And he no longer entertained any doubts of its efficiency as a means of finally ridding him of a wife whom he had never been able to fully subdue or wholly corrupt, and who, as a mate for him in his schemes for the pecuniary maintenance of his household, had proven useless and almost ruinous.
He had not seen her during the summer.

In the autumn he had heard of her conduct at Hitherwood House.

And, a week later, to his astonishment, he learned of her serious illness, and that she had been taken to Clifton.
It was the only satisfactory news he had had of her in months.
So now he sat there at the bridge-table in the private card-room of the Stuyvesant Club, deftly adding up the score that had gone against him, but consoled somewhat at the remembrance of his appointment, and of the probability of an early release from the woman who had been to him only a source of social mistakes, domestic unhappiness, and financial disappointment.
When he had finished his figuring he fished out a check-book, detached a tiny gold fountain-pen from the bunch of seals and knick-knacks on his watch-chain, and, filling in the checks, passed them over without comment.
Fane rose, stretching his long neck, gazed about through his spectacles, like a benevolent saurian, and finally fixed his mild, protruding eyes upon Orchil.
"There'll be a small game at the Fountain Club," he said, with a grin which creased his cheeks until his retreating chin almost disappeared under the thick lower lip.
Orchil twiddled his long, crinkly, pointed moustache and glanced interrogatively at Harmon; then he yawned, stretched his arms, and rose, pocketing the check, which Ruthven passed to him, with a careless nod of thanks.
As they filed out of the card-room into the dim passageway, Orchil leading, a tall, shadowy figure in evening dress stepped back from the door of the card-room against the wall to give them right of way, and Orchil, peering at him without recognition in the dull light, bowed suavely as he passed, as did Fane, craning his curved neck, and Harmon also, who followed in his wake.
But when Ruthven came abreast of the figure in the passage and bowed his way past, a low voice from the courteous unknown, pronouncing his name, halted him short.
"I want a word with you, Mr.Ruthven," added Selwyn; "that card-room will suit me, if you please." But Ruthven, recovering from the shock of Selwyn's voice, started to pass him without a word.
"I said that I wanted to speak to you!" repeated Selwyn.
Ruthven, deigning no reply, attempted to shove by him; and Selwyn, placing one hand flat against the other's shoulder, pushed him violently back into the card-room he had just left, and, stepping in behind him, closed and locked the door.
"W-what the devil do you mean!" gasped Ruthven, his hard, minutely shaven face turning a deep red.
"What I say," replied Selwyn; "that I want a word or two with you." He stood still for a moment, in the centre of the little room, tall, gaunt of feature, and very pale.

The close, smoky atmosphere of the place evidently annoyed him; he glanced about at the scattered cards, the empty oval bottles in their silver stands, the half-burned remains of cigars on the green-topped table.

Then he stepped over and opened the only window.
"Sit down," he said, turning on Ruthven; and he seated himself and crossed one leg over the other.