Book + 

I + 

I + 

A Pawn of Fate + 

Mrs. Lora Delane Porter dismissed the hireling who had brought her automobile around from the garage and seated herself at the wheel. It was her habit to refresh her mind and improve her health by a daily drive between the hours of two and four in the afternoon. + 

The world knows little of its greatest women, and it is possible that Mrs. Porter’s name is not familiar to you. If this is the case, I am pained, but not surprised. It happens only too often that the uplifter of the public mind is baulked by a disinclination on the part of the public mind to meet him or her halfway. The uplifter does his share. He produces the uplifting book. But the public, instead of standing still to be uplifted, wanders off to browse on coloured supplements and magazine stories. + 

If you are ignorant of Lora Delane Porter’s books that is your affair. Perhaps you are more to be pitied than censured. Nature probably gave you the wrong shape of forehead. Mrs. Porter herself would have put it down to some atavistic tendency or prenatal influence. She put most things down to that. She blamed nearly all the defects of the modern world, from weak intellects to ingrowing toenails, on long-dead ladies and gentlemen who, safe in the family vault, imagined that they had established their alibi. She subpoenaed grandfathers and even great-grandfathers to give evidence to show that the reason Twentieth-Century Willie squinted or had to spend his winters in Arizona was their own shocking health way back in the days beyond recall. + 

Mrs. Porter’s mind worked backward and forward. She had one eye on the past, the other on the future. If she was strong on heredity, she was stronger on the future of the race. Most of her published works dealt with this subject. A careful perusal of them would have enabled the rising generation to select its ideal wife or husband with perfect ease, and, in the event of Heaven blessing the union, her little volume, entitled The Hygienic Care of the Baby, which was all about germs and how to avoid them, would have insured the continuance of the direct succession. + 

Unfortunately, the rising generation did not seem disposed to a careful perusal of anything except the baseball scores and the beauty hints in the Sunday papers, and Mrs. Porter’s public was small. In fact, her only real disciple, as she sometimes told herself in her rare moods of discouragement, was her niece, Ruth Bannister, daughter of John Bannister, the millionaire. It was not so long ago, she reflected with pride, that she had induced Ruth to refuse to marry Basil Milbank⁠—a considerable feat, he being a young man of remarkable personal attractions and a great match in every way. Mrs. Porter’s objection to him was that his father had died believing to the last that he was a teapot. + 

There is nothing evil or degrading in believing oneself a teapot, but it argues a certain inaccuracy of the thought processes; and Mrs. Porter had used all her influence with Ruth to make her reject Basil. It was her success that first showed her how great that influence was. She had come now to look on Ruth’s destiny as something for which she was personally responsible⁠—a fact which was noted and resented by others, in particular Ruth’s brother Bailey, who regarded his aunt with a dislike and suspicion akin to that which a stray dog feels towards the boy who saunters towards him with a tin can in his hand. + 

To Bailey, his strong-minded relative was a perpetual menace, a sort of perambulating yellow peril, and the fact that she often alluded to him as a worm consolidated his distaste for her. + 

Mrs. Porter released the clutch and set out on her drive. She rarely had a settled route for these outings of hers, preferring to zigzag about New York, livening up the great city at random. She always drove herself and, having, like a good suffragist, a contempt for male prohibitions, took an honest pleasure in exceeding a man-made speed limit. + 

One hesitates to apply the term “joy-rider” to so eminent a leader of contemporary thought as the authoress of The Dawn of Better Things, Principles of Selection, and What of Tomorrow? but candour compels the admission that she was a somewhat reckless driver. Perhaps it was due to some atavistic tendency. One of her ancestors may have been a Roman charioteer or a coach-racing maniac of the Regency days. At any rate, after a hard morning’s work on her new book she felt that her mind needed cooling, and found that the rush of air against her face effected this satisfactorily. The greater the rush, the quicker the cooling. However, as the alert inhabitants of Manhattan Island, a hardy race trained from infancy to dodge taxicabs and ambulance wagons, had always removed themselves from her path with their usual agility, she had never yet had an accident. + 

But then she had never yet met George Pennicut. And George, pawn of fate, was even now waiting round the corner to upset her record. + 

George, man of all work to Kirk Winfield, one of the youngest and least efficient of New York’s artist colony, was English. He had been in America some little time, but not long enough to accustom his rather unreceptive mind to the fact that, whereas in his native land vehicles kept to the left, in the country of his adoption they kept to the right; and it was still his boneheaded practice, when stepping off the sidewalk, to keep a wary lookout in precisely the wrong direction. + 

The only problem with regard to such a man is who will get him first. Fate had decided that it should be Lora Delane Porter. + 

Today Mrs. Porter, having circled the park in rapid time, turned her car down Central Park West. She was feeling much refreshed by the pleasant air. She was conscious of a glow of benevolence toward her species, not excluding even the young couple she had almost reduced to mincemeat in the neighbourhood of Ninety-Seventh Street. They had annoyed her extremely at the time of their meeting by occupying till the last possible moment a part of the road which she wanted herself. + 

On reaching Sixty-First Street she found her way blocked by a lumbering delivery wagon. She followed it slowly for a while; then, growing tired of being merely a unit in a procession, tugged at the steering-wheel, and turned to the right. + 

George Pennicut, his anxious eyes raking the middle distance⁠—as usual, in the wrong direction⁠—had just stepped off the kerb. He received the automobile in the small of the back, uttered a yell of surprise and dismay, performed a few improvised Texas Tommy steps, and fell in a heap. + 

In a situation which might have stimulated another to fervid speech, George Pennicut contented himself with saying “Goo!” He was a man of few words. + 

Mrs. Porter stopped the car. From all points of the compass citizens began to assemble, many swallowing their chewing-gum in their excitement. One, a devout believer in the inscrutable ways of Providence, told a friend as he ran that only two minutes before he had almost robbed himself of this spectacle by going into a moving-picture palace. + 

Mrs. Porter was annoyed. She had never run over anything before except a few chickens, and she regarded the incident as a blot on her escutcheon. She was incensed with this idiot who had flung himself before her car, not reflecting in her heat that he probably had a prenatal tendency to this sort of thing inherited from some ancestor who had played “last across” in front of hansom cabs in the streets of London. + 

She bent over George and passed experienced hands over his portly form. For this remarkable woman was as competent at first aid as at anything else. The citizens gathered silently round in a circle. + 

“It was your fault,” she said to her victim severely. “I accept no liability whatever. I did not run into you. You ran into me. I have a jolly good mind to have you arrested for attempted suicide.” + 

This aspect of the affair had not struck Mr. Pennicut. Presented to him in these simple words, it checked the recriminatory speech which, his mind having recovered to some extent from the first shock of the meeting, he had intended to deliver. He swallowed his words, awed. He felt dazed and helpless. Mrs. Porter had that effect upon men. + 

Some more citizens arrived. + 

“No bones broken,” reported Mrs. Porter, concluding her examination. “You are exceedingly fortunate. You have a few bruises, and one knee is slightly wrenched. Nothing to signify. More frightened than hurt. Where do you live?” + 

