Читать книгу: «The Forbidden Way», страница 13

CHAPTER XIX
THE LADY IN GRAY

She was frankly amused at his bewilderment.

"Well," she said with a smile, "you don't seem very pleased to see me."

"I – it's rather sudden. I wasn't exactly certain it was you." He took her hand mechanically. "What on earth are you doing out here?"

"I've come to see you – traveled two thousand miles to tell you I'm sorry."

Jeff brought forth a chair.

"Sorry? What for? Oh, yes, we quarreled, didn't we? I remember. It was my fault. But I don't understand yet. Are you on your way to the coast?"

"What coast? Oh, no," coolly; "I rather thought I'd reached my destination, but perhaps I'm mistaken."

Jeff was still regarding her curiously, as if he couldn't be quite sure he was not dreaming. He pulled out his swivel chair and sat in it, facing her.

"Now tell me what this means," he insisted rather sternly.

"I've told you. I want to convey the impression of begging your pardon. Don't I do it? I've tried so hard. Ugh! Such unspeakable sleeping-cars last night! Such a silly little train this morning from the place with the unpronounceable name. I had no idea that friendship could be such a martyrdom!" She sighed. "I think I really deserve something after this."

He found that he was smiling in spite of himself. "You do, I'm sure," he said after a pause. "But I don't bear you any grudge. I expected too much of you, I guess. I've forgotten that long ago. I'm glad to see you."

"Really?" she drawled. "You convey just the opposite idea. You ought to be glad, you know. I've never been so tired in my life. That train! Oh, Jeff, whatever possessed you to live in such an outlandish place?"

"This is where I belong. If Mesa City is outlandish, then I'm outlandish, too."

"Love me, love my dog," she laughed. "I'd have to love you a lot. Perhaps it will improve on acquaintance." She crossed her feet and settled more comfortably in her chair, while Jeff watched her shrewdly.

"You can't mean you want to stay here?" he asked.

"I don't know. That depends on you. I've told you the sentimental side of my journey. Actually I'm a practical young female, with a prudent eye for an investment." And when her companion smiled, "Are you laughing because you think I'm not practical – or because you think I'm not prudent?"

"I'd hardly call you either. In fact, I don't know what to think. You don't seem to belong, somehow."

"Why not? Once you said I spoke out like Mesa City."

"But you don't look like Mesa City."

"Horrors!" preening her hair, "I hope not."

Jeff leaned back in his chair with folded arms and examined her – his eyes narrowing critically. She had given two explanations of her presence, neither of which in itself seemed sufficient. The real explanation, he was forced to admit, lay in the presence itself. She bore his scrutiny calmly, examining him with frank interest.

"What is it you don't understand?" she asked him, answering the question in his eyes with another. "Me? Oh, you'll have to give it up. There isn't any answer. I'm something between a sibyl and a sphinx. You thought you'd guessed me in New York, but you hadn't, you see. I'm neither what you thought I was, nor what you thought I ought to be. I'm the spirit of Self-Will. I do as I choose. I thought I'd like to see you, and so I came —Voilà."

"I don't know what you can expect here. The accommodations at the hotel – "

"Oh, I can stand anything now – after your trains – "

"You'll be bored to death."

"I'm always bored to death. But, then, this place may have the charm of boring me in an entirely new way. After all," she sighed, "I might as well be bored here as at home."

Wray got up without speaking and walked to the window which overlooked the plains. He stood here a moment, his hands behind his back, the look of perplexity deepening on his face. Somehow Rita Cheyne didn't seem accessory to the rather grim background of his thoughts. For days he had been acting the leading part in what now promised to be a tragedy. Rita belonged to satirical comedy or, at the best, to the polite melodrama. Something of this she suddenly read in his attitude, wondering why she had not discerned it before. She got up and went over to him.

"What is it, Jeff? You're changed somehow out here. You seem older, bigger, browner, more thoughtful."

"This is where I work, Rita," he said with a slow smile. "In New York we Westerners only play. I am older – yes, more thoughtful, too. I've had a good deal to worry me – "

"Yes, I know. I think Cortland Bent has been behaving very badly."

Jeff made a quick gesture of protest.

"I didn't mean that," he said abruptly. "My worries are business worries."

"Oh! I intruded."

"Yes, you did. But I'm glad of it now. I'm going to Hell about as fast as a man can, but I might as well do it comfortably."

