I
During the next few days Ruyler saw little of his wife. He was obliged to
take two business trips out of town and as he could not return until ten
o'clock at night he advised her to have company to dinner and take her
guests to the play. But she preferred to dine with Polly Roberts and
Aileen Lawton, and she spent her days for the most part at Burlingame,
motoring down with one or more of her friends, or sent for by some
enthusiastic girl admirer already established there for the summer.
Ruyler was quite willing to forego temporarily his plan of personal
guardianship, as the more she roamed abroad unattended the better could
Spaulding watch her associates. The detective had his agents in society,
as well as in the Palace Hotel, and on the third day he sent a brief note
to Ruyler announcing that he had "lit on to something" that would make
his employer's "hair curl, but no more at present from yours truly."
"This time," he added, "I'm on the right track and know it. No more fancy
theories. But I won't say a word till I can deliver the goods. Give your
wife all the rope you can."
Price and Helene met briefly and amiably and she did not again broach the
subject of the loan for her friend, nor did she ask for her jewels. It
was apparent that she was proudly determined to conceal whatever terrors
or even worries that might haunt her, but the effort deprived her of all
her native vivacity; she was almost formal in manner and her white face
grew more like a classic mask daily.
On the evening before the Thornton fete, however, Price was able to dine
at home. They met at table and he saw at once that she either had
recovered her spirits or was making a deliberate attempt to create the
impression of a carefree young woman happy in a tete-a-tete dinner with a
busy husband.
Her talk for the most part was of the great entertainment at San Mateo.
The weather promised to be simply magnificent. Wasn't that exactly like
Flora Thornton's luck? The immense grounds were simply swarming with
workmen; wagon-loads of all sorts of things went through the gates after
every train--simply one procession after another; but no one else could
so much as get her nose through those gates.
Helene, with all her old childish glee, related how she and Aileen, Polly
(who apparently had forgotten her impending doom), and two or three other
girls, had called up Mrs. Thornton on the telephone every ten minutes for
an hour--pretending it was long distance to make sure of a personal
response--and begged to be allowed to go over and see the preparations,
until finally, in a towering rage, her ladyship had replied that if they
called her again she would withdraw her invitations.