“There,” said George meekly. + 

“Where?” + 

“Them studios.” + 

“No. 90?” + 

“Yes, ma’am.” George’s voice was that of a crushed worm. + 

“Are you an artist?” + 

“No, ma’am. I’m Mr. Winfield’s man.” + 

“Whose?” + 

“Mr. Winfield’s, ma’am.” + 

“Is he in?” + 

“Yes, ma’am.” + 

“I’ll fetch him. And if the policeman comes along and wants to know why you’re lying there, mind you tell him the truth, that you ran into me.” + 

“Yes, ma’am.” + 

“Very well. Don’t forget.” + 

“No, ma’am.” + 

She crossed the street and rang the bell over which was a card bearing the name of Kirk Winfield. Mr. Pennicut watched her in silence. + 

Mrs. Porter pressed the button a second time. Somebody came at a leisurely pace down the passage, whistling cheerfully. The door opened. + 

It did not often happen to Lora Delane Porter to feel insignificant, least of all in the presence of the opposite sex. She had well-defined views upon man. Yet, in the interval which elapsed between the opening of the door and her first words, a certain sensation of smallness overcame her. + 

The man who had opened the door was not, judged by any standard of regularity of features, handsome. He had a rather boyish face, pleasant eyes set wide apart, and a friendly mouth. He was rather an outsize in young men, and as he stood there he seemed to fill the doorway. + 

It was this sense of bigness that he conveyed, his cleanness, his magnificent fitness, that for the moment overcame Mrs. Porter. Physical fitness was her gospel. She stared at him in silent appreciation. + 

To the young man, however, her forceful gaze did not convey this quality. She seemed to him to be looking as if she had caught him in the act of endeavouring to snatch her purse. He had been thrown a little off his balance by the encounter. + 

Resource in moments of crisis is largely a matter of preparedness, and a man, who, having opened his door in the expectation of seeing a ginger-haired, bowlegged, grinning George Pennicut, is confronted by a masterful woman with eyes like gimlets, may be excused for not guessing that her piercing stare is an expression of admiration and respect. + 

Mrs. Porter broke the silence. It was ever her way to come swiftly to the matter in hand. + 

“Mr. Kirk Winfield?” + 

“Yes.” + 

“Have you in your employment a red-haired, congenital idiot who ambles about New York in an absentminded way, as if he were on a desert island? The man I refer to is a short, stout Englishman, clean-shaven, dressed in black.” + 

“That sounds like George Pennicut.” + 

“I have no doubt that that is his name. I did not inquire. It did not interest me. My name is Mrs. Lora Delane Porter. This man of yours has just run into my automobile.” + 

“I beg your pardon?” + 

“I cannot put it more lucidly. I was driving along the street when this weak-minded person flung himself in front of my car. He is out there now. Kindly come and help him in.” + 

“Is he hurt?” + 

“More frightened than hurt. I have examined him. His left knee appears to be slightly wrenched.” + 

Kirk Winfield passed a hand over his left forehead and followed her. Like George, he found Mrs. Porter a trifle overwhelming. + 

Out in the street George Pennicut, now the centre of quite a substantial section of the Four Million, was causing a granite-faced policeman to think that the age of miracles had returned by informing him that the accident had been his fault and no other’s. He greeted the relief-party with a wan grin. + 

“Just broke my leg, sir,” he announced to Kirk. + 

“You have done nothing of the sort,” said Mrs. Porter. “You have wrenched your knee very slightly. Have you explained to the policeman that it was entirely your fault?” + 

“Yes, ma’am.” + 

“That’s right. Always speak the truth.” + 

“Yes, ma’am.” + 

“Mr. Winfield will help you indoors.” + 

“Thank you, ma’am.” + 

She turned to Kirk. + 

“Now, Mr. Winfield.” + 

Kirk bent over the victim, gripped him, and lifted him like a baby. + 

“He’s got his,” observed one interested spectator. + 

“I should worry!” agreed another. “All broken up.” + 

“Nothing of the kind,” said Mrs. Porter severely. “The man is hardly hurt at all. Be more accurate in your remarks.” + 

She eyed the speaker sternly. He wilted. + 

“Yes, ma’am,” he mumbled sheepishly. + 

The policeman, with that lionlike courage which makes the New York constabulary what it is, endeavoured to assert himself at this point. + 

“Hey!” he boomed. + 

Mrs. Porter turned her gaze upon him, her cold, steely gaze. + 

“I beg your pardon?” + 

“This won’t do, ma’am. I’ve me report to make. How did this happen?” + 

“You have already been informed. The man ran into my automobile.” + 

“But⁠—” + 

“I shall not charge him.” + 

She turned and followed Kirk. + 

“But, say⁠—” The policeman’s voice was now almost plaintive. + 

Mrs. Porter ignored him and disappeared into the house. The policeman, having gulped several times in a disconsolate way, relieved his feelings by dispersing the crowd with well-directed prods of his locust stick. A small boy who lingered, squeezing the automobile’s hooter, in a sort of trance he kicked. The boy vanished. The crowd melted. The policeman walked slowly toward Ninth Avenue. Peace reigned in the street. + 

“Put him to bed,” said Mrs. Porter, as Kirk laid his burden on a couch in the studio. “You seem exceedingly muscular, Mr. Winfield. I noticed that you carried him without an effort. He is a stout man, too. Grossly out of condition, like ninety-nine percent of men today.” + 

“I’m not so young as I was, ma’am,” protested George. “When I was in the harmy I was a fine figure of a man.” + 

“The more shame to you that you have allowed yourself to deteriorate,” commented Mrs. Porter. “Beer?” + 

A grateful smile irradiated George’s face. + 

“Thank you, ma’am. It’s very kind of you, ma’am. I don’t mind if I do.” + 

“The man appears a perfect imbecile,” said Mrs. Porter, turning abruptly to Kirk. “I ask him if he attributes his physical decay to beer and he babbles.” + 

“I think he thought you were offering him a drink,” suggested Kirk. “As a matter of fact, a little brandy wouldn’t hurt him, after the shock he has had.” + 

“On no account. The worst thing possible.” + 

“This isn’t your lucky day, George,” said Kirk. “Well, I guess I’ll phone to the doctor.” + 

“Quite unnecessary.” + 

“I beg your pardon?” + 

“Entirely unnecessary. I have made an examination. There is practically nothing the matter with the man. Put him to bed, and let him sponge his knee with warm water.” + 

“Are you a doctor, Mrs. Porter?” + 

“I have studied first aid.” + 

“Well, I think, if you don’t mind, I should like to have your opinion confirmed.” + 

This was rank mutiny. Mrs. Porter stared haughtily at Kirk. He met her gaze with determination. + 

“As you please,” she snapped. + 

“Thank you,” said Kirk. “I don’t want to take any risks with George. I couldn’t afford to lose him. There aren’t any more like him: they’ve mislaid the pattern.” + 

He went to the telephone. + 

Mrs. Porter watched him narrowly. She was more than ever impressed by the perfection of his physique. She appraised his voice as he spoke to the doctor. It gave evidence of excellent lungs. He was a wonderfully perfect physical specimen. + 