"What do you mean?" she asked in alarm.

"Your relatives, the Bents. They've got me in a corner."

"Yes, I heard. What will be the end of it?"

Jeff ran a finger around his throat with a significant gesture.

"Won't you tell me about it?"

"It wouldn't interest you. It's a long story. They have more money than I have. That's the amount of it."

"I thought you were so wealthy."

"I am. But I can't go up against the whole of Wall Street. They've cost me a lot. If I won this fight I'd be the richest man west of the Missouri River. It isn't over yet." He paced the room violently, beginning to rant, as he still did when to talked of himself. "No, by G – d! not yet. They've got to come to me in the end. They can't get my mine." He went over to his desk and took out a piece of ore. "See that, Rita; that came out of 'Lone Tree' only yesterday. They may get a control of the Denver and Saguache and even of the Development Company, but they can't get the 'Lone Tree.' I reckon I won't starve."

"But how can they get the Development Company?"

"The banks have called my loans – oh, you can't understand. If I don't meet them, the stock will be sold. Bent's crowd will buy it."

"Of course I don't know much about these things, but I was wondering – how much stock is there?"

"Two million and a half. I've borrowed eight hundred thousand dollars."

She looked down, turning the ferrule of her umbrella on the toe of her boot.

"Suppose some one else bought it?"

"I hadn't thought of that. Who?"

"Me."

Jeff started forward in his chair, his eyes blazing – then he took a step or two away from her.

"You?"

She nodded pertly. He turned and looked at her over his shoulder. Then, with a warm impulse, he seized both of her hands in his and held them tightly in his own.

"That's white of you, Rita. You're the real thing. I'll swear you are – the Real Thing – you've got sand, too, a lot of it, and I like you for it. It's worth while getting in a hole to find out who your friends are. I won't forget this soon."

She disengaged her hands.

"Thanks," she said calmly. "Do you agree?"

"Agree? To what?"

"To let me buy that stock?"

He straightened and turned to his desk, uncertainly fingering some papers there. He was silent so long that she repeated the question.

"No," he said at last.

"Why do you say that?"

"I don't want you to."

"I don't understand. In New York you were willing to have me in with you. Why do you object now? Any security your banks will take ought to be good enough for me. Any security my cousin Cornelius Bent wants to buy ought to be worth having."

"It is – to him."

"Then why not to me? – it's all in the family."

He looked at her blankly a moment and then laughed and shook his head.

"No – there's too much risk."

"I expected to risk something."

He sat down in his chair before her and put his hands over hers.

"See here, Rita. You'll have to let me think this thing out and take my own time. I never put my friends into anything I don't believe in myself. If you're looking for an investment here I'll find you something. I know a dozen good things."

"You can't prevent my getting that stock if I want it," she broke in.

"The Amalgamated can."

"I'll go to the General and tell him I insist on having it. He's a little afraid of me."

He laughed. "He ought to be. I am, too." Jeff rose and took up his hat and Rita Cheyne's traveling bag. "There's one thing sure: I'm not going to talk about this any more – not now. You're tired. I've got to get you fixed up somehow. You know I started building a place up in the cañon, but it's not finished yet. Mrs. Brennan is away. There's nothing for it but a hotel, I guess."

"Oh, I don't care. I'm not going to be discouraged. I warn you I always have my own way – in the end – in all things."

He chose to disregard the significance of the remark and showed her out. On their way up the street the spirit moved him to apologize again.

"There's a bathroom at the Kinney House. I'd better take you there. It's pretty well kept. Camilla stayed there once. I wish she was here."

"You do?" quizzically.

"Why – yes."

"Then why don't you have her here?" she asked suddenly.

A shade passed over Jeff's face. "We went East for the winter," he said slowly. "I had to come back here. My wife likes it in New York. It – it wasn't advisable for her to come."

"Thanks, I knew that before," she said slowly. Further conversation was interrupted by their arrival at the Kinney House, a frame structure at the upper end of Main Street, where it stood in lonely dignity, quite dwarfing its nearest neighbors, which clambered part of the way up the slope and then paused – as though in sudden diffidence before the majesty of its three-storied preëminence. It wore at this time a coat of yellow paint of a somewhat bilious hue, but its cornices, moldings, and the rather coquettish ornaments about the "Ladies Entrance" were painted white. The letters C-A-F-E (without the accent), painted ostentatiously upon a window, gave a touch of modernity, and the words "Ladies' Parlor" advised the wearied traveler that here was to be found a haven for the females of refined and retiring dispositions. The sound of a piano was heard from that chaste apartment as Mrs. Cheyne registered her long angular signature beneath that of "Pat O'Connell, Santa Fe"; and the strains of "The Maiden's Prayer" came forth, followed presently by the "Carnival of Venice." Mrs. Cheyne smiled her tolerance.

