The Younger Set | Page 8

looked at him through eyes grown misty.
"There is no reason," she said, "why you should not call this house
home."
"N-no reason. Thank you. I will--for a few days."
"No reason, dear," she insisted. "We are your own people; we are all
you have, Phil!--the children adore you already; Austin--you know
what he thinks of you; and--and I--"
"You are very kind, Ninette." He sat partly turned from her, staring at
the sunny window. Presently he slid his hand back along the bed-covers
until it touched and tightened over hers. And in silence she raised it to
her lips.
They remained so for a while, he still partly turned from her, his
perplexed and narrowing gaze fixed on the window, she pressing his
clenched hand to her lips, thoughtful and silent.
"Before Austin comes," he said at length, "let's get the thing over--and
buried--as long as it will stay buried."
"Yes, dear."
"Well, then--then--" but his throat closed tight with the effort.
"Alixe is here," she said gently; "did you know it?"
He nodded.
"You know, of course, that she's married Jack Ruthven?"
He nodded again.

"Are you on leave, Phil, or have you really resigned?"
"Resigned."
"I knew it," she sighed.
He said: "As I did not defend the suit I couldn't remain in the service.
There's too much said about us, anyway--about us who are appointed
from civil life. And then--to have that happen!"
"Phil?"
"What?"
"Will you answer me one thing?"
"Yes, I guess so."
"Do you still care for--her?"
"I am sorry for her."
After a painful silence his sister said: "Could you tell me how it began,
Phil?"
"How it began? I don't know that, either. When Bannard's command
took the field I went with the scouts. Alixe remained in Manila.
Ruthven was there for Fane, Harmon & Co. That's how it began, I
suppose; and it's a rotten climate for morals; and that's how it began."
"Only that?"
"We had had differences. It's been one misunderstanding after another.
If you mean was I mixed up with another woman--no! She knew that."
"She was very young, Phil."
He nodded: "I don't blame her."

"Couldn't anything have been done?"
"If it could, neither she nor I did it--or knew how to do it, I suppose. It
went wrong from the beginning; it was founded on froth--she had been
engaged to Harmon, and she threw him over for 'Boots' Lansing. Then I
came along--Boots behaved like a thoroughbred--that is all there is to
it--inexperience, romance, trouble--a quick beginning, a quick parting,
and two more fools to give the lie to civilization, and justify the West
Pointers in their opinions of civil appointees."
"Try not to be so bitter, Phil; did you know she was going before she
left Manila?"
"I hadn't the remotest idea of the affair. I thought that we were trying to
learn something about life and about each other. . . . Then that climax
came."
He turned and stared out of the window, dropping his sister's hand.
"She couldn't stand me, she couldn't stand the life, the climate, the
inconveniences, the absence of what she was accustomed to. She was
dead tired of it all. I can understand that. And I--I didn't know what to
do about it. . . . So we drifted; and the catastrophe came very quickly.
Let me tell you something; a West Pointer, an Annapolis man, knows
what sort of life he's going into and what he is to expect when he
marries. Usually, too, he marries into the Army or Navy set; and the
girl knows, too, what kind of a married life that means.
"But I didn't. Neither did Alixe. And we went under; that's all--fighting
each other heart and soul to the end. . . . Is she happy with Ruthven? I
never knew him--and never cared to. I suppose they go about in town
among the yellow set. Do they?"
"Yes. I've met Alixe once or twice. She was perfectly
composed--formal but unembarrassed. She has shifted her milieu
somewhat--it began with the influx of Ruthven's friends from the
'yellow' section of the younger married set--the Orchils, Fanes,
Minsters, and Delmour-Carnes. Which is all right if she'd stay there.
But in town you're likely to encounter anybody where the somebodies

of one set merge into the somebodies of another. And we're always
looking over our fences, you know. . . . By the way," she added
cheerfully, "I'm dipping into the younger set myself to-night--on
Eileen's account. I brought her out Thursday and I'm giving a dinner for
her to-night."
"Who's Eileen?" he asked.
"Eileen? Why, don't you--why, of course, you don't know yet that I've
taken Eileen for my own. I didn't want to write you; I wanted first to
see how it would turn out;