An idea concerning this young man came into her mind, startling as all great ideas are at birth. The older it grew, the more she approved of it. She decided to put a few questions to him. She had a habit of questioning people, and it never occurred to her that they might resent it. If it had occurred to her, she would have done it just the same. She was like that. + 

“Mr. Winfield?” + 

“Yes?” + 

“I should like to ask you a few questions.” + 

This woman delighted Kirk. + 

“Please do,” he said. + 

Mrs. Porter scanned him closely. + 

“You are an extraordinarily healthy man, to all appearances. Have you ever suffered from bad health?” + 

“Measles.” + 

“Immaterial.” + 

“Very unpleasant, though.” + 

“Nothing else?” + 

“Mumps.” + 

“Unimportant.” + 

“Not to me. I looked like a watermelon.” + 

“Nothing besides? No serious illnesses?” + 

“None.” + 

“What is your age?” + 

“Twenty-five.” + 

“Are your parents living?” + 

“No.” + 

“Were they healthy?” + 

“Fit as fiddles.” + 

“And your grandparents?” + 

“Perfect bearcats. I remember my grandfather at the age of about a hundred or something like that spanking me for breaking his pipe. I thought it was a steam-hammer. He was a wonderfully muscular old gentleman.” + 

“Excellent.” + 

“By the way,” said Kirk casually, “my life is insured.” + 

“Very sensible. There has been no serious illness in your family at all, then, as far as you know?” + 

“I could hunt up the records, if you like; but I don’t think so.” + 

“Consumption? No? Cancer? No? As far as you are aware, nothing? Very satisfactory.” + 

“I’m glad you’re pleased.” + 

“Are you married?” + 

“Good Lord, no!” + 

“At your age you should be. With your magnificent physique and remarkable record of health, it is your duty to the future of the race to marry.” + 

“I’m not sure I’ve been worrying much about the future of the race.” + 

“No man does. It is the crying evil of the day, men’s selfish absorption in the present, their utter lack of a sense of duty with regard to the future. Have you read my Dawn of Better Things?” + 

“I’m afraid I read very few novels.” + 

“It is not a novel. It is a treatise on the need for implanting a sense of personal duty to the future of the race in the modern young man.” + 

“It sounds a crackerjack. I must get it.” + 

“I will send you a copy. At the same time I will send you my Principles of Selection and What of Tomorrow? They will make you think.” + 

“I bet they will. Thank you very much.” + 

“And now,” said Mrs. Porter, switching the conversation to the gaping George, “you had better put this man to bed.” + 

George Pennicut’s opinion of Mrs. Porter, to which he was destined to adhere on closer acquaintance, may be recorded. + 

“A hawful woman, sir,” he whispered as Kirk bore him off. + 

“Nonsense, George,” said Kirk. “One of the most entertaining ladies I have ever met. Already I love her like a son. But how she escaped from Bloomingdale beats me. There’s been carelessness somewhere.” + 

The bedrooms attached to the studio opened off the gallery that ran the length of the east wall. Looking over the edge of the gallery before coming downstairs Kirk perceived his visitor engaged in a tour of the studio. At that moment she was examining his masterpiece, Ariadne in Naxos. He had called it that because that was what it had turned into. + 

At the beginning he had had no definite opinion as to its identity. It was rather a habit with his pictures to start out in a vague spirit of adventure and receive their label on completion. He had an airy and a dashing way in his dealings with the goddess Art. + 

Nevertheless, he had sufficient of the artist soul to resent the fact that Mrs. Porter was standing a great deal too close to the masterpiece to get its full value. + 

“You want to stand back a little,” he suggested over the rail. + 

Mrs. Porter looked up. + 

“Oh, there you are!” she said. + 

“Yes, here I am,” agreed Kirk affably. + 

“Is this yours?” + 

“It is.” + 

“You painted it?” + 

“I did.” + 

“It is poor. It shows a certain feeling for colour, but the drawing is weak,” said Mrs. Porter. For this wonderful woman was as competent at art criticism as at automobile driving and first aid. “Where did you study?” + 

“In Paris, if you could call it studying. I’m afraid I was not the model pupil.” + 

“Kindly come down. You are giving me a crick in the neck.” + 

Kirk descended. He found Mrs. Porter still regarding the masterpiece with an unfavourable eye. + 

“Yes,” she said, “the drawing is decidedly weak.” + 

“I shouldn’t wonder,” assented Kirk. “The dealers to whom I’ve tried to sell it have not said that in so many words, but they’ve all begged me with tears in their eyes to take the darned thing away, so I guess you’re right.” + 

“Do you depend for a living on the sale of your pictures?” + 

“Thank Heaven, no. I’m the only artist in captivity with a private income.” + 

“A large income?” + 

“ ’Tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door, but ’tis enough, ’twill serve. All told, about five thousand iron men per annum.” + 

“Iron men?” + 

“Bones.” + 

“Bones?” + 

“I should have said dollars.” + 

“You should. I detest slang.” + 

“Sorry,” said Kirk. + 

Mrs. Porter resumed her tour of the studio. She was interrupted by the arrival of the doctor, a cheerful little old man with the bearing of one sure of his welcome. He was an old friend of Kirk’s. + 

“Well, what’s the trouble? I couldn’t come sooner. I was visiting a case. I work.” + 

“There is no trouble,” said Mrs. Porter. The doctor spun round, startled. In the dimness of the studio he had not perceived her. “Mr. Winfield’s servant has injured his knee very superficially. There is practically nothing wrong with him. I have made a thorough examination.” + 

The doctor looked from one to the other. + 

“Is the case in other hands?” he asked. + 

“You bet it isn’t,” said Kirk. “Mrs. Porter just looked in for a family chat and a glimpse of my pictures. You’ll find George in bed, first floor on the left upstairs, and a very remarkable sight he is. He is wearing red hair with purple pyjamas. Why go abroad when you have not yet seen the wonders of your native land?” + 

That night Lora Delane Porter wrote in the diary which, with that magnificent freedom from human weakness that marked every aspect of her life, she kept all the year round instead of only during the first week in January. + 

This is what she wrote: + 

“Worked steadily on my book. It progresses. In the afternoon an annoying occurrence. An imbecile with red hair placed himself in front of my automobile, fortunately without serious injury to the machine⁠—though the sudden application of the brake cannot be good for the tyres. Out of evil, however, came good, for I have made the acquaintance of his employer, a Mr. Winfield, an artist. Mr. Winfield is a man of remarkable physique. I questioned him narrowly, and he appears thoroughly sound. As to his mental attainments, I cannot speak so highly; but all men are fools, and Mr. Winfield is not more so than most. I have decided that he shall marry my dear Ruth. They will make a magnificent pair.” + 

II + 

Ruth States Her Intentions + 

At about the time when Lora Delane Porter was cross-examining Kirk Winfield, Bailey Bannister left his club hurriedly. + 

Inside the club a sad, rabbit-faced young gentleman, who had been unburdening his soul to Bailey, was seeking further consolation in an amber drink with a cherry at the bottom of it. For this young man was one of nature’s cherry-chasers. It was the only thing he did really well. His name was Grayling, his height five feet three, his socks pink, and his income enormous. + 

