He had glanced over the contents of the box before he locked it in. The jewels were all there, the string of pearls that he had given her on their marriage day, a few wedding presents, and several rings and trinkets he had bought for her since. The value was perhaps twenty thousand dollars, for he had told her that she must wait several years before he could give her the jewels of a great lady. When she was thirty, and really needed them to make up for fading charms--it had been one of their pleasant little jokes.
As Ruyler set the combination he sighed and wondered whether their days of joking were over. Their life had suddenly shot out of focus and it would require all his ingenuity and patience, aided by friendly circumstance, to swing it into line again. He did not believe a word of the necklace story. Somebody was blackmailing the poor child. If he could only find out who! He made up his mind suddenly to put this problem also in the hands of Spaulding for solution. The question of his mother-in-law's antecedents was important enough, but that of his wife's happiness and his own was paramount.
He decided to go to the theater himself, for he was in no condition for sleep or the society of men at the club, nor could any book hold his attention. He prayed that the play would be reasonably diverting.
He walked down town and as he entered the lobby of the Columbia at the close of the first act he saw 'Gene Bisbee and D.V. Bimmer, who was now managing a hotel in San Francisco, standing together. He also saw Bisbee nudge Bimmer, and they both stared at him openly, the famous hotel man with some sympathy in his wise secretive eyes, the reformed peer of the underworld with a certain speculative contempt.
Ruyler, to his intense irritation, felt himself flushing, and wondered if the man's regard might be translated: "Just how much shall I be able to touch him for?" He wished he would show his hand and dissipate the damnable web of mystery which Fate seemed weaving hourly out of her bloated pouch, but he doubted if Bisbee, or whoever it was that tormented his wife, would approach him save as a last resource. They were clever enough to know that her keenest desire would be to keep the disgraceful past from the knowledge of her husband, rather than from a society seasoned these many years to erubescent pasts.