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Ruth In Exile
by
The dialogues that took place on the other side of the screen were often protracted and always sordid, but none had seemed to Ruth so interminable, so hideously sordid, as this one.
Round and round its miserable centre–a silver cigarette-case–the dreary argument circled. The young man pleaded; M. Gandinot, adamant in his official role, was immovable.
Ruth could bear it no longer. She pressed her hands over her burning ears, and the voices ceased to trouble her.
And with the silence came thought, and a blaze of understanding that flashed upon her and made all things clear. She understood now why she had closed her ears.
Poverty is an acid which reacts differently on differing natures. It had reduced Mr Eugene Warden’s self-respect to a minimum. Ruth’s it had reared up to an abnormal growth. Her pride had become a weed that ran riot in her soul, darkening it and choking finer emotions. Perhaps it was her father’s naive stratagems for the enmeshing of a wealthy husband that had produced in her at last a morbid antipathy to the idea of playing beggar-maid to any man’s King Cophetua. The state of mind is intelligible. The Cophetua legend never has been told from the beggar-maid’s point of view, and there must have been moments when, if a woman of spirit, she resented that monarch’s somewhat condescending attitude, and felt that, secure in his wealth and magnificence, he had taken her grateful acquiescence very much for granted.
This, she saw now, was what had prejudiced her against George Vince. She had assumed that he was rich. He had conveyed the impression of being rich. And she had been on the defensive against him accordingly. Now, for the first time, she seemed to know him. A barrier had been broken down. The royal robes had proved tinsel, and no longer disguised the man she loved.
A touch on her arm aroused her. M. Gandinot was standing by her side. Terms, apparently had been agreed upon and the interview concluded, for in his hand was a silver cigarette-case.
‘Dreaming, mademoiselle? I could not make you hear. The more I call to you, the more you did not answer. It is necessary to enter this loan.’
He recited the details and Ruth entered them in her ledger. This done, M. Gandinot, doffing his official self, sighed.
‘It is a place of much sorrow, mademoiselle, this office. How he would not take no for an answer, that young man, recently departed. A fellow-countryman of yours, mademoiselle. You would say, “What does this young man, so well-dressed, in a mont-de-piete?” But I know better, I, Gandinot. You have an expression, you English–I heard it in Paris in a cafe, and inquired its meaning–when you say of a man that he swanks. How many young men have I seen here, admirably dressed–rich, you would say. No, no. The mont-de-piete permits no secrets. To swank, mademoiselle, what is it? To deceive the world, yes. But not the mont-de-piete. Yesterday also, when you had departed, was he here, that young man. Yet here he is once more today. He spends his money quickly, alas! that poor young swanker.’
When Ruth returned home that evening she found her father in the sitting-room, smoking a cigarette. He greeted her with effusion, but with some uneasiness–for the old gentleman had nerved himself to a delicate task. He had made up his mind tonight to speak seriously to Ruth on the subject of her unsatisfactory behaviour to Mr Vince. The more he saw of that young man the more positive was he that this was the human gold-mine for which he had been searching all these weary years. Accordingly, he threw away his cigarette, kissed Ruth on the forehead, and began to speak.
It had long been Mr Warden’s opinion that, if his daughter had a fault, it was a tendency towards a quite unnecessary and highly inconvenient frankness. She had not that tact which he would have liked a daughter of his to possess. She would not evade, ignore, agree not to see. She was at times painfully blunt.