“Ask Doctor Dix.”
But already, with a gesture of annoyance, she had turned. It was from over her shoulder that she threw those three small and, to Glendenning, entirely enigmatic words.
At once he protested.
“I will come in with you.”
Angrily she shook herself. Never again would she allow him or anyone else to say a word against Revell, who, from the drawing room window, was at that moment smiling down on both.
“You need not, then,” she threw as before at Glendenning. “For I won’t be at home.”
She flew in, flew up, and, finding Revell, flew into his arms.
XI
“There is something so commercial about a diamond. You never see one without wondering what it is worth. But in the ruby is the secret of beauty. Like the rose, it charms and does nothing.”
Camille, listening to Revell’s remarks, looked at the stone he had brought her. After the manner of the modern girl that she was, she cared little for jewels. But there are old-fashioned conventions that still persist, and an engagement ring is one of them.
Already she had told him about Archibald, about the money and the manuscript—a little string of episodes that interested him hugely, far more, indeed, than she had imagined they would; and it was after he had absorbed the story that the ring—and the remarks—were produced.
“But though I love you with all my heart,” he resumed, “though I loved you from the beginning and shall love you to the end, I cannot decently ask you to marry me until you are informed of certain things.”
Camille assumed the look of a martyr.
“Don’t! I’m overburdened with information now.”
“So am I,” answered. “I must share it with you. One night in San Francisco, Mike and I ran into a poor devil who was so ill that he could hardly stand. He said that he was without a friend or relative in the world and begged us, for the love of God, to help him. On the corner was a cheap lodging house where we took him and got him a room in which Mike left his passport. The next day the man died, and it was the name on the passport that was entered on the death certificate.”
Through the window came the light and eagerness of the April sun. But the room seemed suddenly dark. In that darkness Camille, who had been sitting very close to Revell, edged from him. She did not know what to say, nor yet what now to expect. It was a moment, even, before she could speak.
“You say Mike was with you?”
“Certainly he was with me.”
“Then what became of him afterward?”
“Nothing in particular. He’s very well, though, if that is what you mean.”
“But his will, then? A live man can’t have his will entered for probate, can he?”
“Now that you mention it, I don’t think that any live man ever succeeded in doing so before. But Mike can be very surprising. When he first learned of his father’s death and of the suspicions his absence had aroused, his first impulse was to return here. But as I told him, first impulses are to be guarded against. They are almost invariably noble. Then, on reflection, he agreed with me that it would be stupid to run the risk of being arrested for a crime that he had not committed, that he could not disprove, but that inevitably Glendenning would try to fasten on him. And he agreed too, that, meanwhile, it would harm no one if he remained out of sight. Now, though, in view of Archibald, it is all quite different.”
Camille, who had been looking down, looked up. The room seemed brighter, the air less charged.
“I told you an awful whopper about it,” Revell continued. “But though I lied like a thief, it was for you. Honest men never lie except to those they love. For those they love, a good, straight lie is often a great protection. It preserves them from that vulture of the mind that worry is. Then, too, agreeable people only say agreeable things, and there is nothing better for the complexion. If, when I first got here, I had told you that Mike was playing possum and that I was just masquerading as his heir, you would have shown me the door—which I admit is very pretty and well worth being shown. But you wouldn’t have liked it. Perhaps you don’t like it even now.”
Camille sighed and shook her docked hair.
“Oh, I suppose I shall when I get used to it. But just now I feel all upside down. Whenever I get mixed up, it gives me a headache. Why is that?”
Revell took her hand.
“In the present case, I suppose because you don’t know whether or not you can forgive me.”
At that, she put her other hand on his.
“Victor, when a girl loves a man, she can forgive him anything. Only—”
“Only what?”
“Don’t give me any more headaches.”
“Not if I can help it, though Mike may.”
“Oh, that reminds me. I could have sworn I saw him today in the street.”
“And I can swear you did not,” thought Revell, but he only smiled.
“It gave me such a start! Afterward I told Arthur Glendenning, who said that it could not be Mike—that you kept him locked up at the St. Jasper.”
“Where the deuce did he get that?” thought Revell.
But he said:
“Glendenning is a very amusing person. He ought to be on a barrel organ with a chain around him.”
“Anyway,” Camille continued, “Mike might come to see me. Where is he?”
“He’s here. He’s in town. But what would be the use of his coming? He said you wouldn’t look at him.”
“But I always liked him.”
“He said he didn’t want to be liked. He wanted—”
“I know, and I couldn’t. I was waiting for you, Victor! For you!”
“But he will dance at our wedding, if you’ll forgive me my lies.”
Then, through the brief blue afternoon, they talked. Finally Revell stood up.
“I’ll come again tonight,
