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The observant eyes of Lady Shalem had noted the animated conversation between the Grafin and Ronnie, and she had overheard fragments of the invitation that had been accorded to the latter. "Take us the little foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines," she quoted to herself; "not that that music-boy would do much in the destructive line, but the principle is good."
"My dear Ronnie, don't be absolutely idiotic," she said, forbearingly, but rather as though she warned him that he had said quite enough. He breathed heavily, resentfully, but still declined to look at her. "Of course if you'd sooner I went away altogether..." he remarked. "I don't see that you can help us by staying," Brenda said. "I mean for good," he explained tragically.
But, when her eyes met his, and she knew that he saw her, she moved quickly forward, kneeled down beside him, and it was the face of his wife, all flooded with glad tenderness, which, resting against his shoulder, looked up into his. She had spoken no word; yet at the first sight of her Ronnie knew that the cloud which had been between them, was between no longer. "Helen," he said; "Oh, Helen!"
He slipped into the room, and, reaching her, bent to kiss her; then, as she clung closely to him, he sat down on the edge of her bed. "I'm sorry Hyde annoyed you," he said. She leaned her head against him, and was silent. "It'll be a good thing for you when you're married," Ronnie went on presently. "Baring will take better care of you than I do." Something in his tone went straight to her heart.
"It may not affect us quite so much, but personally I believe that the whole world is happier and better when champagne is cheap. It is the bottled gaiety of the nation. A nation of ginger ale drinkers would be doomed before they reached the second generation. 1900 Pommery, this, Ronnie, and I drink your health.
As he passed in at the gate he saw the motherly figure of Mrs. Simpkins, a baby on her arm, appear at the window, lifting her hand to draw down the crimson blind. Before the blind shut in the bright interior, Ronnie caught a glimpse of three curly heads round a small Christmas-tree on the kitchen-table. Simpkins, in his shirt-sleeves, was lighting the topmost candle.
We rode barebacked in those days. You could stick on anything. Remember?" Yes, Hope remembered; and a sudden, almost fierce regret surged up within her. "Oh, Ronnie," she said, "I wish we were kids still!" He laughed at her softly, and rose. "I know better," he said; "and so does Baring. Good-night, old girl! Sleep well!" And with that he left her. But Hope scarcely slept till break of day.
Ronnie Knox, as everybody calls him, the eyes lighting up at the first mention of his name, has gone over to the Roman Catholic Church, not by any means with a smile of cynicism on his face, but rather with the sweat of a struggle still clinging to his soul.
I considered you extravagant last winter when you paid five guineas for a box at Olympia, intended to hold eight people, and sat in it, in solitary grandeur, alone with your wife." "I know you did," said Ronnie. "You left me no possible loop-hole for doubt in the matter. But your quite mistaken view, on that occasion, arose from an incorrect estimate of values.
But any relief I may have felt was dissipated at once. Ronnie Turnbull, also, evidently shared that opinion. The boyish and rather theatrical movement with which he turned his back upon me, showed at once that he had been coached in the suspicions that were now so finally clinched. "This fellow simply isn't worth speaking to," was the inarticulate message of his gesture.
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