"Do you want a room by the day, week or month, ma'am?" asked the clerk.

"I'm a little uncertain," she said; "I may be here only for a day or two or I may be here" – and she glanced at Jeff – "for a month – or even longer."

"Mrs. Cheyne is looking into some mining properties," said Jeff with an amused air. But when his companion followed the clerk up the stairway, jangling a key with a huge brass tag, Jeff departed thoughtfully. So far as he could see, Mrs. Cheyne had come to Mesa City with the express intention of playing the devil. The magnificence of her financial offer, while it dazzled, had not blinded him. But he was truly bewildered by her audacity, disarmed by the recklessness of her amiability. She always got what she wanted in the end, she said. What was it she wanted? Himself? He couldn't help thinking so, but it made him feel like a fool. In the East she had led him or as she led other men on, for the mere joy of the game, and he had followed her cautiously, aware of his own insufficiency but delighting in the opportunities her society afforded him to even his accounts with Camilla. Both had called their relation friendship for want of a better word, but Jeff knew that friendship had another flavor. The night when he had last visited her he had played his cards and had called that bluff. But to-day he realized that she had seen his raise and had now removed the limit from the game. From now on it was to be for table stakes, with Rita Cheyne dealing the cards.

And what did her amazing financial proposition mean? Could it be genuine? He knew that she was very wealthy – wealthy in the New York way – but it was not in his experience that sentiment and finance had anything in common. If her offers were genuine, her confidence in his financial integrity and in him was extraordinary. If they were not, her confidence in herself was likewise extraordinary.

Jeff smiled to himself a little uneasily. What would Mesa City be saying about the unexplained arrival of a captivating female from New York who sought him out at his office and whose claims upon his society (unless he fled) could not be denied. There was no chance for him to flee, even if he wished, the condition of his business requiring his presence here for at least a few days, and the trunk check in his hand reminded him that he had promised Rita Cheyne her trunk immediately, so that she might ride with him that very afternoon. What was to be done? Her ingenuity had always surprised him, and her resources were of infinite variety. To tell the truth, he was afraid of her, and was willing for the first time to acknowledge it frankly to himself. She interested him – had always interested him – but it seemed to be more the interest of curiosity than that of any real affiliation. To be with Rita Cheyne was like going to a three-ring circus, where one is apt to lose sight of the refined performance on the stage just in front in bewilderment over the acrobatic feats of the lady in spangles at one side. What was her real reason for coming West to Mesa City? He gave it up and turned in at the office, gave the trunk check to a clerk, and in a moment had taken up his business at the point where Mrs. Cheyne had interrupted him.

Eight hundred thousand dollars! If the Amalgamated took up that stock, General Bent's crowd would have control of the Development Company and the Denver and Saguache Railroad Company. If Rita Cheyne's offers were genuine – if he chose to use her money to redeem that stock – he could place himself on some kind of financial footing, could entrench himself for a long battle over the railroad connections, which he might eventually win. There was a chance. He did not dare to call in Mulrennan to talk the matter over. Pete had been catching at straws for a week, and Jeff knew what his advice would be. His superstitious mind would look on Mrs. Cheyne's visit as a direct interposition of Providence, as a message and an injunction. Jeff began to think himself mad not to have accepted her proposition at once. It dangled before him temptingly – but he let it hang there like ripe fruit upon the vine, hesitating to reach forth and seize. He could not believe it was real. It was "too aisy," as Pete would have said. Was he losing his nerve? Was it that the last victories of his enemies had sapped some of his old assurance, or had he suddenly developed a conscience? He put his head in his hands and tried to think. If he won his fight he could double Rita Cheyne's money in a year. If he lost – and he had to think of that more and more each day – the stock might not be worth the paper it was written on. Rita knew all this, but she still believed in him – more even than he believed in himself. Women were funny. He couldn't understand, unless she had some motive which had not been revealed to him. There would be a string of some sort to that extraordinary proposition.

