LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

fashion. The dinner and visit to the theatre duly took place. Mr. Ruff was afterwards permitted to offer a slight supper and to accompany his fair companion a portion of the way home in a taxicab. She made several half-hearted attempts to return to the subject of Spencer Fitzgerald, but her companion had been able on each occasion to avoid the subject. Whether or not she was the victim of her husband’s guile, there was no question about the reality of her enjoyment during the evening. Ruff, when he remembered the flash of her eyes across the table, the touch of her fingers in the taxi, was almost content to believe her false to her truant lover. If only she had not been married to John Dory, he realised, with a little sigh, that he might have taught her to forget that such a person existed as Spencer Fitzgerald, might have induced her to become Mrs. Peter Ruff!

      On their next meeting, however, Peter Ruff was forced to realise that his secretary’s instinct had not misled her. It was, alas, no personal and sentimental regrets for her former lover which had brought the fair Maud to his office. The pleasures of her evening—they dined at Romano’s and had a box at the Empire—were insufficient this time to keep her from recurring continually to the subject of her vanished lover. He tried strategy—jealousy amongst other things.

      “Supposing,” he said, as they sat quite close to one another in the box during the interval, “supposing I were to induce our friend to come to London—I imagine he would be fairly safe now if he kept out of your husband’s way—what would happen to me?”

      “You!” she murmured, glancing at him from behind her fan and then dropping her eyes.

      “Certainly—me!” he continued. “Don’t you think that I should be doing myself a very ill turn if I brought you two together? I have very few friends, and I cannot afford to lose one. I am quite sure that you still care for him.”

      She shook her head.

      “Not a scrap!” she declared.

      “Then why did you put that advertisement in the paper?” Ruff asked, with smooth but swift directness.

      She was not quick enough to parry his question. He read the truth in her disconcerted face. Knowing it now for a certainty, he hastened to her aid.

      “Forgive me,” he said, looking away. “I should not have asked that question—it is not my business. I will write to Fitzgerald. I will tell him that you want to see him, and that I think it would be safe for him to come to London.”

      Maud recovered herself quickly. She thanked him with her eyes as well as her words.

      “And you needn’t be jealous, really,” she whispered behind her fan. “I only want to see him once for a few minutes—to ask a question. After that, I don’t care what becomes of him.”

      A poor sort of Delilah, really, with her flushed face, her too elaborately coiffured hair with its ugly ornament, her ready-made evening dress with its cheap attempts at smartness, her cleaned gloves, indifferent shoes. But Peter Ruff thought otherwise.

      “You mean that, after I have found him for you, you will still come out with me again sometimes?” he asked wistfully.

      “Of course!” she answered. “Whenever I can without John knowing,” she added, with an unpleasant little laugh. “If you only knew how I loved the music and the theatres, and this sort of life! What a good time your wife would have, Mr. Ruff!” she added archly.

      It was no joking matter with him. He had to remember that he was, in effect, her tool, that she was making use of him, willing to betray her former lover at her husband’s bidding. It was enough to make him, on his side, burn for revenge! Yet he put the thought away from him with a shiver. She was still the woman he had loved—she was still sacred to him! That night he pleaded an engagement, and sent her home in a taxicab alone.

      John Dory, waiting patiently at home for his wife’s return, felt a certain uneasiness when she swept into their little sitting room in all her cheap splendour, with flushed cheeks—an obvious air of satisfaction with herself and disdain for her immediate surroundings. John Dory was a commonplace looking man—the absence of his collar, and his somewhat shabby carpet slippers, did not improve his appearance. He had neglected to shave, and he was drinking beer. At headquarters he was not considered quite the smart young officer which he had once shown signs of becoming. He looked at his wife with darkening face, and his wife, on her part, thought of Peter Ruff in his immaculate evening clothes.

      “Well,” he remarked, grumblingly, “you seem to find a good deal of pleasure in this gadding about!”

      She threw her soiled fan on the table.

      “If I do,” she answered, “you are not the one to sit there and reproach me with it, are you?”

      “It’s gone far enough, anyway,” John Dory said. “It’s gone further than I meant it to go. Understand me, Maud—it’s finished! I’ll find your old sweetheart for myself.”

      She laughed heartily.

      “You needn’t trouble,” she answered, with a little toss of the head. “I am not such a fool as you seem to think me. Mr. Ruff has made an appointment with him.”

      There was a change in John Dory’s face. The man’s eyes were bright—they almost glittered.

      “You mean that your friend Mr. Ruff is going to produce Spencer Fitzgerald?” he exclaimed.

      “He has promised to,” she answered. “John,” she declared, throwing herself into an easy-chair, “I feel horrid about it. I wonder what Mr. Ruff will think when he knows!”

      “You can feel how you like,” John Dory answered bluntly, “so long as I get the handcuffs on Spencer Fitzgerald’s wrists!”

      She shuddered. She looked at her husband with distaste.

      “Don’t talk about it!” she begged sharply. “It makes me feel the meanest creature that ever crawled. I can’t help feeling, too, that Mr. Ruff will think me a wretch—quite the gentleman he’s been all the time! I never knew any one half so nice!”

      John Dory set down his empty glass.

      “I wonder,” he said, looking at her thoughtfully, “what made him take such a fancy to you! Rather sudden, wasn’t it, eh?”

      Maud tossed her head.

      “I don’t see anything so wonderful about that,” she declared.

      “Listen to me, Maud,” her husband said, rising to his feet. “You aren’t a fool—not quite. You’ve spent some time with Peter Ruff. How much—think carefully—how much does he remind you of Spencer Fitzgerald?”

      “Not at all,” she answered promptly. “Why, he is years older, and though Spencer was quite the gentleman, there’s something about Mr. Ruff, and the way he dresses and knows his way about—well, you can tell he’s been a gentleman all his life.”

      John Dory’s face fell.

      “Think again,” he said.

      She shook her head.

      “Can’t see any likeness,” she declared. “He did remind me a little of him just at first, though,” she added, reflectively—“little things he said, and sort of mannerisms. I’ve sort of lost sight of them the last few times, though.”

      “When is this meeting with Fitzgerald to come off?” John Dory asked abruptly.

      She did not answer him at once. A low, triumphant smile had parted her lips.

      “To-morrow night,” she said; “he is to meet me in Mr. Ruff’s office.”

      “At what time?” John Dory asked.

      “At eight o’clock,” she answered. “Mr. Ruff is keeping his office open late on purpose. Spencer thinks that afterwards he is going to take me out to dinner.”

      “You are

Скачать книгу