Page:The Breath of Scandal (1922).djvu/116

 York City who, by the publication of scandal against him, found it advisable to resign a position which was one of the most important in the world. Now what, in your opinion, forced him out?"

"Why," said Marjorie. "What he did. When his associates learned that, they could not keep a man of his character in his position."

Rinderfeld nodded, not in agreement; he was telling her merely that she had said exactly what he expected her to say.

"His character had nothing to do with it. How many of his associates, do you suppose, were surprised and shocked by the morning papers? My dear young lady, let us think. What a veritable cloud of witnesses his wife produced against him, and the newspapers interviewed—servants, sailors, clerks, jewelers and what not. The number of people in every layer of society who suspected his character was extraordinary; you would have said, if you had known it, half would have been more than sufficient to ruin him but, until his wife brought charges against him in court, they were all harmless. They could whisper; undoubtedly they did; they could wag their heads; but they could not strike him.

"He could have snapped his fingers at them all—in fact, for several years he seemed to have been snapping his fingers at them—and he could have continued to do exactly as he pleased had he kept guard over the gate to court action against him, which was through accusation by his wife.

"That immediately turned his most private affairs into the most public of property. Perhaps you have been amazed, in reading in the papers of the scandal of other men's lives, how the newspapers so quickly