The Avalanche/Chapter II
I
Ruyler sighed as he heard his wife walk down the hall. There had been a time when she came running like a child at his summons, but in these days she walked with a leisurely dignity which to his possibly morbid ear betrayed a certain crab-like disposition in her little high heels to slip backward along the polished floor.
She came in smiling, however, and kissed him quickly and warmly. Her extraordinary hair hung down in two long braids, their blue blackness undulating among the soft folds of her thin pink negligée. For the first time Ruyler realized that pink was Hélène's favorite color; she seldom wore anything else except white or black, and then always relieved with pink. And why not, with that deep pink blush in her white cheeks, and the velvet blackness of her eyes? People still raved over Hélène Ruyler's "coloring," and Price told himself once more as she stood before him, her little head dragged back by the weight of her plaits, her slender throat crossed by a narrow line of black velvet, that he had married one of the most beautiful girls he had ever seen.
He was seized with a sudden sharp pang of jealousy and caught her in his arms roughly, his gray eyes almost as black as hers.
"Tell me," he exclaimed, and the new fear almost choked him, "does any other man interest you--the least little bit?"
She stared at him and then burst into the most natural laugh he had heard from her for months. "That is simply too funny to talk about."
"But I am able to give you so little of my time. Working or tired out at night--letting you go out so much alone--but I haven't the heart to insist that you yawn over a book, while I am shut up here, or too fagged to talk even to you. Life is becoming a tragedy for business men--if they've got it in them to care for anything else."
"Well, don't add to the tragedy by cultivating jealousy. I've told you that I am perfectly willing to give up Society and sit like Dora holding your pens--or filling your fountain pen--no, you dictate. What chance has a woman in a business man's life?"
"None, alas, except to look beautiful and be happy. Are you that?--the last I mean, of course!"
She nestled closer to him and laughed again. "More so than ever. To be frank you have completed my happiness by being jealous. I have wondered sometimes if it were a compliment--your being so sure of me."
"That's my idea of love."
"Well, it's mine, too. But if you want me to stay home--"
"Oh, no! You are fond of society? Really, I mean? Why shouldn't you be?--a young thing--"
"What else is there? Of course, I should enjoy it much more if you were always with me. Shall we never have that year in Europe together?"
"God knows. Something is wrong with the world. It needs reorganizing--from the top down. It is inhuman, the way even rich men have to work--to remain rich! But sit down."
He led her over to a chair before the window. The storm was decreasing in violence, the heavy curtain of rain was no longer tossed, but falling in straight intermittent lines, and the islands were coming to life. Even the high and heavy crest of Mount Tamalpais was dimly visible.
"It is the last of the storms, I fancy. Spring is overdue," said Price, who, however, was covertly watching his wife's face. Her color had faded a little, her lids drooped over eyes that stared out at the still turbulent waters.
"I love these San Francisco storms," she said abruptly. "I am so glad we have these few wild months. But Mrs. Thornton has worried and so have we. Her fête at San Mateo comes off on the fourteenth, the first entertainment she has given since her return, and it would be ghastly if it rained. It should be a wonderful sight--those grounds--everybody in fancy dress with little black velvet masks. Don't you think you can go?"
"The fourteenth? I'll try to make it. Who are you to be?"
"Beatrice d'Este--in a court gown of black tissue instead of velvet, with just a touch of pink--oh, but a wonderful creation! I designed it myself. We are not bothering too much about historical accuracy."
"How would you like this for the touch of pink!" He took the immense ruby from his pocket and tossed it into her lap.
For a moment she stared at it with expanding eyes, then gave a little shriek of rapture and flung herself into his arms, the child he had married.
"Is it true? But true? Shall I wear this wonderful thing? The women will die of jealousy. I shall feel like an empress--but more, more, I shall wear this lovely thing--I, I, Hélène Ruyler, born Perrin, who never had a franc in her pocket in Rouen! Price! Have you changed your mind--but no! I cannot believe it."