So much for Grayling. He is of absolutely no importance, either to the world or to this narrative, except in so far that the painful story he has been unfolding to Bailey Bannister has so wrought upon that exquisite as to send him galloping up Fifth Avenue at five miles an hour in search of his sister Ruth. + 

Let us now examine Bailey. He is a faultlessly dressed young man of about twenty-seven, who takes it as a compliment when people think him older. His mouth, at present gaping with agitation and the unwonted exercise, is, as a rule, primly closed. His eyes, peering through gold-rimmed glasses, protrude slightly, giving him something of the dumb pathos of a codfish. + 

His hair is pale and scanty, his nose sharp and narrow. He is a junior partner in the firm of Bannister & Son, and it is his unalterable conviction that, if his father would only give him a chance, he could show Wall Street some high finance that would astonish it. + 

The afternoon was warm. The sun beat down on the avenue. Bailey had not gone two blocks before it occurred to him that swifter and more comfortable progress could be made in a taxicab than on his admirably trousered legs. No more significant proof of the magnitude of his agitation could be brought forward than the fact that he had so far forgotten himself as to walk at all. He hailed a cab and gave the address of a house on the upper avenue. + 

He leaned back against the cushions, trying to achieve a coolness of mind and body. But the heat of the day kept him unpleasantly soluble, and dismay, that perspiration of the soul, refused to be absorbed by the pocket-handkerchief of philosophy. + 

Bailey Bannister was a young man who considered the minding of other people’s business a duty not to be shirked. Life is a rocky road for such. His motto was “Let me do it!” He fussed about the affairs of Bannister & Son; he fussed about the welfare of his friends at the club; especially, he fussed about his only sister Ruth. + 

He looked on himself as a sort of guardian to Ruth. Their mother had died when they were children, and old Mr. Bannister was indifferently equipped with the paternal instinct. He was absorbed, body and soul, in the business of the firm. He lived practically a hermit life in the great house on Fifth Avenue; and, if it had not been for Bailey, so Bailey considered, Ruth would have been allowed to do just whatever she pleased. There were those who said that this was precisely what she did, despite Brother Bailey. + 

It is a hard world for a conscientious young man of twenty-seven. + 

Bailey paid the cab and went into the house. It was deliciously cool in the hall, and for a moment peace descended on him. But the distant sound of a piano in the upper regions ejected it again by reminding him of his mission. He bounded up the stairs and knocked at the door of his sister’s private den. + 

The piano stopped as he entered, and the girl on the music-stool glanced over her shoulder. + 

“Well, Bailey,” she said, “you look warm.” + 

“I am warm,” said Bailey in an aggrieved tone. He sat down solemnly. + 

“I want to speak to you, Ruth.” + 

Ruth shut the piano and caused the music-stool to revolve till she faced him. + 

“Well?” she said. + 

Ruth Bannister was an extraordinarily beautiful girl, “a daughter of the gods, divinely tall, and most divinely fair.” From her mother she had inherited the dark eyes and ivory complexion which went so well with her mass of dark hair; from her father a chin of peculiar determination and perfect teeth. Her body was strong and supple. She radiated health. + 

To her friends Ruth was a source of perplexity. It was difficult to understand her. In the set in which she moved girls married young; yet season followed season, and Ruth remained single, and this so obviously of her own free will that the usual explanation of such a state of things broke down as soon as it was tested. + 

In shoals during her first two seasons, and lately with less unanimity, men of every condition, from a prince⁠—somewhat battered, but still a prince⁠—to the Bannisters’ English butler⁠—a good man, but at the moment under the influence of tawny port, had laid their hearts at her feet. One and all, they had been compelled to pick them up and take them elsewhere. She was generally kind on these occasions, but always very firm. The determined chin gave no hope that she might yield to importunity. The eyes that backed up the message of the chin were pleasant, but inflexible. + 

Generally it was with a feeling akin to relief that the rejected, when time had begun to heal the wound, contemplated their position. There was something about this girl, they decided, which no fellow could understand: she frightened them; she made them feel that their hands were large and red and their minds weak and empty. She was waiting for something. What it was they did not know, but it was plain that they were not it, and off they went to live happily ever after with girls who ate candy and read bestsellers. And Ruth went on her way, cool and watchful and mysterious, waiting. + 

The room which Ruth had taken for her own gave, like all rooms when intelligently considered, a clue to the character of its owner. It was the only room in the house furnished with any taste or simplicity. The furniture was exceedingly expensive, but did not look so. The keynote of the colour-scheme was green and white. All round the walls were books. Except for a few prints, there were no pictures; and the only photograph visible stood in a silver frame on a little table. + 

It was the portrait of a woman of about fifty, square-jawed, tight-lipped, who stared almost threateningly out of the frame; exceedingly handsome, but, to the ordinary male, too formidable to be attractive. On this was written in a bold hand, bristling with emphatic downstrokes and wholly free from feminine flourish: “To my dear Ruth from her Aunt Lora.” And below the signature, in what printers call “quotes,” a line that was evidently an extract from somebody’s published works: “Bear the torch and do not falter.” + 

Bailey inspected this photograph with disfavour. It always irritated him. The information, conveyed to him by amused friends, that his Aunt Lora had once described Ruth as a jewel in a dustbin, seemed to him to carry an offensive innuendo directed at himself and the rest of the dwellers in the Bannister home. Also, she had called him a worm. Also, again, his actual encounters with the lady, though few, had been memorably unpleasant. Furthermore, he considered that she had far too great an influence on Ruth. And, lastly, that infernal sentence about the torch, which he found perfectly meaningless, had a habit of running in his head like a catchphrase, causing him the keenest annoyance. + 

He pursed his lips disapprovingly and averted his eyes. + 

“Don’t sniff at Aunt Lora, Bailey,” said Ruth. “I’ve had to speak to you about that before. What’s the matter? What has sent you flying up here?” + 

“I have had a shock,” said Bailey. “I have been very greatly disturbed. I have just been speaking to Clarence Grayling.” + 

He eyed her accusingly through his gold-rimmed glasses. She remained tranquil. + 

“And what had Clarence to say?” + 

“A great many things.” + 

“I gather he told you I had refused him.” + 

“If it were only that!” + 

Ruth rapped the piano sharply. + 

“Bailey,” she said, “wake up. Either get to the point or go or read a book or do some tatting or talk about something else. You know perfectly well that I absolutely refuse to endure your impressive manner. I believe when people ask you the time you look pained and important and make a mystery of it. What’s troubling you? I should have thought Clarence would have kept quiet about insulting me. But apparently he has no sense of shame.” + 

Bailey gaped. Bailey was shocked and alarmed. + 

“Insulting you! What do you mean? Clarence is a gentleman. He is incapable of insulting a woman.” + 

“Is he? He told me I was a suitable wife for a wretched dwarf with the miserably inadequate intelligence which nature gave him reduced to practically a minus quantity by alcohol! At least, he implied it. He asked me to marry him.” + 

“I have just left him at the club. He is very upset.” + 

“I should imagine so.” A soft smile played over Ruth’s face. “I spoke to Clarence. I explained things to him. I lit up Clarence’s little mind like a searchlight.” + 

