VII
Unless—but that was ridiculous! Impossible!
He sprang to his feet, incredulous, disgusted at the mere thought.
But why not? She was very young, and older and wiser women were afflicted with inconsistencies, little tenacious desires and vanities never quite to be grasped by the elemental male.
He went over to a bookcase containing heavy works of reference and pressed his index finger into the molding. It swung outward, revealing the door of a safe. He manipulated the combination, took from a drawer of the interior a box, opened it and stared at a magnificent Burmah ruby. It was or had been a royal jewel, presented to Masewell Price by one of the great princes of India whose portrait he had painted. The pearls had all been captured long since by Price's sisters and by Morgan V. for his wife; but this ruby his mother had given him as she lay dying. She had bidden him leave it in his father's safe until he was out of college, and then keep it as closely in his personal possession as possible. It would be turned over to him with the rest of his private fortune.
"Never let any woman wear it," she had whispered. "It brings luck to men but not to women. Nothing could have affected my luck one way or the other—I was born to have nothing I wanted, but you, dear little boy. Keep it for your luck and in a safe place, but near you."
He had looked back upon this scene as he grew older as the mere expression of a whim of dissolution, but it had made so deep an impression upon him at the time that insensibly the words sank into his plastic mind creating a superstition that refused to yield to reason. The ruby was Hélène's birthstone and she was passionately fond of it. She had begged and coaxed to wear this jewel, and upon one occasion had stamped her little foot and sulked throughout the evening. He had given her a ruby bar, had the clasp of her pearl necklace set with rabies, and last Christmas had presented her with a small but fine "pigeon blood" encircled with diamonds. These had enraptured her for the moment, but she had always circled back to the historic stone, over which her indulgent husband was so unaccountably obstinate.
Until lately. He recalled that for several months she had not mentioned it. Could she have been indulging in a prolonged attack of interior sulks, which affected her spirits, dimmed her radiant personality? He abominated the idea but admitted the possibility. She would not be the first person to be the victim of a secret but furious passion for jewels. He recalled a novel of Hichens; not the matter but the central idea. Authors of other races had used the same motive. Well, if his wife had an abnormal streak in her the sooner he found out the truth the better.
He closed the door of the safe, swung the bookcase into place, slipped the ruby with its curious gold chain that looked massive but hardly weighed an ounce, into his pocket, rang for a servant and told him to ask Mrs. Ruyler to come down to the library as soon as she was dressed.