He got up at last and sent a message to the Home Ranch, ordering two horses to be sent to his office at three o'clock.

CHAPTER XX
La Femme Propose

The wagon-road to the "Lone Tree" skirted the mountains for a way and then wound through a nick in the foothills into a level vale of natural parks, meadows, and luxuriant grass, bordered by pines and cottonwoods, beneath which tiny streams meandered leisurely down to the plains below.

Mrs. Cheyne emerged from the scrub-oak delightedly.

"It's like a Central Park for Brobdingnags," she cried. "I feel as though Apache ought to have seven-league horseshoes. As a piece of landscape gardening it's remarkably well done, for Nature is so apt to make mistakes – only Art is unerring." She breathed deep and sighed. "Here it seems Nature and Art are one. But it's all on such a big scale. It makes me feel so tiny – I'm not sure that I like it, Jeff Wray. I don't fancy being an insect. And the mountain tops! Will they never come any nearer? We've been riding toward them for an hour, but they seem as far away as ever. I know now why it was that I liked you – because your eyes only mirrored big things – nobody can have a mountain for a friend without joining the immortal Fellowship. It makes it so easy to scorn lesser things – like bridge and teas. Imagine a mountain at an afternoon tea!"

Jeff rode beside her, answering in monosyllables. The road now climbed a wood of tall oaks, rock-pines, and spruces, through which the sunlight filtered uncertainly, dappling fern and moss with vagrant amber. Somewhere near them a stream gushed among the rocks and a breeze crooned in the boughs. Rita Cheyne stopped talking and listened for she knew not what. There was mystery here – the voice of the primeval, calling to her down the ages. She glanced at Jeff, who sat loosely on his horse, his gaze on the trail. She had believed he shared her own emotions, but she knew by the look in his eyes that his thoughts were elsewhere. She spoke so suddenly that he looked up, startled.

"Why don't you say something? This place makes me think about Time and Death – the two things I most abhor. Come, let's get out of here."

Apache sprang forward up the trail at the bidding of his mistress, whose small heels pressed his flanks, again and again, as she urged him on and out into the afternoon sunlight beyond, while Jeff thundered after. He caught her at the top of a sand-ridge half a mile away, where they pulled their horses down to a walk.

"What was the matter?" said Jeff. "You rode as if the Devil was after you."

"Oh, no – I'm not afraid of the Devil. It's the mystery of the Infinite. That wood – why don't the dead oak-branches fall? They look like gibbets. Ugh!" She shuddered and laughed. "Didn't you feel it?"

"Feel what?"

"Spooky."

"No. I camped there once when I was prospecting. That stream you jumped was Dead Man's Creek."

"He must be there yet, the dead man. It was like a tomb. Who was he?"

"A soldier. He deserted from Fort Garland and was killed by some Mexicans. They buried him under a pile of stones."

"What a disagreeable place. It's like a cemetery for dead hopes. I won't go back; you'll have to take me around some other way."

"What are you afraid of?"

"I'm afraid of melancholy – I hate unhappiness. I was born to be amused – I won't be unhappy," she said almost fiercely. "Why should I be? I have everything in the world that most people want. If I see anything I want and haven't got, I go and get it."

"You're lucky."

She shrugged. "So people say. I do as I please. I always have and always will. You were surprised to see me here. I told you why I came. I wanted to see you. You were the only person in New York who did not bore me to extinction. If it gives me pleasure to be here, this is the place where I ought to be. That's logical, isn't it?"

"It sounds all right. But you won't stay here long," he said.

"Why not?"

"You couldn't stand it. There's nothing to do but ride."

"I'd rather ride than do anything else."

Jeff looked straight forward over his horse's ears, his eyes narrowing, his lips widening in a smile.

"Well – if you don't see what you want – ask for it," he said slowly.

"I will. Just now, however, I don't want anything except an interest in your business. You're going to let me have it, aren't you, Jeff? You'd take some stranger in. Why not me? I'm the most innocuous stockholder that ever lived. I always do whatever anybody tells me to do."

"You don't realize the situation. I've told you I'm in a dangerous position. With that stock in my possession again, all my holdings would be intact and I might stand a long siege – or perhaps be able to make a favorable compromise – but there's no certainty of it. I don't know what they've got up their sleeves. As it is, I stand to lose the greater part of my own money, but I'm not going to lose yours."

