"Did you ever trace that picture in Mr. Schuyler's watch?" Ruth asked, a few moments later.
"Yes," I said. "It was just as we supposed. A little vaudeville actress whom Mr. Schuyler had taken out to supper gave it to him, and he stuck it in his watch case, temporarily. Her name is Dotty Fay and she seemed to know little about Mr. Schuyler and cared less. Merely the toy of an evening, she was to him, and merely a chance that the picture was in his watch the night of his visit to Vicky Van's."
We had come to discuss the personal matters of Randolph Schuyler thus freely, for we were all at one in our search for the truth, and there were no secrets or evasions among us.
Ruth sighed, but I knew her dear face so well now that I realized it was not from personal sorrow, but a general regret that a man of Schuyler's ability and power should have been such a weakling, morally. I knew she had never loved her husband, but she had been a faithful and dutiful wife, and no word or hint of blame had ever escaped her lips regarding him. She had been a martyr, but I hadn't learned this from her. The sisters, though unconsciously, told me much of the deprivation and narrowness of Ruth's life. Schuyler had ruled her with a rod of iron, and she had never rebelled, though at times her patience was nearly worn out.
Later in the evening Fibsy asked for some phonograph music, expressing his great delight in hearing a really fine instrument and good records.
"I doubt if you'll care for our selections," Ruth remarked, as she looked over the cabinet of records. "They're almost all classical or old-fashioned songs."
"I like the classical kind," Fibsy said, endeavoring to be agreeable.
"Please play the gayest you have, though."
But there were few "gay" ones in the collection. Wagner's operas and Beethoven's solemn marches gave forth their noble numbers and Fibsy sat, politely listening.
"No ragtime, I s'pose?" he said, after a particularly depressing fugue resounded its last echoes.
"No," and Ruth glanced at him. "Mr. Schuyler didn't care for rag time—on the phonograph," she added, perhaps remembering Dotty Fay.