Bailey rose, tremulous with just wrath. + 

“You spoke to him in a way that I can only call outrageous and improper, and⁠—er⁠—outrageous.” + 

He paced the room with agitated strides. Ruth watched him calmly. + 

“If the overflowing emotion of a giant soul in torment makes you knock over a table or smash a chair,” she said, “I shall send the bill for repairs to you. You had far better sit down and talk quietly. What is worrying you, Bailey?” + 

“Is it nothing,” demanded her brother, “that my sister should have spoken to a man as you spoke to Clarence Grayling?” + 

With an impassioned gesture he sent a flower-vase crashing to the floor. + 

“I told you so,” said Ruth. “Pick up the bits, and don’t let the water spoil the carpet. Use your handkerchief. I should say that that would cost you about six dollars, dear. Why will you let yourself be so temperamental? Now let me try and think what it was I said to Clarence. As far as I can remember it was the mere A.B.C. of eugenics.” + 

Bailey, on his knees, picking up broken glass, raised a flushed and accusing face. + 

“Ah! Eugenics! You admit it!” + 

“I think,” went on Ruth placidly, “I asked him what sort of children he thought we were likely to have if we married.” + 

“A nice girl ought not to think about such things.” + 

“I don’t think about anything else much. A woman can’t do a great deal, even nowadays, but she can have a conscience and feel that she owes something to the future of the race. She can feel that it is her duty to bring fine children into the world. As Aunt Lora says, she can carry the torch and not falter.” + 

Bailey shied like a startled horse at the hated phrase. He pointed furiously at the photograph of the great thinker. + 

“You’re talking like that⁠—that damned woman!” + 

“Bailey precious! You mustn’t use such wicked, wicked words.” + 

Bailey rose, pink and wrathful. + 

“If you’re going to break another vase,” said Ruth, “you will really have to go.” + 

“Ever since that⁠—that⁠—” cried Bailey. “Ever since Aunt Lora⁠—” + 

Ruth smiled indulgently. + 

“That’s more like my little man,” she said. “He knows as well as I do how wrong it is to swear.” + 

“Be quiet! Ever since Aunt Lora got hold of you, I say, you have become a sort of gramophone, spouting her opinions.” + 

“But what sensible opinions!” + 

“It’s got to stop. Aunt Lora! My God! Who is she? Just look at her record. She disgraces the family by marrying a grubby newspaper fellow called Porter. He has the sense to die. I will say that for him. She thrusts herself into public notice by a series of books and speeches on subjects of which a decent woman ought to know nothing. And now she gets hold of you, fills you up with her disgusting nonsense, makes a sort of disciple of you, gives you absurd ideas, poisons your mind, and⁠—er⁠—er⁠—” + 

“Bailey! This is positive eloquence!” + 

“It’s got to stop. It’s bad enough in her; but everyone knows she is crazy, and makes allowances. But in a young girl like you.” + 

He choked. + 

“In a young girl like me,” prompted Ruth in a low, tragic voice. + 

“It⁠—it’s not right. It⁠—it’s not proper.” He drew a long breath. “It’s all wrong. It’s got to stop.” + 

“He’s perfectly wonderful!” murmured Ruth. “He just opens his mouth and the words come out. But I knew he was somebody, directly I saw him, by his forehead. Like a dome!” Bailey mopped the dome. + 

“Perhaps you don’t know it,” he said, “but you’re getting yourself talked about. You go about saying perfectly impossible things to people. You won’t marry. You have refused nearly every friend I have.” + 

Ruth shuddered. + 

“Your friends are awful, Bailey. They are all turned out on a pattern, like a flock of sheep. They bleat. They have all got little, narrow faces without chins or big, fat faces without foreheads. Ugh!” + 

“None of them good enough for you, is that it?” + 

“Not nearly.” + 

Emotion rendered Bailey⁠—for him⁠—almost vulgar. + 

“I guess you hate yourself!” he snapped. + 

“No sir” beamed Ruth. “I think I’m perfectly beautiful.” + 

Bailey grunted. Ruth came to him and gave him a sisterly kiss. She was very fond of Bailey, though she declined to reverence him. + 

“Cheer up, Bailey boy,” she said. “Don’t you worry yourself. There’s a method in my madness. I’ll find him sooner or later, and then you’ll be glad I waited.” + 

“Him? what do you mean?” + 

“Why, him, of course. The ideal young man. That’s who⁠—or is it whom?⁠—I’m waiting for. Bailey, shall I tell you something? You’re so scarlet already⁠—poor boy, you ought not to rush around in this hot weather⁠—that it won’t make you blush. It’s this. I’m ambitious. I mean to marry the finest man in the world and have the greatest little old baby you ever dreamed of. By the way, now I remember, I told Clarence that.” + 

Bailey uttered a strangled exclamation. + 

“It has made you blush! You turned purple. Well, now you know. I mean my baby to be the most splendid baby that was ever born. He’s going to be strong and straight and clever and handsome, and⁠—oh, everything else you can think of. That’s why I’m waiting for the ideal young man. If I don’t find him I shall die an old maid. But I shall find him. We may pass each other on Fifth Avenue. We may sit next each other at a theatre. Wherever it is, I shall just reach right out and grab him and whisk him away. And if he’s married already, he’ll have to get a divorce. And I shan’t care who he is. He may be anyone. I don’t mind if he’s a ribbon clerk or a prizefighter or a policeman or a cabdriver, so long as he’s the right man.” + 

Bailey plied the handkerchief on his streaming forehead. The heat of the day and the horror of this conversation were reducing his weight at the rate of ounces a minute. In his most jaundiced mood he had never imagined these frightful sentiments to be lurking in Ruth’s mind. + 

“You can’t mean that!” he cried. + 

“I mean every word of it,” said Ruth. “I hope, for your sake, he won’t turn out to be a waiter or a prizefighter, but it won’t make any difference to me.” + 

“You’re crazy!” + 

“Well, just now you said Aunt Lora was. If she is, I am.” + 

“I knew it! I said she had been putting these ghastly ideas into your head. I’d like to strangle that woman.” + 

“Don’t you try! Have you ever felt Aunt Lora’s biceps? It’s like a man’s. She does dumbbells every morning.” + 

“I’ve a good mind to speak to father. Somebody’s got to make you stop this insanity.” + 

“Just as you please. But you know how father hates to be worried about things that don’t concern business.” + 

Bailey did. His father, of whom he stood in the greatest awe, was very little interested in any subject except the financial affairs of the firm of Bannister & Son. It required greater courage than Bailey possessed to place this matter before him. He had an uneasy feeling that Ruth knew it. + 

“I would, if it were necessary,” he said. “But I don’t believe you’re serious.” + 

“Stick to that idea as long as ever you can, Bailey dear,” said Ruth. “It will comfort you.” + 

III + 

The Mates Meet + 

Kirk Winfield was an amiable, if rather weak, young man with whom life, for twenty-five years, had dealt kindly. He had perfect health, an income more than sufficient for his needs, a profession which interested without monopolizing him, a thoroughly contented disposition, and the happy knack of surrounding himself with friends. + 

