Blair did not go back at once to Osdene Park. He stopped over in London
for a few days to see Joshua Ruggles, and so remarked for the first time
the difference between the speech of the old and the new world. Mr.
Ruggles spoke broadly, with complete disregard of the frills and
adornments of the King's English. He spoke United States of the pure,
broad, western brand, and it rang out, it vibrated and swelled and
rolled, and as Ruggles didn't care who heard him, nothing of what he had
to say was lost.
Old Mr. Blair had left behind him a comrade, and as far as advice could
go the old man knew that his Dan would not be bankrupt.
"Advice," Dan Blair senior once said to his boy, "is the kind of thing
we want some fellow to give us when we ain't going to do the thing we
ought to do, or are a little ashamed of something we have done. It's an
awful good way to get cured of asking advice just to do what the fellow
tells you to at once."
During Ruggles' stay in London the young fellow looked to it that
Ruggles saw the sights, and the two did the principal features of the
big town, to the rich enjoyment of the Westerner. Dan took his friend
every night to the play, and on the fourth evening Ruggles said: "Let's
go to the circus or a vaudeville, Dan. I have learned _this_ show by
heart!" They had been every night to see _Mandalay_.
"Oh, you go on where you like, Josh," the boy answered. "I'm going to
see how she looks from the pit."
Ruggles was not a Blairtown man. He had come from farther west, and had
never heard anything of Sarah Towney or Letty Lane. He applauded the
actress vigorously at the Gaiety at first, and after the third night
slept through most of the performance. When he waked up he tried to
discover what attraction Letty Lane had for Dan. For the young man never
left Ruggles' side, never went behind the scenes, though he seemed
absorbed, as a man usually is absorbed for one reason only.
In response to a telegram from Osdene Park, Dan motored out there one
afternoon, and during his absence Ruggles was surprised at his hotel by
a call.
"My dear Mr. Ruggles," Lord Galorey said, for he it was the page boy
fetched up, "why don't you come out to see us? All friends of old Mr.
Blair's are welcome at Osdene."
Ruggles thanked Galorey and said he was not a visiting man, that he only
had a short time in London, and was going to Ireland to look up "his
family tree."
"There are one hundred acres of trees in Osdene," laughed Galorey; "you
can climb them all." And Ruggles replied:
"I guess I wouldn't find any O'Shaughnessy Ruggles at the top of any of
'em, my lord. The boy has gone out to see you all to-day."
Galorey nodded. "That is just why I toddled in to see you!"
Ruggles' caller had been shown to the sitting-room, where he and Dan
hobnobbed and smoked during the Westerner's visit. There was a pile of
papers on the table, in one corner a typewriter covered by a black
cloth. Galorey took a chair and, refusing a cigarette, lit his pipe.
"I didn't have the pleasure of meeting you in the West when I was out
there with Blair. I knew Dan's father rather well."
Ruggles responded: "I knew him rather well too, for thirty years. If,"
he went on, "Blair hadn't known you pretty well he wouldn't have sent
the boy out to you as he has done. He was keen on every trail. I might
say that he had been over every one of 'em like a hound before he set
the boy loose."
Galorey answered, "Quite so," gravely. "I know it. I knew it when Dan
turned up at Osdene--" Holding his pipe bowl in the palm of his slender
hand, he smoked meditatively. He hadn't thought about things, as he had
been doing lately, for many years. His sense of honor was the strongest
thing in Gordon Galorey, the only thing in him, perhaps, that had been
left unsmirched by the touch of the world. He was unquestionably a
gentleman.
"Blair, however," he said, "wasn't as keen on this scent as you'd
expect. His intuition was wrong."
Ruggles raised his eyebrows slightly.
"I mean to say," Lord Galorey went on, "that he knew me in the West when
I had cut loose for a few blessed months from just these things into
which he has sent his boy--from what, if I had a son, God knows I'd throw
him as far as I could."
"Blair wanted Dan to see the world."