"I don't believe you're going to lose. I'm not quite a fool. Those papers you showed me don't prove anything. The Development Company has two hundred thousand acres of land worth twenty dollars an acre and the coal fields besides. That's good enough security for me."

"It would be good enough security for any one if we had our connection. I could make you a lot of money." He broke off impatiently. "See here, Rita, don't press me in this matter, I'd rather wait a while. I've got a few days before those notes are due. Something may turn up – "

"Which will let me out – thanks, I'm not going to be left out. I know what you've done in these mountains and in this country, and I believe in you as much as I ever did. I'd like you to let me help you, and I'm not afraid of losing – but if I do lose, it won't kill me. Perhaps I'm richer than you think I am. I'm willing to wait. You'll be rich again some day, and I'll take my chances. They can't keep you down, Jeff – not for long."

Jeff thrust forth a hand and put it over hers.

"You're solid gold, Rita, and you're the best friend I ever had. I can't say more than that."

She smiled happily. "I've been hoping you'd say that. It's worth coming out here for. I want to prove it, though – and I hope you'll let me."

The road now turned upward toward the railroad grade. As they reached the crest of the hill Jeff pointed to the left at the mills and the smelter buildings hanging tier on tier down the side of the mountain. Below in a depression of the hills a lake had formed, surrounded by banks of reddish earth. The whole scene was surpassing ugly, and the only dignity it possessed was lent by the masses of tall black stacks, above which hung a pall of smoke and yellow gases. Rita Cheyne gasped. "So that's the bone of contention? I thought it would be something like the New York Public Library or the Capitol at Washington! Why, Jeff, it's nothing but a lot of rusty iron sheds!"

"Yes," he drawled, "we don't go in much for architecture out here. It's what's inside those sheds that counts. We've got every known appliance for treating ore that was ever patented, with a wrinkle or two the Amalgamated hasn't."

They rode around the lake while Wray explained everything to her, and then up the hill toward the trestles and ore-dumps of the "Lone Tree" mine. Wray's struggles for a right-of-way to the markets of the country showed no reflection here. From two small holes in the mountain side cars emerged at intervals upon their small tracks and dumped their loads at the mill, from which there came a turmoil of titanic forces. Jeff offered to show his companion the workings, but she refused.

"No, I think not," she said. "It's too noisy here. I haven't finished talking to you, and I want to ride."

And so they turned their horses' heads into another trail, which descended among the rocks and scrub-oak, after a while emerging at the edge of a great sand-dune which the wind had tossed up from the valley below – a hill of sand a thousand feet high, three miles wide and six miles long, a mountain range in miniature, in which trees, rocks, and part of a mountain were obliterated. Even the Great Desert had not presented to Rita Cheyne such a scene of desolation. Their horses stopped, sniffed the breeze, and snorted. Jeff pointed into the air, where some vultures wheeled.

Mrs. Cheyne shuddered. "It looks like Paradise Lost. We're not going there?"

"No – I only wanted you to see it. There's a thousand million dollars of gold in that sandpile."

"Let it stay there. I think it's a frightfully unpleasant place. Why do you show me all these things when all I want to do is to talk?" She turned her horse's head, and they followed a slight trail between groves of aspen trees, a shimmering loveliness of transparent color. "You're not giving me much encouragement, Jeff. You didn't believe in my friendship in New York, but you're trying your best to keep me from proving it here."

"I do believe it now. Didn't I tell you so?"

"Yes, but you don't show it. What do you think my enemies in New York are saying of my disappearance? What will they say when they know I've come out here to you? Not that I care at all. Only I think that you ought to consider it."

"I do," he said briefly. "Why do you make such a sacrifice?"

"I never make sacrifices," she said, eluding him skillfully, "even for my friends. Don't make that mistake. I've told you I came because I'd rather be here than in New York. If I heard that your financial enemies were trying to ruin you, that only made me the more anxious to come. Besides, I had an idea that you might be lonely. Was I right?"

"Yes – I am."

"Was, you mean."

"Yes – was," he corrected. "I've been pretty busy, of course, night as well as day, but after New York this place is pretty quiet."

"Did you miss me?"

"Yes," frankly, "I did – you and I seem to get on pretty well. I think we always will."