That he had to contribute to the support of the majority of these friends might have seemed a drawback to some men. Kirk did not object to it in the least. He had enough money to meet their needs, and, being a sociable person who enjoyed mixing with all sorts and conditions of men, he found the Liberty Hall regime pleasant. + 

He liked to be a magnet, attracting New York’s Bohemian population. If he had his preferences among the impecunious crowd who used the studio as a chapel of ease, strolling in when it pleased them, drinking his whisky, smoking his cigarettes, borrowing his money, and, on occasion, his spare bedrooms and his pyjamas, he never showed it. He was fully as pleasant to Percy Shanklyn, the elegant, perpetually resting English actor, whom he disliked as far as he was capable of disliking anyone, as he was to Hank Jardine, the prospector, and Hank’s prizefighter friend, Steve Dingle, both of whom he liked enormously. + 

It seemed to him sometimes that he had drifted into the absolutely ideal life. He lived entirely in the present. The passage of time left him untouched. Day followed day, week followed week, and nothing seemed to change. He was never unhappy, never ill, never bored. + 

He would get up in the morning with the comfortable knowledge that the day held no definite duties. George Pennicut would produce one of his excellent breakfasts. The next milestone would be the arrival of Steve Dingle. Five brisk rounds with Steve, a cold bath, and a rubdown took him pleasantly on to lunch, after which it amused him to play at painting. + 

There was always something to do when he wearied of that until, almost before the day had properly begun, up came George with one of his celebrated dinners. And then began the incursion of his friends. One by one they would drop in, making themselves very much at home, to help their host through till bedtime. And another day would slip into the past. + 

It never occurred to Kirk that he was wasting his life. He had no ambitions. Ambition is born of woman, and no woman that he had ever met had ever stirred him deeply. He had never been in love, and he had come to imagine that he was incapable of anything except a mild liking for women. He considered himself immune, and was secretly glad of it. He enjoyed his go-as-you-please existence too much to want to have it upset. He belonged, in fact, to the type which, when the moment arrives, falls in love very suddenly, very violently, and for all time. + 

Nothing could have convinced him of this. He was like a child lighting matches in a powder-magazine. When the idea of marriage crossed his mind he thrust it from him with a kind of shuddering horror. He could not picture to himself a woman who could compensate him for the loss of his freedom and, still less, of his friends. + 

His friends were men’s men; he could not see them fitting into a scheme of life that involved the perpetual presence of a hostess. Hank Jardine, for instance. To Kirk, the great point about Hank was that he had been everywhere, seen everything, and was, when properly stimulated with tobacco and drink, a fountain of reminiscence. But he could not talk unless he had his coat off and his feet up on the back of a chair. No hostess could be expected to relish that. + 

Hank was a bachelor’s friend; he did not belong in a married household. The abstract wife could not be reconciled to him, and Kirk, loving Hank like a brother, firmly dismissed the abstract wife. + 

He came to look upon himself as a confirmed bachelor. He had thought out the question of marriage in all its aspects, and decided against it. He was the strong man who knew his own mind and could not be shaken. + 

Yet, on the afternoon of the day following Mrs. Lora Delane Porter’s entry into his life, Kirk sat in the studio, feeling, for the first time in recent years, a vague discontent. He was uneasy, almost afraid. The slight dislocation in the smooth-working machinery of his existence, caused by the compulsory retirement of George Pennicut, had made him thoroughly uncomfortable. With discomfort had come introspection, and with introspection this uneasiness that was almost fear. + 

A man, living alone, without money troubles to worry him, sinks inevitably into a routine. Fatted ease is good for no one. It sucks the soul out of a man. Kirk, as he sat smoking in the cool dusk of the studio, was wondering, almost in a panic, whether all was well with himself. + 

This mild domestic calamity had upset him so infernally. It could not be right that so slight a change in his habits should have such an effect upon him. George had been so little hurt⁠—the doctor gave him a couple of days before complete recovery⁠—that it had not seemed worth while to Kirk to engage a substitute. It was simpler to go out for his meals and make his own bed. And it was the realization that this alteration in his habits had horribly disturbed and unsettled him that was making Kirk subject himself now to an examination of quite unusual severity. + 

He hated softness. Physically, he kept himself always in perfect condition. Had he become spiritually flabby? Certainly this unexpected call on his energies would appear to have found him unprepared. It spoiled his whole day, knowing, when he got out of bed in the morning, that he must hunt about and find his food instead of sitting still and having it brought to him. It frightened him to think how set he had become. + 

Forty-eight hours ago he would have scorned the suggestion that he coddled himself. He would have produced as evidence to the contrary his cold baths, his exercises, his bouts with Steve Dingle. Today he felt less confidence. For all his baths and boxing, the fact remained that he had become, at the age of twenty-six, such a slave to habit that a very trifling deviation from settled routine had been enough to poison life for him. + 

Bachelors have these black moments, and it is then that the abstract wife comes into her own. To Kirk, brooding in the dusk, the figure of the abstract wife seemed to grow less formidable, the fact that she might not get on with Hank Jardine of less importance. + 

The revolutionary thought that life was rather a bore, and would become more and more of a bore as the years went on, unless he had someone to share it with, crept into his mind and stayed there. + 

He shivered. These were unpleasant thoughts, and in his hour of clear vision he knew whence they came. They were entirely due to the knowledge that, instead of sitting comfortably at home, he would be compelled in a few short hours to go out and get dinner at some restaurant. To such a pass had he come in the twenty-sixth year of his life. + 

Once the gods have marked a bachelor down, they give him few chances of escape. It was when Kirk’s mood was at its blackest, and the figure of the abstract wife had ceased to be a menace and become a shining angel of salvation, that Lora Delane Porter, with Ruth Bannister at her side, rang the studio bell. + 

Kirk went to the door. He hoped it was a tradesman; he feared it was a friend. In his present state of mind he had no use for friends. When he found himself confronting Mrs. Porter he became momentarily incapable of speech. It had not entered his mind that she would pay him a second visit. Possibly it was joy that rendered him dumb. + 

“Good afternoon, Mr. Winfield,” said Mrs. Porter. “I have come to inquire after the man Pennicut. Ruth, this is Mr. Winfield. Mr. Winfield, my niece, Miss Bannister.” + 

And Kirk perceived for the first time that his visitor was not alone. In the shadow behind her a girl was standing. He stood aside to let Mrs. Porter pass, and Ruth came into the light. + 

If there are degrees in speechlessness, Kirk’s aphasia became doubled and trebled at the sight of her. It seemed to him that he went all to pieces, as if he had received a violent blow. Curious physical changes were taking place in him. His legs, which only that morning he had looked upon as eminently muscular, he now discovered to be composed of some curiously unstable jelly. + 

He also perceived⁠—a fact which he had never before suspected⁠—that he had heart-disease. His lungs, too, were in poor condition; he found it practically impossible to breathe. The violent trembling fit which assailed him he attributed to general organic weakness. + 

He gaped at Ruth. + 

Ruth, outwardly, remained unaffected by the meeting, but inwardly she was feeling precisely the same sensation of smallness which had come to Mrs. Porter on her first meeting with Kirk. If this sensation had been novel to Mrs. Porter, it was even stranger to Ruth. + 

