"Oh," cried young Erroll, delighted, "that is fine! Neergard would be glad enough. Why, we"ve got that Valleydale tract in shape now, and there are scores of schemes in the air--scores of them--important moves which may mean--anything!" he ended, excitedly.
"Then you think it would be all right--in case Neergard likes the idea?"
Gerald was enthusiastic. After a while they shook hands, it being time to separate. And for a long time Selwyn sat there alone in the visitors"
room, absent-eyed, facing the blazing fire of cannel coal.
How to be friends with this boy without openly playing the mentor; how to gain his confidence without appearing to seek it; how to influence him without alarming him! No; there was no great harm in him yet; only the impulse of inconsiderate youth; only an enthusiastic capacity for pleasure.
One thing was imperative--the boy must cut out his card-playing for stakes at once; and there was a way to accomplish that by impressing Gerald with the idea that to do anything behind Neergard"s back which he would not care to tell him about was a sort of treachery.
Who were these people, anyway, who would permit a boy of that age, and in a responsible position, to play for such stakes? Who were they to encourage such--?
Selwyn"s tightening grasp on his chair suddenly relaxed; he sank back, staring at the brilliant coals. He, too, had forgotten.
Now he remembered, in humiliation unspeakable, in bitterness past all belief.
Time sped, and he sat there, motionless; and gradually the bitterness became less perceptible as he drifted, intent on drifting, back through the exotic sorcery of dead years--back into the sun again, where honour was bright and life was young--where all the world awaited happy conquest--where there was no curfew in the red evening glow; no end to day, because the golden light had turned to silver; but where the earliest hint of dawn was a challenge, and where every yellow star whispered "Awake!"
And out of the magic _she_ had come into his world again!
Sooner or later he would meet her now. That was sure. When? Where? And of what significance was it, after all?
Whom did it concern? Him? Her? And what had he to say to her, after all?
Or she to him?
Not one word.
About midnight he roused himself and picked up his hat and coat.
"Do you wish a cab, please?" whispered the club servant who held his coat; "it is snowing very hard, sir."
CHAPTER III
UNDER THE ASHES
He had neither burned nor returned the photograph to Mrs. Ruthven. The prospect perplexed and depressed Selwyn.
He was sullenly aware that in a town where the divorced must ever be reckoned with when dance and dinner lists are made out, there is always some thoughtless hostess--and sometimes a mischievous one; and the chances were that he and Mrs. Jack Ruthven would collide, either through the forgetfulness or malice of somebody or, through sheer hazard, at some large affair where Destiny and Fate work busily together in criminal copartnership.
And he encountered her first at a masque and revel given by Mrs.
Delmour-Carnes where Fate contrived that he should dance in the same set with his _ci-devant_ wife before the unmasking, and where, unaware, they gaily exchanged salute and hand-clasp before the jolly _melee_ of unmasking revealed how close together two people could come after parting for ever and a night at the uttermost ends of the earth.
When masks at last were off there was neither necessity nor occasion for the two surprised and rather pallid young people to renew civilities; but later, Destiny, the saturnine partner in the business, interfered; and some fool in the smoking room tried to introduce Selwyn to Ruthven.
The slightest mistake on their parts would have rendered the incident ridiculous; and Ruthven made that mistake.
That was Selwyn"s first encounter with the Ruthvens. A short time afterward at the opera Gerald dragged him into a parterre to say something amiable to one of the debutante Craig girls--and Selwyn found himself again facing Alixe.
If there was any awkwardness it was not apparent, although they both knew that they were in full view of the house.
A cool bow and its cooler acknowledgment, a formal word and more formal reply; and Selwyn made his way to the corridor, hot with vexation, unaware of where he was going, and oblivious of the distressed and apologetic young man, who so contritely kept step with him through the brilliantly crowded promenade.
That was the second time--not counting distant glimpses in crowded avenues, in the Park, at Sherry"s, or across the hazy glitter of thronged theatres. But the third encounter was different.
It was all a mistake, born of the haste of a heedless and elderly matron, celebrated for managing to do the wrong thing, but who had been excessively nice to him that winter, and whose position in Manhattan was not to be a.s.sailed.
"Dear Captain Selwyn," she wheezed over the telephone, "I"m short one man; and we dine at eight and it"s that now. _Could_ you help me? It"s the rich and yellow, this time, but you won"t mind, will you?"
Selwyn, standing at the lower telephone in the hall, asked her to hold the wire a moment, and glanced up at his sister who was descending the stairs with Eileen, dinner having at that instant been announced.
"Mrs. T. West Minster--flying signals of distress," he said, carefully covering the transmitter as he spoke; "man overboard, and will I kindly take a turn at the wheel?"
"What a shame!" said Eileen; "you are going to spoil the first home dinner we have had together in weeks!"
"Tell her to get some yellow pup!" growled Austin, from above.
"As though anybody could get a yellow pup when they whistle," said Nina hopelessly.
"That"s true," nodded Selwyn; "I"m the original old dog Tray. Whistle, and I come padding up. Ever faithful, you see."
And he uncovered the transmitter and explained to Mrs. T. West Minster his absurd delight at being whistled at. Then he sent for a cab and sauntered into the dining-room, where he was received with undisguised hostility.
"She"s been civil to me," he said; "_jeunesse oblige_, you know. And that"s why I--"
"There"ll be a lot of debutantes there! What do you want to go for, you cradle robber!" protested Austin--"a lot of water-bibbing, olive-eating, talc.u.m-powdered debutantes--"
Eileen straightened up stiffly, and Selwyn"s teasing smile and his offered hand in adieu completed her indignation.
"Oh, good-bye! No, I won"t shake hands. There"s your cab, now. I wish you"d take Austin, too; Nina and I are tired of dining with the prematurely aged."
"Indeed, we are," said Mrs. Gerard; "go to your club, Austin, and give me a chance to telephone to somebody under the anesthetic age."
Selwyn departed, laughing, but he yawned in his cab all the way to Fifty-third Street, where he entered in the wake of the usual laggards and, surrendering hat and coat in the cloak room, picked up the small slim envelope bearing his name.
The card within disclosed the information that he was to take in Mrs.
Somebody-or-Other; he made his way through a great many people, found his hostess, backed off, stood on one leg for a moment like a reflective water-fowl, then found Mrs. Somebody-or-Other and was absently good to her through a great deal of noise and some Spanish music, which seemed to squirt through a thicket of palms and bespatter everybody.
"Wonderful music," observed his dinner partner, with singular originality; "_so_ like Carmen."
"Is it?" he replied, and took her away at a nod from his hostess, whose daughter Dorothy leaned forward from her partner"s arm at the same moment, and whispered: "I _must_ speak to you, mamma! You _can"t_ put Captain Selwyn there because--"
But her mother was deaf and smilingly sensitive about it, so she merely guessed what reply her child expected: "It"s all settled, dear; Captain Selwyn arrived a moment ago." And she closed the file.
It was already too late, anyhow; and presently, turning to see who was seated on his left, Selwyn found himself gazing into the calm, flushed face of Alixe Ruthven. It was their third encounter.