings, late, if Nina and Eileen had gone to a dance, or to the opera with Boots, Austin, ruddy with well-being and shamelessly slippered, stretched luxuriously in the fire warmth, lazily discussing what was nearest to him--his children and wife, and the material comfort which continued to attend him with the blessing of that heaven which seems so largely occupied in fulfilling the desires of the good for their own commercial prosperity.

Too, he had begun to show a peculiar pride in the commercial development of Gerald, speaking often of his gratifying application to business, the stability of his modest position, the friends he was making among men of substance, their regard for him.

"Not that the boy is doing much of a business yet," he would say with a tolerant shrug of his big fleshy shoulders, "but he's laying the foundation for success--a good, upright, solid foundation--with the doubtful scheming of Neergard left out"--at that time Neergard had not yet gone to pieces, physically--"and I expect to aid him when aid is required, and to extend to him, judiciously, such a.s.sistance, from time to time, as I think he may require... . There's one thing--"

Austin puffed once or twice at his cigar and frowned; and Selwyn, absently watching the dying embers on the hearth, waited in silence.

"One thing," repeated Austin, reaching for the tongs and laying a log of white birch across the coals; "and that is Gerald's fondness for pretty girls... . Not that it isn't all right, too, but I hope he isn't going to involve himself--hang a millstone around his neck before he can see his way clear to some promise of a permanent income based on--"

"Pooh!" said Selwyn.

"What's that?" demanded Austin, turning red.

Selwyn laughed. "What did you have when you married my sister?"

Austin, still red and dignified, said:

"Your sister is a very remarkable woman--extremely unusual. I had the good sense to see that the first time I ever met her."

"Gerald will see the same thing when his time comes," said Selwyn quietly. "Don't worry, Austin; he's sound at the core."

Austin considered his cigar-end, turning it round and round. "There's good stock in the boy; I always knew it--even when he acted like a yellow pup. You see, Phil, that my treatment of him was the proper treatment. I was right in refusing to mollycoddle him or put up with any of his callow, unbaked impudence. You know yourself that you wanted me to let up on him--make all kinds of excuses. Why, man, if I had given him an inch leeway he'd have been up to his ears in debt. But I was firm. He saw I'd stand no fooling. He didn't dare contract debts which he couldn't pay. So now, Phil, you can appreciate the results of my att.i.tude toward him."

"I can, indeed," said Selwyn thoughtfully.

"I think I've made a man of him," persisted Austin.

"He's certainly a manly fellow," nodded Selwyn.

"You admit it?"

"Certainly, Austin."

"Well, I'm glad of it. You thought me harsh--oh, I know you did!--but I don't blame you. I knew what I was about. Why, Phil, if I hadn't taken the firm stand I took that boy would have been running to Nina and Eileen--he did go to his sister once, but he never dared try it again!--and he'd probably have borrowed money of Neergard and--by Jove!

he might even have come to you to get him out of his sc.r.a.pes!"

"Oh, scarcely that," protested Selwyn with grave humour.

"That's all you know about it," nodded Austin, wise-eyed, smoking steadily. "And all I have to say is that it's fortunate for everybody that I stood my ground when he came around looking for trouble. For you're just the sort of a man, Phil, who'd be likely to strip yourself if that young cub came howling for somebody to pay his debts of honour.

Admit it, now; you know you are."

But Selwyn only smiled and looked into the fire.

After a few moments' silence Austin said curiously: "You're a frugal bird. You used to be fastidious. Do you know that coat of yours is nearly the limit?"

"Nonsense," said Selwyn, colouring.

"It is... . What do you do with your money? Invest it, of course; but you ought to let me place it. You never spend any; you should have a decent little sum tucked away by this time. Do your Chaosite experiments cost anything now?"

"No; the Government is conducting them."

"Good business. What does the bally Government think of the powder, now?"

"I can't tell yet," said Selwyn listlessly. "There's a plate due to arrive to-morrow; it represents a section of the side armour of one of the new 22,000-ton battleships... . I hope to crack it."

"Oh!--with a bursting charge?"

Selwyn nodded, and rested his head on his hand.

A little later Austin cast the remains of his cigar from him, straightened up, yawned, patted his waistcoat, and looked wisely at the cat.

"I'm going to bed," he announced. "Boots is to bring back Nina and Eileen... . You don't mind, do you, Phil? I've a busy day to-morrow... . There's Scotch over there--you know where things are.