"So do I. I've always wondered if I'd ever meet a man who hadn't been spoiled. And I was just about ready to decide that he didn't exist when you came along. The discovery restored my faith in human nature. It was all the more remarkable, too, because you were married. Most married men are either smug and conceited, or else dejected and apprehensive. In either case they're quite useless for my purpose."

"What is your purpose?" he asked.

"Psychological experiment," she returned glibly. "Some naturalists study beetles, others butterflies and moths. I like to study men."

"Have you got me classified?"

"Yes – you're my only reward for years of patient scientific endeavor. The mere fact that you're married makes no difference, except that as a specimen you're unique. Do you wonder that I don't want to lose you?"

"I'm not running away very fast."

"No. But the fact remains that you're not my property," she answered, frowning. "I can't see – I've never been able to see – why you ever married, any more than I can see why I did. I'm quite sure that you would have made me an admirable husband, just as I'm sure that I would have made you an admirable wife. You don't mind my speaking plainly, do you? I'm thinking out loud. I don't do it as a rule. It's a kind of luxury that one doesn't dare to indulge in often. I have so many weak points in which you are strong, and I have a few strong ones in which you are weak, we could help each other. You could make something of me, I'm sure. I'm not as useless as I seem to be; sometimes I think I have in me the material to accomplish great things – if I only knew where to begin, or if I had some one who is in the habit of accomplishing them to show me how. That is why I wanted to help you. It struck me as a step in the right direction."

"It was," he ventured, "only it was too big a step."

"One can't do big things by halves," she insisted. "Money is the only thing I have that you lack. It is the only thing that I can give – that's why I want to give it – so that you can use it as a measure of my sincerity. I'd like to make you happy, too – " She paused, and her voice sank a note. "Why should you be unhappy? You don't deserve it. I know you don't. I haven't any patience with women who don't know a good thing when they have it."

"Perhaps I'm not as good a thing as I seem. You yourself are not beyond making mistakes, Rita."

"Oh, Cheyne? I didn't make that mistake, Cheyne did. He thought marriage was a sentimental holiday, when everybody nowadays knows that it's only a business contract. Don't let's talk of Cheyne. I can still hear the melancholy wail of his 'cello. I want to forget all of that. You have helped me to do it. I've been looking at you from every angle, Jeff Wray, and I find that I approve of you. Your wife has other views. She married you out of pique. You married her because she was the only woman in sight. You put a halo around her head, dressed her up in tinsel, set her on a gilt pedestal, and made believe that she was a goddess. It was a pretty game, but it was only a game after all. Imagine making a saint of a woman of this generation! People did – back in the Dark Ages – but the ages must have been very dark, or they'd never have made such a mistake. I've often thought that saints must be very uncomfortable, because they were human once. Your wife was human. She still is. She didn't want to be worshipped. She hadn't forgotten my cousin Cortland, you see – "

"What's the use of all this, Rita?" said Wray hoarsely. "I don't mind your knowing. Everybody else seems to. But why talk about it? Let sleeping dogs lie."

She waved her hand in protest. "One of the dearest privileges of friendship is to say as many disagreeable things as one likes. I'm trying to show you how impossible you are to a woman of her type, and how impossible your wife is to you."

"I'd rather you wouldn't."

"She marries you to prove to my cousin Cortland that he isn't the only man in the world, and then spends an entire winter in New York proving to everybody that he is. There hasn't been a day since you left that they haven't been together, riding, motoring, going to the theatre and opera. It has reached the point when people can't think of asking one of them to dinner without including the other. If you don't know all this, it's time you did. And I take it as a melancholy privilege to be the one to tell you of it. It's too bad. No clever woman can allow herself to be the subject of gossip, and when she does she has a motive for what she's doing or else she doesn't care. Perhaps you know what Mrs. Wray's motive is. If you have an understanding with her you haven't done me the honor of telling it."

"No," he muttered, "I'm not in the habit of talking of my affairs. You know we don't get along. No amount of talking will help matters."

"What are you going to do?"

Wray's eyes were sullen. Rita Cheyne chose to believe that he was thinking of his wife. But as he didn't reply at once she repeated the question. It almost seemed as though her insistence annoyed him, but his tone was moderate.

"What is it to you, Rita?"

She took a quick glance at him before she replied.

"It means a good deal to me," she went on more slowly. "To begin with, I haven't any fancy for seeing my best friend made a fool of by the enemies of his own household. It seems to me that your affairs and hers have reached a point where something must be done. Perhaps you've already decided."