That was it then! He watched her mobile face sharply. It expressed nothing but the excited rapture of a very young woman over a magnificent toy. There was none of the morbid feverish passion he had dreadfully anticipated. His spirits felt lighter, although he sighed that a bauble, even if it were one of the finest of its kind in the world, should have projected its sinister shadow between them. It had a wicked history. But Hélène saw no shadows. She held it up to the light, peered into it as it lay half concealed in the cup of her slender white hands, fondled it against her cheek, hung the chain about her neck.
"How I have dreamed of it," she murmured. "How did you come to change your mind?"
"I thought it a pity such a fine jewel should live forever in a safe; and it will become you above all women. Nature must have had you in her eye when she designed the ruby. I had a sudden vision ... and made up my mind that you should wear it the first time I was able to take you to a party. I must keep the letter of my promise."
"And I can only wear it when you are with me?"
"I am afraid so."
"I'm you, if there is anything in the marriage ceremony." Then she kissed him impulsively. "But I won't be a little pig. And I can tell everybody between now and the Thornton fête that I am going to wear it, and I can think and dream of my triumph meanwhile. But why didn't you let me know you were down? It is Sunday, our only day. I overslept shockingly. I didn't get home till two."
"Two? Do you dance until two every night?"
"What else? They lead such a purposeless life out here. We sometimes have classes--but they don't last long. I have almost forgotten that I once had a serious mind. But what would you? It is either society or suffrage. I won't be as serious as that yet. I mean to be young--but young! for five more years. Then I shall become a 'leader,' or vote for the President, or ride on a float in a suffrage parade dressed as the Goddess of Liberty, with my hair down."
He laughed, more and more relieved. "Yes, please remain young until you are twenty-five. By that time I hope the world will have adjusted itself and I shall have the leisure to companion you. Meanwhile, be a child. It is very refreshing to me. Come. I must lock this thing up. I have an interview here with Spaulding in about ten minutes."
She gave it up reluctantly, kissing it much as she had kissed him during their engagement; warm, lingering, but almost impersonal kisses. The ruby seemed miraculously to have restored her beaten youth.
She sat on the edge of a chair as he opened the safe and placed the jewel in its box and drawer.
"There is one other thing I wanted to ask," he said as he rose. "Is your allowance sufficient? It has sometimes occurred to me that you wanted more--for some feminine extravagance."
The light went out of her face. He wondered whimsically if he had locked it in with the ruby, and once more he was conscious that something intangible floated between them. But she looked at him squarely with her shadowed eyes.
"Oh, one could spend any amount, of course, but I really have quite enough."
"You shall have double your present allowance when these cursed times improve. And I have always intended to settle a couple of hundred thousand on you--a quarter of a million--as soon as I could realize without loss on certain investments. But one day I want you to be quite independent."
Her eyes had opened very wide. "A quarter of a million? And it would be all my own? I could do anything with it I liked?"
"Well--I think I should put it in trust. I haven't much faith in the resistance of your sex to tempting investments promising a high rate of interest."
"I have heard you say that when rich men die the amount of worthless stock found in their safe deposit boxes passes belief."
"Quite true. But that is hardly an argument in favor of trusting an even more inexperienced sex with large sums of money."
She laughed, but less naturally than when he had been seized with an unwonted spasm of jealousy. "You will always get the best of me in an argument," she said with her exquisite politeness. "Really, I think I love being wholly dependent upon you. Here comes your detective. What a bore. But at least we lunch together if we do have company. And thank you, thank you a thousand times for promising I shall wear the ruby at last."
She slipped her hand into his for a second, then left the room, smiling over her shoulder, as the locally celebrated "Jake" Spaulding entered. Both Ruyler and his general manager had thought it best to have their cashier watched. There were rumors of gambling and other road house diversions, and they proposed to save their man to the firm, if possible; if not, to discharge him before he followed the usual course and involved Ruyler and Sons in the loss of thousands they could ill afford to spare.