Dear
friend, shall we, perhaps, to bed presently our way wend--yess?"
"Yes, dear; but you are not very charitable about Alixe. And I tell
you I've my own ideas about her illness--especially as she is at
Clifton. . . . I wonder where her little beast of a husband is?"
But Austin only yawned and looked at the toes of his slippers, and then
longingly at the pillows.
* * * * *
Had Nina known it, the husband of Mrs. Ruthven, whom she had
characterised so vividly, was at that very moment seated in a private
card-room at the Stuyvesant Club with Sanxon Orchil, George Fane, and
Bradley Harmon; and the game had been bridge, as usual, and had gone
very heavily against him.
Several things had gone against Mr. Ruthven recently; for one thing, he
was beginning to realise that he had made a vast mistake in mixing
himself up in any transactions with Neergard.
When he, at Neergard's cynical suggestion, had consented to exploit his
own club--the Siowitha--and had consented to resign from it to do so, he
had every reason to believe that Neergard meant to either mulct them
heavily or buy them out.
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