"Of course, that is right enough. We all have to see it, I fancy, but
this boy isn't ready to look at it."
"He is twenty-two," Ruggles returned. "When I was his age I was
supporting four people."
Galorey went on: "Osdene Park at present isn't the window for Blair's
boy to see life through, and that is what I have come up to London to
talk to you about, Mr. Ruggles. I should like to have you take him
away."
"What's Dan been up to down there?"
"Nothing as yet, but he is in the pocket of a woman--he is in a nest of
women."
Ruggles' broad face had not altered its expression of quiet expectation.
"There's a lot of 'em down there?" he asked.
"There are two," Galorey said briefly, "and one of them is my wife."
Ruggles turned his cigarette between his great fingers. He was a slow
thinker. He had none of old Blair's keenness, but he had other
qualities. Galorey saw that he had not been quite understood, and he
waited and then said:
"Lady Galorey is like the rest of modern wives, and I am like a lot of
modern husbands. We each go our own way. My way is a worthless one, God
knows I don't stand up for it, but it is not my wife's way in any sense
of the word."
"Does she want Dan to go along on her road?" Ruggles asked. "And how
far?"
"We are financially strapped just now," said Galorey calmly, "and she
has got money from the boy." He didn't remove his pipe from his mouth;
still holding it between his teeth he put his hand in his pocket, took
out his wallet, drew forth four checks and laid them down before
Ruggles. "It is quite a sum," Galorey noted, "sufficient to do a lot to
Osdene Park in the way of needed repairs." Ruggles had never seen a
smile such as curved his companion's lips. "But Osdene Park will have to
be repaired by money from some other source."
Ruggles wondered how the husband had got hold of the checks, but he
didn't ask and he did not look at the papers.
"When Dan came to the Park," said Galorey, "I stopped bridge playing,
but this more than takes its place!"
Ruggles' big hand went slowly toward the checks; he touched them with
his fingers and said: "Is Dan in love with your wife?"
And Lord Galorey laughed and said: "Lord no, my dear man, not even that!
It is pure good nature on his part--mere prodigality. Edith appealed to
him, that's all."
Relief crossed Ruggles' face. He understood in a flash the worldly
woman's appeal to the rich young man and believed the story the husband
told him.
"Have you spoken to the boy?"
"My dear chap, I have spoken to him about nothing. I preferred to come
to you."
"You said," Ruggles continued, "there were two ladies down to your
place."
Galorey had refilled his pipe and held it as before in the palm of his
hand.
"I can look after the affairs of my wife, and this shan't happen again,
I promise you--not at Osdene, but I'm afraid I can not do much in the
other case. The Duchess of Breakwater has been at Osdene for nearly
three weeks, and Dan is in love with her."
Ruggles put the four checks one on top of the other.
"Is the lady a widow?"
"Unfortunately, yes."
"So that's the nest Dan has got into at Osdene," the Westerner said. And
Galorey answered: "That is the nest."
"And he has gone out there to-day--got a wire this morning."
"The duchess has been in an awful funk," said Galorey, "because Dan's
been stopping in London so long. She sent him a message, and as soon as
Dan wired back that he was coming to the Park, I decided to come here
and see you."
Ruggles ruminated: "Has the duchess complications financially?"
"Ra-ther!" the other answered.
And Ruggles turned his broad, honest face full on Galorey: "Do you think
she could be bought off?"
Galorey took his pipe out of his mouth.
"It depends on how far Dan has gone on with her. To be frank with you,
Mr. Ruggles, it is a case of emotion on the part of the woman. She is
really in love with Dan. Gad!" exclaimed the nobleman. "I have been on
the point of turning the whole brood out of doors these last days. It
was like imprisoning a mountain breeze in a charnel house--a woman with
her scars and her experience and that boy--I don't know where you've kept
him, or how you kept him as he is, but he is as clear as water. I have
talked to him and I know."
Nothing in Ruggles' expression had changed until now. His eyes glowed.
