“Come with me,” she continued, and motioned him to her room.
“I must go to him,” he thought, “or I must write.” But he followed her, and when he found a seat he added, aloud, “She died before we got there.”
“Ah!”
“Yes; and I must get back for the funeral—that is, if I can manage it. How is your head?”
“Oh, as for my head!—” And she made a movement as though her head and she were separate, as were it a thing that existed only when other things ceased to be. She went to the door and closed it, and then at once, still standing, she turned to where he sat.
In her attitude, in the expression of her eyes, was a fixidity so unusual that mentally Gonfallon gasped. For the time being Bucholz passed from his thoughts and the telegram was forgot. “She knows all,” he reflected. “Claire has confessed.” But of the inward perturbation his face gave no sign, and for the moment, as the earlier danger sank in sight of this newer one, he told himself, “If she believes it, she will leave me.”
“Yes,” he repeated, “she died before we got there. I suppose I should have remained; but the bishop, you know—” and thereat he nodded, as though the death of that prelate had absolved him from every tie. And as he nodded he eyed her, prepared at the first accusation to affect an appearance of speechless indignation under cover of which he could not only stalk from the room but slam the door as well.
Her lips trembled; she shook her head, almost absently it seemed to him, and one hand which had detained the fold of her gown she now raised, and, drawing it palm foremost across her brow, let it fall again to her side.
“Chris, listen to me. Last evening—you had barely gone—Claire rang for a messenger—she often does, you know—and sent some note. I thought nothing of it, and asked no questions. For a while she sat here talking about a habit she was trying to get, and a little later, it was barely ten o’clock, she said something about being tired, and went to her room. H’m. I think I must have fallen asleep. In any event, I heard a noise such as the front door makes. At first I thought you might have returned. I listened a moment, and then went out in the hall. There was no sound. I went to Claire’s room and tapped: she did not answer. I tried the door: it was locked. ‘She is asleep,’ I told myself, and listened again; but I heard nothing more, and, deciding that I had been mistaken, I came back here and tried to read. But I must have dozed off; for suddenly I awoke again with a start: I was sure I had heard that noise a second time. In a moment I was in the hall, and there, on the stairs, was Claire.”
“Claire!”
“Yes, Claire; it was then after one. She had been out at least two hours—perhaps even three.”
“But where? Where had she been?”
“I asked her, and she said she had been to Miss Pickett’s.”
“But she is often there. She was there only the other night.”
“Yes, I know. She told me that Miss Pickett was having a dance, and that she thought she might as well go. The messenger, she explained, was for the cab.”
“Really, Ruth, it was unconventional, I admit, and you must tell her not to go out in that way again, but, aside from that—no, really, I see no cause for anxiety.”
As his wife had spoken, a great load had been lifted from him—one, however, that was immediately replaced by another. “I must attend to Bucholz at once,” he decided.
“No, perhaps not,” Ruth answered, pensively. “Only she did not seem to be in ball-dress, and—”
But Gonfallon had no time to listen further. “Ruth,” he exclaimed, “I have many things to attend to. If you don’t mind, I will get Jane to give me a bite, and then I must go. Don’t sit up for me; and there,” he added, “I will see that the front door does not creak.”
She had fallen on a lounge, and, bending to her, he brushed her forehead with his lips and left the room.
IX
“Did you ever see a ventriloquist? The ventriloquist speaks, a mannequin answers. The questions are so adroit, the answers so natural, that everyone, even to the mannequin, thinks that the dialogue is real. Such, Miss Raritan, is love—a duo in which one of the vocalists grimaces while the other sings for two.”
“Mr. Jones, I knew your wit was copyrighted, I did not know it was profound.”
For centrepiece that evening the dinner-table had blue lilies afloat in a silver pond. About it were a handful of people, a dozen or fourteen at most, who had assembled at the bidding of Mrs. Manhattan partly to greet Mrs. Jerold Fox, a lady who some years before had deserted New York for the allurements of Paris and the Mediterranean coast, and partly to enjoy the primeur of a bishop en herbe. Mrs. Manhattan, be it said, was just the person to do things by halves.
And there, at the hostess’s right, as Gonfallon, expressing in eye and in mien the indulgence which comes of dishes perfectly served, sat listening to the conversation that fluttered about him, attentive the while to Mrs. Manhattan, affecting even to chide her for a jest which she had invented for the evening and which consisted in bestowing on him the title of Lord which the English give to their bishops, it was apparent that he was at peace with the world.
The episcopate, indeed, was not yet his, but during the fortnight that had elapsed since the terrible journey from Bronx, many things had happened which pointed directly to him as its future possessor. Moreover, the nightmare which Bucholz induced had vanished as abruptly as it had come. An
