They had intended to go to the theater but Ruyler put her to bed at
once. He offered to read to her, but she turned her back on him with
cold disdain, and he went to the little invisible cupboard where she
kept her own jewels and took out the heavy gold box which had been the
wedding present of one of his California business friends who owned a
quartz mine.
"I shall put this in the safe," he said incisively, "for, while I admire
your stanchness in friendship, even for such an unworthy object as Polly
Roberts, I do not propose that my wife shall be selling or pawning her
jewels for any reason whatever. Think over the proposal I made
downstairs. If Polly is willing I'll lend Roberts the money to-morrow."
She had thrown an arm over her face and she made no reply. He went down
stairs and put the box in the safe. It occurred to him that she had
watched him open and close the safe several times but she certainly never
had written the combination down, and it had taken him a long while to
commit it to memory himself.
He had glanced over the contents of the box before he locked it in. The
jewels were all there, the string of pearls that he had given her on
their marriage day, a few wedding presents, and several rings and
trinkets he had bought for her since. The value was perhaps twenty
thousand dollars, for he had told her that she must wait several years
before he could give her the jewels of a great lady. When she was thirty,
and really needed them to make up for fading charms--it had been one of
their pleasant little jokes.
As Ruyler set the combination he sighed and wondered whether their days
of joking were over. Their life had suddenly shot out of focus and it
would require all his ingenuity and patience, aided by friendly
circumstance, to swing it into line again. He did not believe a word of
the necklace story. Somebody was blackmailing the poor child. If he could
only find out who! He made up his mind suddenly to put this problem also
in the hands of Spaulding for solution. The question of his
mother-in-law's antecedents was important enough, but that of his wife's
happiness and his own was paramount.
He decided to go to the theater himself, for he was in no condition for
sleep or the society of men at the club, nor could any book hold his
attention. He prayed that the play would be reasonably diverting.