If she does these--these indiscreet things--and
if he knows she is not altogether mentally responsible--he cannot fail
to stand by her! How can he, in God's name!"
"Phil," she said, "you speak like a man, but she has no man to stand
loyally by her in the direst need a human soul may know. He is only a
thing--no man at all--only a loathsome accident of animated decadence."
He looked up quickly, amazed at her sudden bitterness; and she looked
back at him almost fiercely.
"I may as well tell you what I've heard," she said; "I was not going to,
at first; but it will be all around town sooner or later. Rosamund told
me. She learned--as she manages to learn everything a little before
anybody else hears of it--that Jack Ruthven found out that Alixe was
behaving very carelessly with some man--some silly, callow, and
probably harmless youth. But there was a disgraceful scene on Mr.
Neergard's yacht, the _Niobrara_. I don't know who the people were, but
Ruthven acted abominably.
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