CHAPTER I
The Delroys
ALTHOUGH Richard Delroy was known among his more familiar associates as Dickie, he was not, as that diminutive might seem to indicate, merely a good fellow and man about town. It is true that his wealth was great, and that he had never settled down to that steady struggle for money which had marked his father’s career, and which many persons seem to think the only fitting employment for a man in his position. He had concluded, wisely perhaps, that he had enough, and thereupon proceeded to an intelligent enjoyment of it.
He had an office in the Wall Street district, where he spent some hours daily in interested contemplation of the world’s markets and pregnant talks with investors, promoters, and beggars of various denominations. He had a fondness for books and art, finer and deeper than a mere mania for purchasing rare editions and unique masterpieces; he was a member of the Citizens’ Union and contributed freely to every effort to suppress political graft and corruption; he was vice-chairman of the University Settlement Society, and belonged to many other politico-evangelical organisations. He had built two or three model tenements, after that voyage of discovery among the slums of London, which had also resulted, as we have seen, in his meeting the woman who became his wife.
Among these varied occupations, he managed to pass his time pleasantly and at the same time not unprofitably. In a word, if he did nothing very good, neither did he do anything very bad-indeed, he averaged up considerably better than most men of his class-and it may be added, as a positive virtue, that he had married for love and continued to regard his wife with an affection somewhat unusual in its intensity.
A great many people wondered why he had married Edith Croydon, but they were mostly those who had never met her. She would be called attractive rather than beautiful, with a quiet charm of manner which was felt most intensely in the privacy of her own home. She was quite the opposite of vivacious, yet there was about her no appearance of sadness, and her smile, when it came, was the sweeter and more welcome because long delayed. She gave one a certain sense of valuing it, of not wasting it. Certainly, she succeeded in making her husband an entirely happy man, which is, perhaps, the highest praise that can be given a wife. It is almost needless to add that she thoroughly sympathised with him in his experiments for the betterment of the condition of the poor, and that her marriage had not interfered with her own active work in the same direction.
Her sister was cast in a different mould. Her beauty won an instant appreciation. Six years younger than Mrs. Delroy, Miss Croydon was of that striking, decisive type of brunette which takes a man’s heart by storm. One would never think of her as anything but daring and self-reliant—audacious, even—ready for any emergency and willing to meet it squarely, open-eyed. A man, looking at her, would feel rising in his breast not that instinct of protection which most women awaken, but rather that instinct of the conqueror which is, perhaps, our heritage from the Vikings.
It was to Richard Delroy that Tremaine had applied for assistance in promoting the Martinique railroad. How he gained an introduction, I do not know—perhaps from some uncritical man in the Street; but gain it he did, and he used the opportunity to good advantage. I can easily imagine the perfection of wizardry he brought to bear upon Delroy—the persuasive eloquence, the irresistible fascination. In the end, he succeeded not only in persuading Delroy of the perfect feasibility of the scheme, but in gaining admission to Delroy’s family.
It had been achieved in this wise:
They were discussing the railroad enterprise one afternoon, and finally the talk wandered to art and then to music. Delroy was delighted to find his companion a connoisseur of delicate perception and apparently wide experience.
“I suppose you’ve been attending the opera?” he inquired, finally.
“Oh, certainly; always when there is something I care especially to hear.”
“De Reszke and Melba are on to-night.”
“I intend to be there,” said Tremaine instantly, no doubt guessing at what would follow.
“Then come up to our box,” said Delroy. “We’ll be glad to have you.”
“I shall be very glad to come.”
The words were spoken evenly, quietly, without any indication of that deep burst of triumph which glowed within him; for it was a triumph—a veritable one—one for which many men and most women would have made any sacrifice. He controlled himself admirably, too, at the opera and it was not until the end of the second act that he sought the box. He entered quietly and the introductions were accomplished in a moment. Besides Delroy and his wife, Miss Croydon and Drysdale were present. Their reception of him, it must be added, was somewhat icy, but this he did not seem to notice.
It was not to be denied that he added greatly to the life of the party; his comment was so apt, so brilliant, so illuminating, yet not in the least self-assured. Drysdale fell under the spell at once, and even the women, who naturally looked somewhat askance at the intruder—who, indeed, had greeted him with glances almost of repugnance—in the end yielded to it.
During a pause in the conversation, Delroy’s glance happened to fall upon the superb necklace of pearls which encircled his wife’s throat.
“Why, see there, Edith,” he cried, “how those pearls have changed. They seem absolutely lifeless.”