To think humbly of herself was an experience that seldom happened to her. She was perfectly aware that her beauty was remarkable even in a city of beautiful women, and it was rarely that she permitted her knowledge of that fact to escape her. Her beauty, to her, was a natural phenomenon, impossible to overlook. The realization of it did not obtrude itself into her mind, it simply existed subconsciously. + 

Yet for an instant it ceased to exist. She was staggered by a sense of inferiority. + 

It lasted but a pinpoint of time, this riotous upheaval of her nature. She recovered herself so swiftly that Kirk, busy with his own emotions, had no suspicion of it. + 

A moment later he, too, was himself again. He was conscious of feeling curiously uplifted and thrilled, as if the world had suddenly become charged with ozone and electricity, and for some reason he felt capable of great feats of muscle and energy; but the aphasia had left him, and he addressed himself with a clear brain to the task of entertaining his visitors. + 

“George is better today,” he reported. + 

“He never was bad,” said Mrs. Porter succinctly. + 

“He doesn’t think so.” + 

“Possibly not. He is hopelessly weak-minded.” + 

Ruth laughed. Kirk thrilled at the sound. + 

“Poor George!” she observed. + 

“Don’t waste your sympathy, my dear,” said Mrs. Porter. “That he is injured at all is his own fault. For years he has allowed himself to become gross and flabby, with the result that the collision did damage which it would not have done to a man in hard condition. You, Mr. Winfield,” she added, turning abruptly to Kirk, “would scarcely have felt it. But then you,” went on Mrs. Porter, “are in good condition. Cold baths!” + 

“I beg your pardon?” + 

“Do you take cold baths?” + 

“I do.” + 

“Do you do Swedish exercises?” + 

“I go through a series of evolutions every morning, with the utmost loathing. I started them as a boy, and they have become a habit like dram-drinking. I would leave them off if I could, but I can’t.” + 

“Do nothing of the kind. They are invaluable.” + 

“But undignified.” + 

“Let me feel your biceps, Mr. Winfield,” said Mrs. Porter. She nodded approvingly. “Like iron.” She poised a finger and ran a meditative glance over his form. Kirk eyed her apprehensively. The finger darted forward and struck home in the region of the third waistcoat button. “Wonderful!” she exclaimed. “Ruth!” + 

“Yes, aunt.” + 

“Prod Mr. Winfield where my finger is pointing. He is extraordinarily muscular.” + 

“I say, really!” protested Kirk. He was a modest young man, and this exploration of his more intimate anatomy by the fingertips of the girl he loved was not to be contemplated. + 

“Just as you please,” said Mrs. Porter. “If I were a man of your physique, I should be proud of it.” + 

“Wouldn’t you like to go up and see George?” asked Kirk. It was hard on George, but it was imperative that this woman be removed somehow. + 

“Very well. I have brought him a little book to read, which will do him good. It is called Elementary Rules for the Preservation of the Body.” + 

“He has learned one of them, all right, since yesterday,” said Kirk. “Not to walk about in front of automobiles.” + 

“The rules I refer to are mainly concerned with diet and wholesome exercise,” explained Mrs. Porter. “Careful attention to them may yet save him. His case is not hopeless. Ruth, let Mr. Winfield show you his pictures. They are poor in many respects, but not entirely without merit.” + 

Ruth, meanwhile, had been sitting on the couch, listening to the conversation without really hearing it. She was in a dreamy, contented mood. She found herself curiously soothed by the atmosphere of the studio, with its shaded lights and its atmosphere of peace. That was the keynote of the place, peace. + 

From outside came the rumble of an elevated train, subdued and softened, like faintly heard thunder. Somebody passed the window, whistling. A barrier seemed to separate her from these noises of the city. New York was very far away. + 

“I believe I could be wonderfully happy in a place like this,” she thought. + 

She became suddenly aware, in the midst of her meditations, of eyes watching her intently. She looked up and met Kirk’s. + 

She could read the message in them as clearly as if he had spoken it, and she was conscious of a little thrill of annoyance at the thought of all the tiresome formalities which must be gone through before he could speak it. They seemed absurd. + 

It was all so simple. He wanted her; she wanted him. She had known it from the moment of their meeting. The man had found his woman, the woman her man. Nature had settled the whole affair in an instant. And now civilization, propriety, etiquette, whatever one cared to call it, must needs step in with the rules and regulations and precedents. + 

The goal was there, clear in sight, but it must be reached by the winding road appointed. She, being a woman and, by virtue of her sex, primeval, scorned the road, and would have ignored it. But she knew men, and especially, at that moment as their eyes met, she knew Kirk; and she understood that to him the road was a thing that could not be ignored. The mere idea of doing so would seem grotesque and impossible, probably even shocking, to him. Men were odd, formal creatures, slaves to precedent. + 

He must have time, it was the prerogative of the male; time to reveal himself to her, to strut before her, to go through the solemn comedy of proving to her, by the exhibition of his virtues and the careful suppression of his defects, what had been clear to her from the first instant, that here was her mate, the man nature had set apart for her. + 

He would begin by putting on a new suit of clothes and having his hair cut. + 

She smiled. It was silly and tiresome, but it was funny. + 

“Will you show me your pictures, Mr. Winfield?” she asked. + 

“If you’d really care to see them. I’m afraid they’re pretty bad.” + 

“Exhibit A. Modesty,” thought Ruth. + 

The journey had begun. + 

IV + 

Troubled Waters + 

It is not easy in this world to take any definite step without annoying somebody, and Kirk, in embarking on his wooing of Ruth Bannister, failed signally to do so. Lora Delane Porter beamed graciously upon him, like a pleased Providence, but the rest of his circle of acquaintances were ill at ease. + 

The statement does not include Hank Jardine, for Hank was out of New York; but the others⁠—Shanklyn, the actor; Wren, the newspaperman; Bryce, Johnson, Willis, Appleton, and the rest⁠—sensed impending change in the air, and were uneasy, like cattle before a thunderstorm. The fact that the visits of Mrs. Porter and Ruth to inquire after George, now of daily occurrence, took place in the afternoon, while they, Kirk’s dependents, seldom or never appeared in the studio till drawn there by the scent of the evening meal, it being understood that during the daytime Kirk liked to work undisturbed, kept them ignorant of the new development. + 

All they knew was that during the last two weeks a subtle change had taken place in Kirk. He was less genial, more prone to irritability than of old. He had developed fits of absentmindedness, and was frequently to be found staring pensively at nothing. To slap him on the back at such moments, as Wren ventured to do on one occasion, Wren belonging to the jovial school of thought which holds that nature gave us hands in order to slap backs, was to bring forth a new and unexpected Kirk, a Kirk who scowled and snarled and was hardly to be appeased with apology. Stranger still, this new Kirk could be summoned into existence by precisely the type of story at which, but a few weeks back, he would have been the first to laugh. + 

