The Mystery of the Blue Train Read Online Free PDF Page A

airily.
    â€œI am not going to beat about the bush,” Van Aldin said curtly. “I have advised Ruth to file a petition for divorce.”
    Derek Kettering seemed unmoved.
    â€œHow drastic!” he murmured. “Do you mind if I smoke, sir?”
    He lit a cigarette, and puffed out a cloud of smoke as he added nonchalantly:
    â€œAnd what did Ruth say?”
    â€œRuth proposes to take my advice,” said her father.
    â€œDoes she really?”
    â€œIs that all you have got to say?” demanded Van Aldin sharply.
    Kettering flicked his ash into the grate.
    â€œI think, you know,” he said, with a detached air, “that she’s making a great mistake.”
    â€œFrom your point of view she doubtless is,” said Van Aldin grimly.
    â€œOh, come now,” said the other; “don’t let’s be personal. I really wasn’t thinking of myself at the moment. I was thinking of Ruth. You know my poor old Governor really can’t last much longer; all the doctors say so. Ruth had better give it a couple more years, then I shall be Lord Leconbury, and she can be châtelaine of Leconbury, which is what she married me for.”
    â€œI won’t have any of your darned impudence,” roared Van Aldin.
    Derek Kettering smiled at him unmoved.
    â€œI agree with you. It’s an obsolete idea,” he said. “There’s nothing in a title nowadays. Still, Leconbury is a very fine old place, and, after all, we are one of the oldest families in England. It will be very annoying for Ruth if she divorces me to find me marrying again, and some other woman queening it at Leconbury instead of her.”
    â€œI am serious, young man,” said Van Aldin.
    â€œOh, so am I,” said Kettering. “I am in very low water financially; it will put me in a nasty hole if Ruth divorces me, and, after all, if she has stood it for ten years, why not stand it a little longer? I give you my word of honour that the old man can’t possibly last out another eighteen months, and, as I said before, it’s a pity Ruth shouldn’t get what she married me for.”
    â€œYou suggest that my daughter married you for your title and position?”
    Derek Kettering laughed a laugh that was not all amusement.
    â€œYou don’t think it was a question of a love match?” he asked.
    â€œI know,” said Van Aldin slowly, “that you spoke very differently in Paris ten years ago.”
    â€œDid I? Perhaps I did. Ruth was very beautiful, you know—rather like an angel or a saint, or something that had stepped down from a niche in a church. I had fine ideas, I remember, of turning over a new leaf, of settling down and living up to the highest traditions of English home life with a beautiful wife who loved me.”
    He laughed again, rather more discordantly.
    â€œBut you don’t believe that, I suppose?” he said.
    â€œI have no doubt at all that you married Ruth for her money,” said Van Aldin unemotionally.
    â€œAnd that she married me for love?” asked the other ironically.
    â€œCertainly,” said Van Aldin.
    Derek Kettering stared at him for a minute or two, then he nodded reflectively.
    â€œI see you believe that,” he said. “So did I at the time. I can assure you, my dear father-in-law, I was very soon undeceived.”
    â€œI don’t know what you are getting at,” said Van Aldin, “and I don’t care. You have treated Ruth darned badly.”
    â€œOh, I have,” agreed Kettering lightly, “but she’s tough, you know. She’s your daughter. Underneath the pink-and-white softness of her she’s as hard as granite. You have always been known as a hard man, so I have been told, but Ruth is harder than you are. You, at any rate, love one person better than yourself. Ruth never has and never will.”
    â€œThat is enough,” said Van Aldin. “I asked you here so that I could tell