"Dan's all right," he said softly. "Don't you worry! He's all right. I
guess his father knew what he was doing, and I'll bet the whole thing
was just what he sent him over here for! Old Dan Blair wasn't worth a
copper when the boy was born, and yet he had ideas about everything and
he seemed to know more in that old gray head of his than a whole library
of books. Dan's all right."
"My dear man," said the nobleman, "that is just where you Americans are
wrong. You comfort yourself with your eternal 'Dan's all right,' and you
won't see the truth. You won't breathe the word 'scandal' and yet you
are thick enough in them, God knows. You won't admit them, but they are
there. Now be honest and look at the truth, will you? You are a man of
common sense. Dan Blair is _not_ all right. He is in an infernally
dangerous position. The Duchess of Breakwater will marry him. It is what
she has wanted to do for years, but she has not found a man rich enough,
and she will marry this boy offhand."
"Well," said the Westerner slowly, "if he loves her and if he marries
her--"
"Marries her!" exclaimed the nobleman. "There you are again! Do you
think marriage makes it any better? Why, if she went off to the
Continent with him for six weeks and then set him free, that would be
preferable to marrying her. My dear man," he said, leaning over the
table where Ruggles sat, "if I had a boy I would rather have him marry
Letty Lane of the Gaiety. Now you know what I mean."
Ruggles' face, which had hardened, relaxed.
"I have seen that lady," he exclaimed with satisfaction; "I have seen
_her_ several times."
Galorey sank back into his chair and neither man spoke for a few
seconds. Turning it all over in his slow mind, Ruggles remembered Dan's
absorption in the last few days. "So there are three women in the nest,"
he concluded thoughtfully, and Gordon Galorey repeated:
"No, not three. What do you mean?"
"Your wife"--Ruggles held up one finger and Galorey interrupted him to
murmur:
"I'll take care of Edith."
"The Duchess of Breakwater you think won't talk of money?"
"No, don't count on it. She is aiming at ten million pounds."
Ruggles was holding up the second finger.
"Well, I guess Dan has gone out to take care of _her_ to-day."
Dan and Ruggles had seen _Mandalay_ from a box, from the pit and from
the stalls. On the table lay a book of the opera. While talking with
Galorey, Ruggles had unconsciously arranged the checks on top of the
libretto of _Mandalay_.
"_I'll_ take care of Miss Lane," Ruggles said at length.
His lordship echoed, "Miss Lane?" and looked up in surprise. "What Miss
Lane, for God's sake?"
"Miss Letty Lane at the Gaiety," Ruggles answered.
"Why, she isn't in the question, my dear man."
"You put her there just now yourself."
"Bosh!" Galorey exclaimed impatiently, "I spoke of her as being the
limit, the last thing on the line."
"No," corrected the other, "you put the Duchess of Breakwater as the
limit."
Galorey smiled frankly. "You are right, my dear chap," he accepted, "and
I stand by it."
A page boy knocked at the door and came in holding out on a salver a
card for Mr. Ruggles, and at the interruption Galorey rose and invited
Ruggles to go out with him that night to Osdene. "Lady Galorey will be
delighted."
But Ruggles shook his head. "The boy is coming back here to-night," and
Galorey laughed.
"Don't you believe it! You don't know how deep in he is. You don't know
the Duchess of Breakwater. Once he is with her--"
At the same time that the page boy handed Mr. Ruggles the card of the
caller, he gave him as well a small envelope, which contained box
tickets for the Gaiety. Ruggles examined it.
"I have got some writing to do," he told Galorey, "and I'm going to see
a show to-night, and I think I'll just stay here and watch my hole."
As soon as Galorey had left the Carlton, Mr. Ruggles despatched his
letters and his visitor, made a very careful toilet, and after waiting
until past eight o'clock for Dan to return to dinner, dined alone on
roast beef and a tart, and with perfect digestion, if somewhat
thoughtful mind, left the hotel and walked down the dim street to the
brilliant Strand, and on foot to the Gaiety.