“M-Mrs. Ruthven!” he gasped; but she was absolutely reckless now—­and beneath it all, perhaps, lay a certainty of the boy’s honour.  She knew he was to be trusted—­was the safest receptacle for wrath so long repressed.  She let prudence go with a parting and vindictive slap, and opened her heart to the astounded boy.  The tempest lasted a few seconds; then she ended as abruptly as she began.

To him she had always been what a pretty young matron usually is to a well-bred but hare-brained youth just untethered.  Their acquaintance had been for him a combination of charming experiences diluted with gratitude for her interest and a harmless soupcon of sentimentality.  In her particular case, however, there was a little something more—­a hint of the forbidden—­a troubled enjoyment, because he knew, of course, that Mrs. Ruthven was on no footing at all with the Gerards.  So in her friendship he savoured a piquancy not at all distasteful to a very young man’s palate.

But now!—­he had never, never seen her like this—­nor any woman, for that matter—­and he did not know where to look or what to do.

She was sitting back in the limousine, very limp and flushed; and the quiver of her under lip and the slightest dimness of her averted brown eyes distressed him dreadfully.

“Dear Mrs. Ruthven,” he blurted out with clumsy sympathy, “you mustn’t think such things, b-because they’re all rot, you see; and if any fellow ever said those things to me I’d jolly soon—­”

“Do you mean to say you’ve never heard us criticised?”

“I—­well—­everybody is—­criticised, of course—­”

“But not as we are!  Do you read the papers?  Well, then, do you understand how a woman must feel to have her husband continually made the butt of foolish, absurd, untrue stories—­as though he were a performing poodle!  I—­I’m sick of that, too, for another thing.  Week after week, month by month, unpleasant things have been accumulating; and they’re getting too heavy, Gerald—­too crushing for my shoulders. . . .  Men call me restless.  What wonder!  Women link my name with any man who is k-kind to me!  Is there no excuse then for what they call my restlessness? . . .  What woman would not be restless whose private affairs are the gossip of everybody?  Was it not enough that I endured terrific publicity when—­when trouble overtook me two years ago? . . .  I suppose I’m a fool to talk like this; but a girl must do it some time or burst!—­and to whom am I to go? . . .  There was only one person; and I can’t talk to—­that one; he—­that person knows too much about me, anyway; which is not good for a woman, Gerald, not good for a good woman. . . .  I mean a pretty good woman; the kind people’s sisters can still talk to, you know. . . .  For I’m nothing more interesting than a divorcee, Gerald; nothing more dangerous than an unhappy little fool. . . .  I wish I were. . . .  But I’m still at the wheel! . . .  A man I know calls