Mrs. Delroy picked up a strand with trembling fingers and looked at it.
“So they do,” she agreed, a little hoarsely. “That’s queer. They’ve changed since I put them on.”
“There’s a superstition, you know,” remarked Drysdale, “that pearls somehow possess an acute sympathy with their owner. When some disaster is about to happen, they grow dull, just as these have done.”
“Oh, nonsense, Jack!” protested Delroy. “Stop your croaking. Do you want to frighten Edith?”
“I’m not so easily frightened,” said Mrs. Delroy, smiling at her husband, though Drysdale fancied she had grown a little pale, and bit his tongue for his thoughtless remark.
“Fortunately,” said Tremaine suavely, “the defect is one which is very easily remedied. A few days’ bath in salt water will restore their brilliancy.”
“Well,” asked Delroy, in some amusement, “where did you run across that bit of information?”
Tremaine laughed.
“I’m almost ashamed to tell. I got it first in a newspaper story about the Empress of Austria. She had a necklace of pearls that turned dull, and she sent them down to the Mediterranean to be immersed.”
“What made them turn dull?” Drysdale inquired.
“No one knew,” answered Tremaine with seeming carelessness. “It was just before the Empress was assassinated.”
A moment’s painful silence followed the words.
“It may have been only a newspaper yarn,” said Delroy, at last. “We’ve outgrown the superstitions of the Middle Ages.”
“Very possibly,” assented Tremaine; “still it might be worth asking some jeweller about. Mrs. Delroy’s necklace is worth saving,” and he examined it with the glance of a connoisseur.
It invited examination, for it was almost unique in its perfection. It had been Delroy’s one great extravagance. He had spent many years collecting the stones, which were of a beautiful iridescence and perfectly matched, and they had formed his wedding gift to his wife. The value of the separate stones was not less than a hundred thousand dollars; their value combined in the necklace could be only a matter of conjecture.
“Yes,” agreed Drysdale, with a little laugh, “it certainly is. You’d better take it down to Tiffany, Dickie.”
“I will,” said Delroy. “And don’t think anything-more about it, Edith.”
“I won’t,” she answered, still smiling, her eyes unnaturally bright. “But it’s very close in here; I should like a glass of water.”
The water was procured in a moment. Drysdale, blaming himself more and more, was relieved to see her colour return. She soon seemed quite herself again; the talk turned to other things. And once again Tremaine showed his perfect self-control-he did not linger unduly, he did not give them a chance to grow accustomed to him, much less to grow tired of him. He had not the faintest air of being an intruder; he seemed completely at home; and when he left the box, the men, at least, were sorry he had gone, and said so. He was that wholly admirable thing—a guest whose departure one watches with regret.
That box party was the wedge which enabled Tremaine to enter the Delroy circle; a privilege which he cultivated with such consummate tact that he was soon accepted everywhere at his face value. His success was assured from the start, for he brought to palates jaded by over-feeding a new and exquisite tang; he was fresh and unusual, amid a surfeit of stale and commonplace—he was relished to the uttermost.
It appeared, however, that the press of social duties and the trying spring weather were proving too much for Mrs. Delroy’s strength, which was never great, and which had been especially taxed, this season, by the introduction of her sister to New York society. Even the comparative quiet of the Lenten season failed to restore her, and the resumption of the social whirl after Easter moved Delroy to protest.
“You’re going it too hard, Edith,” he remarked. “You need a rest and a change of air; so do I, though perhaps I don’t look it. Suppose we go down to Edgemere for a week or two.”
“Would you like to go?” she asked eagerly. “Thank you, dear. I do feel the need of it.”
“Then I’ll wire at once to Thomas to get the house ready. Shall we say next Saturday?”
“That will do nicely.”
“I suppose we’d better have Jack down to look after Grace?”
“By all means—and you’d better have a friend or two—I don’t want you to get bored.”
“Oh, I shan’t get bored—besides, I can run into town occasionally. But perhaps I will invite two or three of the fellows down for a few days. I’ll think about it,” and he hurried away to set the preparations astir.
It was not till the evening before their departure that he referred to the matter again.
“Jack’s coming with us,” he said, “and, by the way, Edith, I’ve asked Tremaine to come down to-morrow and stay the week. I want to perfect our plans for that railroad project; and, besides, he’s about the most fascinating fellow ever met.”
“Yes,” she agreed, with a strained little laugh, “he’s very fascinating.”