Intimacies worth quarreling over were scarcely to be made in the brief season during which Jane Loring had been in New York, for unlike Mr. Worthington, Phil Gallatin was no cultivator of social squabs. Obviously they had met elsewhere. Last summer? Phil Gallatin was fishing in Canada—Canada! So was Jane! Mrs. Pennington straightened and examined her companion curiously. She had heard the story of Phil Gallatin’s wood-nymph and was now thoroughly awake to the reasons for his reticence, so she sank back among her cushions, her eyes downcast, a smile wreathing her lips, the smile of the collector of objects of art and virtue who has stumbled upon a hidden rarity. It was a smile, too, of self-appreciation and approval, for her premises had been negligible and her conclusion only arrived at after a process of induction which surprised her by the completeness of its success. She was already wondering how her information could best serve her purposes as mediator when Gallatin spoke again.
“We had met before, Nellie, under unusual and—and—er—trying conditions. There was a—misunderstanding—something happened—which you need not know—a damage to—to her pride which I would give my right hand to repair.”
“Perhaps, if you could see her alone——”
“Yes, I was hoping for that—but it hardly seems possible here.”
Mrs. Pennington was leaning forward now, slightly away from him, thinking deeply, thoroughly alive to her responsibilities—her responsibilities to Jane Loring as well as to the man beside her. It was the judgment of the world that Phil was a failure—her own judgment, too, in spite of her affection for him; and yet in her breast there still lived a belief that he still had a chance for regeneration. She had seen the spark of it in his eyes, heard the echo of it in tones of his voice when he had spoken of his last failures. She hesitated long before replying, her eyes looking into space, like a seer of visions, as though she were trying to read the riddle of the future. And when she spoke it was with tones of resolution.
“I think it might be managed. Will you leave it to me?”
She gave him her hand in a warm clasp. “I believe in you, Phil, and I understand,” she finished softly.
Gallatin followed her to the door of the library, unquiet of mind and sober of demeanor. He had long known Nellie Pennington to be a wonderful woman and the tangible evidences of her cleverness still lingered as the result of his interview. There seemed to be nothing a woman of her equipment could not accomplish, nothing she could not learn if she made up her mind to it. In twenty minutes of talk she had succeeded in extracting from Gallatin, without unseemly effort, his most carefully treasured secret, and indeed he half suspected that her intuition had already supplied the missing links in the chain of gossip that was going the rounds about him. But he did not question her loyalty or her tact and, happy to trust his fortunes entirely into her hands, he approached the bridge-tables aware that the task which his hostess had assumed so lightly was one that would tax her ingenuity to the utmost.
Her last whispered admonition as she left him in the hall had been “Wait, and don’t play bridge!” and so he followed her injunction implicitly, wondering how the miracle was to be accomplished. Miss Loring did not raise her head at his approach, and even when the others at the table nodded greetings she bent her head upon her cards and made her bids, carelessly oblivious of his presence.