He had not got up-stairs to his rooms at the Carlton before a note was
handed him from the actress, bidding him to return at once to the Savoy,
and Ruggles, his heart hammering like a trip-hammer, rushed up to his
rooms, made an evening toilet, for it was then half-past seven, threw
his cravats and collars all around the place, cursed like a miner as he
got into his clothes, and red almost to apoplexy, nervous and full of
emotion, he returned to the rooms he had left not three hours before.
The three hours had been busy ones at the actress' apartment. Letty
Lane's sitting-room was full of trunks, dressing-bags and traveling
paraphernalia. She came forward out of what seemed a world of confusion,
dressed as though for a journey, even her veil and her gloves denoting
her departure. She spoke hurriedly and almost without politeness.
"I have sent for you to come and see me here. Not a soul in London knows
I am going away. There will be a dreadful row at the theater, but that's
none of your affairs. Now, I want you to tell me before I go just what
you are going to do for Dan."
"Who are you going with?" Ruggles asked shortly, and she flashed at him:
"Well, really, I don't think that is any of your business. When you
drive a woman as you have driven me, she will go far."
He interrupted her vehemently, not daring to take her hand. "I couldn't
do more. I have asked you to marry me. I couldn't do more. I stand by
what I have said. Will you?" he stammered.
She knew men. She looked at him keenly. Her veil was lifted above her
eyes and its shadow framed her small pale face on which there were marks
of utter disenchantment, of great ennui. She said languidly: "What I
want to know is, what you are going to do for Dan?"
"I told you I would share with him."
"Then he will be nearly as rich?"
"He'll have more than is good for him."
That satisfied her. Then she pursued: "I want you to stand by him. He
will need you."
Ruggles lifted the hand he held and kissed it reverently. "I'll do
anything you say--anything you say."
Down-stairs in the Savoy, as Dan had done countless times, Ruggles
waited until he saw her motor car carry her and her small luggage and
Higgins away.
In their sitting-room in the Carlton a half-hour later the door was
thrown open and Dan Blair came in like a madman. Without preamble he
seized Ruggles by the arm.
"Look here," he cried, "what have you been doing? Tell me now, and tell
me the truth, or, by God, I don't know what I'll do. You went to the
Savoy. You went there twice. Anyhow, where is she?"
Dan, slender as he was beside Ruggles' great frame, shook the elder man
as though he had been a terrier. "Speak to me. Where has she gone?"
He stared in the Westerner's face, his eyes bloodshot. "Why in thunder
don't you say something?"
And Ruggles prayed for some power to unloose his thickening tongue.
"You say she's gone?" he questioned.
"I say," said the boy, "that you've been meddling in my affairs with the
woman I love. I don't know what you have said to her, but it's only your
age that keeps me from striking you. Don't you know," he cried, "that
you are spoiling my life? Don't you know that?" A torrent of feeling
coming to his lips, his eyes suffused, the tears rolled down his face.
He walked away into his own room, remained there a few moments, and when
he came out again he carried in his hand his valise, which he put down
with a bang on the table. More calmly, but still in great anger, he said
to his father's friend:
"Now, can you tell me what you've done or not?"
"Dan," said Ruggles with difficulty, "if you will sit down a moment we
can--"
The boy laughed in his face. "Sit down!" he cried. "Why, I think you
must have lost your reason. I have chartered a motor car out there and
the damned thing has burst a tire and they are fixing it up for me. It
will be ready in about two minutes and then I am going to follow
wherever she has gone. She crossed to Paris, but I can get there before
she can even with this damned accident. But, before I go, I want you to
tell me what you said."
"Why," said Ruggles quietly, "I told her you were poor, and she turned
you down."
His words were faint.
"God!" said the boy under his breath. "That's the way you think about
truth. Lie to a woman to save my precious soul! But I expect," he said;
"you think she is so immoral and so bad that she will hurt me. Well," he
said, with great emphasis, "she has never done anything in her life that
comes up to what you've done. Never! And nothing has ever hurt me so."
His lips trembled. "I have lost my respect for you, for my father's
friend, and as far as she is concerned, I don't care what she marries me
for. She has got to marry me, and if she doesn't"--he had no idea, in his
passion, what he was saying or how--"why, I think I'll kill you first and
then blow my own brains out!" And with these mad words he grabbed up his
valise and bolted from the room, and Ruggles could hear his running feet
tearing down the corridor.