"That she has made another--and perhaps more heart-breaking mistake, is
bitter for me, too--because--because--I have not yet forgotten. And even
if I ceased to remember, the sadness of it must touch me. But I have not
forgotten, and because I have not, I say to you, anchor! and hold fast.
Whatever _he_ does, whatever you suffer, whatever happens, steer
straight on to the anchorage. Do you understand me?"
Her gloved hand, moving at random, encountered his and closed on it
convulsively.
"Do you understand?" he repeated.
"Y-es, Phil."
Head still sinking, face covered with the silvery fur, the tremors from
her body set her hand quivering on his.
Heart-sick, he forbore to ask for the explanation; he knew the real
answer, anyway--whatever she might say--and he understood that any game
in that house was Ruthven's game, and the guests his guests; and that
Gerald was only one of the younger men who had been wrung dry in that
house.
No doubt at all that Ruthven needed the money; he was only a male geisha
for the set that harboured him, anyway--picked up by a big, hard-eyed
woman, who had almost forgotten how to laugh, until she found him
furtively muzzling her diamond-laden fingers.
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