She was not quick enough to parry his question. He read the truth in her disconcerted face. Knowing it now for a certainty, he hastened to her aid.
“Forgive me,” he said, looking away. “I should not have asked that question—it is not my business. I will write to Fitzgerald. I will tell him that you want to see him, and that I think it would be safe for him to come to London.”
Maud recovered herself quickly. She thanked him with her eyes as well as her words.
“And you needn’t be jealous, really,” she whispered behind her fan. “I only want to see him once for a few minutes—to ask a question. After that, I don’t care what becomes of him.”
A poor sort of Delilah, really, with her flushed face, her too elaborately coiffured hair with its ugly ornament, her ready-made evening dress with its cheap attempts at smartness, her cleaned gloves, indifferent shoes. But Peter Ruff thought otherwise.
“You mean that, after I have found him for you, you will still come out with me again sometimes?” he asked wistfully.
“Of course!” she answered. “Whenever I can without John knowing,” she added, with an unpleasant little laugh. “If you only knew how I loved the music and the theatres, and this sort of life! What a good time your wife would have, Mr. Ruff!” she added archly.
It was no joking matter with him. He had to remember that he was, in effect, her tool, that she was making use of him, willing to betray her former lover at her husband’s bidding. It was enough to make him, on his side, burn for revenge! Yet he put the thought away from him with a shiver. She was still the woman he had loved—she was still sacred to him! That night he pleaded an engagement, and sent her home in a taxicab alone.
John Dory, waiting patiently at home for his wife’s return, felt a certain uneasiness when she swept into their little sitting room in all her cheap splendour, with flushed cheeks—an obvious air of satisfaction with herself and disdain for her immediate surroundings. John Dory was a commonplace looking man—the absence of his collar, and his somewhat shabby carpet slippers, did not improve his appearance. He had neglected to shave, and he was drinking beer. At headquarters he was not considered quite the smart young officer which he had once shown signs of becoming. He looked at his wife with darkening face, and his wife, on her part, thought of Peter Ruff in his immaculate evening clothes.
“Well,” he remarked, grumblingly, “you seem to find a good deal of pleasure in this gadding about!”