Vaguely uneasy, and still perplexed with her previous agitation, as Mr.
Rushbrook closed the door behind him, Grace, following some feminine
instinct rather than any definite reason, walked to the door and placed
her hand upon the lock to prevent any intrusion until he returned.
Her caution seemed to be justified a moment later, for a heavier but
stealthier footstep halted outside. The handle of the door was turned,
but she resisted it with the fullest strength of her small hand until a
voice, which startled her, called in a hurried whisper:--
“Open quick, 'tis I.”
She stepped back quickly, flung the door open, and beheld Somers on the
threshold!
The astonishment, agitation, and above all, the awkward confusion of
this usually self-possessed and ready man, was so unlike him, and withal
so painful, that Grace hurried to put an end to it, and for an instant
forgot her own surprise at seeing him. She smiled assuringly, and
extended her hand.
“Grace--Miss Nevil--I beg your pardon--I didn't imagine”--he began with
a forced laugh. “I mean, of course--I cannot--but”--He stopped, and then
assuming a peculiar expression, said: “But what are YOU doing here?”
At any other moment the girl would have resented the tone, which was
as new to her as his previous agitation, but in her present
self-consciousness her situation seemed to require some explanation.
“I came here,” she said, “to see Mr. Rushbrook on business. Your
business--OUR business,” she added, with a charming smile, using for the
first time the pronoun that seemed to indicate their unity and interest,
and yet fully aware of a vague insincerity in doing so.
“Our BUSINESS?” he repeated, ignoring her gentler meaning with a changed
emphasis and a look of suspicion.
“Yes,” said Grace, a little impatiently. “Mr. Leyton thought he ought
to write to my uncle something positive as to your prospects with Mr.
Rushbrook, and”--
“You came here to inquire?” said the young man, sharply.
“I came here to stop any inquiry,” said Grace, indignantly. “I came
here to say I was satisfied with what you had confided to me of Mr.
Rushbrook's generosity, and that was enough!”
“With what I had confided to you? You dared say that?”
Grace stopped, and instantly faced him. But any indignation she might
have felt at his speech and manner was swallowed up in the revulsion and
horror that overtook her with the sudden revelation she saw in his
white and frightened face. Leyton's strange inquiry, Rushbrook's cold
composure and scornful acceptance of her own credulousness, came to her
in a flash of shameful intelligence. Somers had lied! The insufferable
meanness of it! A lie, whose very uselessness and ignobility had
defeated its purpose--a lie that implied the basest suspicion of her
own independence and truthfulness--such a lie now stood out as plainly
before her as his guilty face.
“Forgive my speaking so rudely,” he said with a forced smile and attempt
to recover his self-control, “but you have ruined me unless you deny
that I told you anything. It was a joke--an extravagance that I had
forgotten; at least, it was a confidence between you and me that you
have foolishly violated. Say that you misunderstood me--that it was a
fancy of your own. Say anything--he trusts you--he'll believe anything
you say.”
“He HAS believed me,” said Grace, almost fiercely, turning upon him with
the paper that Rushbrook had given her in her outstretched hand. “Read
that!”
He read it. Had he blushed, had he stammered, had he even kept up his
former frantic and pitiable attitude, she might at that supreme moment
have forgiven him. But to her astonishment his face changed, his
handsome brow cleared, his careless, happy smile returned, his graceful
confidence came back--he stood before her the elegant, courtly, and
accomplished gentleman she had known. He returned her the paper, and
advancing with extended hand, said triumphantly:--
“Superb! Splendid! No one but a woman could think of that! And only one
woman achieve it. You have tricked the great Rushbrook. You are indeed
worthy of being a financier's wife!”
“No,” she said passionately, tearing up the paper and throwing it at his
feet; “not as YOU understand it--and never YOURS! You have debased and
polluted everything connected with it, as you would have debased and
polluted ME. Out of my presence that you are insulting--out of the room
of the man whose magnanimity you cannot understand!”
The destruction of the guarantee apparently stung him more than the
words that accompanied it. He did not relapse again into his former
shamefaced terror, but as a malignant glitter came into his eyes, he
regained his coolness.
“It may not be so difficult for others to understand, Miss Nevil,” he
said, with polished insolence, “and as Bob Rushbrook's generosity to
pretty women is already a matter of suspicion, perhaps you are wise to
destroy that record of it.”
“Coward!” said Grace, “stand aside and let me pass!” She swept by him
to the door. But it opened upon Rushbrook's re-entrance. He stood for
an instant glancing at the pair, and then on the fragments of the paper
that strewed the floor. Then, still holding the door in his hand, he
said quietly:--
“One moment before you go, Miss Nevil. If this is the result of any
misunderstanding as to the presence of another woman here, in company
with Mr. Somers, it is only fair to him to say that that woman is here
as a friend of MINE, not of his, and I alone am responsible.”
Grace halted, and turned the cold steel of her proud eyes on the two
men. As they rested on Rushbrook they quivered slightly. “I can already
bear witness,” she said coldly, “to the generosity of Mr. Rushbrook in
a matter which then touched me. But there certainly is no necessity
for him to show it now in a matter in which I have not the slightest
concern.”
As she swept out of the room and was received in the respectable shadow
of the waiting James, Rushbrook turned to Somers.
“And I'M afraid it won't do--for Leyton saw you,” he said curtly. “Now,
then, shut that door, for you and I, Jack Somers, have a word to say to
each other.”
What that word was, and how it was said and received, is not a part of
this record. But it is told that it was the beginning of that mighty
Iliad, still remembered of men, which shook the financial camps of San
Francisco, and divided them into bitter contending parties. For when it
became known the next day that Somers had suddenly abandoned Rushbrook,
and carried over to a powerful foreign capitalist the secret methods,
and even, it was believed, the LUCK of his late employer, it was certain
that there would be war to the knife, and that it was no longer a
struggle of rival enterprise, but of vindictive men.