Percy Shanklyn, whose conversation consisted of equal parts of autobiography and of stories of the type alluded to, was the one to discover this. His latest, which he had counted on to set the table in a roar, produced from Kirk criticism so adverse and so crisply delivered that he refrained from telling his latest but one and spent the rest of the evening wondering, like his fellow visitors, what had happened to Kirk and whether he was sickening for something. + 

Not one of them had the faintest suspicion that these symptoms indicated that Kirk, for the first time in his easygoing life, was in love. They had never contemplated such a prospect. It was not till his conscientious and laborious courtship had been in progress for over two weeks and was nearing the stage when he felt that the possibility of revealing his state of mind to Ruth was not so remote as it had been, that a chance visit of Percy Shanklyn to the studio during the afternoon solved the mystery. + 

One calls it a chance visit because Percy had not been meaning to borrow twenty dollars from Kirk that day at all. The man slated for the loan was one Burrows, a kindly member of the Lambs Club. But fate and a telegram from a manager removed Burrows to Chicago, while Percy was actually circling preparatory to the swoop, and the only other man in New York who seemed to Percy good for the necessary sum at that precise moment was Kirk. + 

He flew to Kirk and found him with Ruth. Kirk’s utter absence of any enthusiasm at the sight of him, the reluctance with which he made the introduction, the glumness with which he bore his share of the three-cornered conversation⁠—all these things convinced Percy that this was no ordinary visitor. + 

Many years of living by his wits had developed in Percy highly sensitive powers of observation. Brief as his visit was, he came away as certain that Kirk was in love with this girl, and the girl was in love with Kirk, as he had ever been of anything in his life. + 

As he walked slowly downtown he was thinking hard. The subject occupying his mind was the problem of how this thing was to be stopped. + 

Percy Shanklyn was a sleek, suave, unpleasant youth who had been imported by a theatrical manager two years before to play the part of an English dude in a new comedy. The comedy had been what its enthusiastic backer had described in the newspaper advertisements as a “rousing live-wire success.” That is to say, it had staggered along for six weeks on Broadway to extremely poor houses, and after three weeks on the road, had perished for all time, leaving Percy out of work. + 

Since then, no other English dude part having happened along, he had rested, living in the mysterious way in which out-of-work actors do live. He had a number of acquaintances, such as the amiable Burrows, who were good for occasional loans, but Kirk Winfield was the king of them all. There was something princely about the careless openhandedness of Kirk’s methods, and Percy’s whole soul rose in revolt against the prospect of being deprived of this source of revenue, as something, possibly Ruth’s determined chin, told him that he would be, should Kirk marry this girl. + 

He had placed Ruth at once, directly he had heard her name. He remembered having seen her photograph in the society section of the Sunday paper which he borrowed each week. This was the daughter of old John Bannister. There was no doubt about that. How she had found her way to Kirk’s studio he could not understand; but there she certainly was, and Percy was willing to bet the twenty dollars which, despite the excitement of the moment, he had not forgotten to extract from Kirk in a hurried conversation at the door, that her presence there was not known and approved by her father. + 

The only reasonable explanation that Kirk was painting her portrait he dismissed. There had been no signs of any portrait, and Kirk’s embarrassment had been so obvious that, if there had been any such explanation, he would certainly have given it. No, Ruth had been there for other reasons than those of art. + 

“Unchaperoned, too, by Jove!” thought Percy virtuously, ignorant of Mrs. Lora Delane Porter, who at the time of his call, had been busily occupied in a back room instilling into George Pennicut the gospel of the fit body. For George, now restored to health, had ceased to be a mere student of Elementary Rules for the Preservation of the Body and had become an active, though unwilling, practiser of its precepts. + 

Every morning Mrs. Porter called and, having shepherded him into the back room, put him relentlessly through his exercises. George’s groans, as he moved his stout limbs along the dotted lines indicated in the book’s illustrated plates, might have stirred a faint heart to pity. But Lora Delane Porter was made of sterner stuff. If George so much as bent his knees while touching his toes he heard of it instantly, in no uncertain voice. + 

Thus, in her decisive way, did Mrs. Porter spread light and sweetness with both hands, achieving the bodily salvation of George while, at the same time, furthering the loves of Ruth and Kirk by leaving them alone together to make each other’s better acquaintance in the romantic dimness of the studio. + 

Percy proceeded downtown, pondering. His first impulse, I regret to say, was to send Ruth’s father an anonymous letter. This plan he abandoned from motives of fear rather than of self-respect. Anonymous letters are too frequently traced to their writers, and the prospect of facing Kirk in such an event did not appeal to him. + 

As he could think of no other way of effecting his object, he had begun to taste the bitterness of futile effort, when fortune, always his friend, put him in a position to do what he wanted in the easiest possible way with the minimum of unpleasantness. + 

Bailey Bannister, that strong, keen Napoleon of finance, was not above a little relaxation of an evening when his father happened to be out of town. That giant mind, weary with the strain of business, needed refreshment. + 

And so, at eleven thirty that night, his father being in Albany, and not expected home till next day, Bailey might have been observed, beautifully arrayed and discreetly jovial, partaking of lobster at one of those Broadway palaces where this fish is in brisk demand. He was in company with his rabbit-faced friend, Clarence Grayling, and two members of the chorus of a neighbouring musical comedy. + 

One of the two, with whom Clarence was conversing in a lively manner that showed his heart had not been irreparably broken as the result of his recent interview with Ruth, we may dismiss. Like Clarence, she is of no importance to the story. The other, who, not finding Bailey’s measured remarks very gripping, was allowing her gaze to wander idly around the room, has this claim to a place in the scheme of things, that she had a wordless part in the comedy in which Percy Shanklyn had appeared as the English dude and was on terms of friendship with him. + 

Consequently, seeing him enter the room, as he did at that moment, she signalled him to approach. + 

“It’s a little feller who was with me in The Man from Out West,” she explained to Bailey as Percy made his way toward them. At which Bailey’s prim mouth closed with an air of disapproval. + 

The feminine element of the stage he found congenial to his business-harassed brain, but with the “little fellers” who helped them to keep the national drama sizzling he felt less in sympathy; and he resented extremely his companion’s tactlessness in inciting this infernal mummer to intrude upon his privacy. + 

He prepared to be cold and distant with Percy. And when Bailey, never a ray of sunshine, deliberately tried to be chilly, those with him at the time generally had the sensation that winter was once more in their midst. + 

Percy, meanwhile, threaded his way among the tables, little knowing that fate had already solved the problem which had worried him the greater part of the day. + 

He had come to the restaurant as a relief from his thoughts. If he could find some kind friend who would invite him to supper, well and good. If not, he was feeling so tired and depressed that he was ready to take the bull by the horns and pay for his meal himself. He had obeyed Miss Freda Reece’s signal because it was impossible to avoid doing so; but one glance at Bailey’s face had convinced him that not there was his kind host. + 

“Why, Perce,” said Miss Reece, “I ain’t saw you in years. Where you been hiding yourself?” + 

Percy gave a languid gesture indicative of the man of affairs whose time is not his own. + 

“Percy,” continued Miss Reece, “shake hands with my friend Mr. Bannister. I been telling him about how you made such a hit as the pin in Pinafore!” + 

The name galvanized Percy like a bugle-blast. + 

“Mr. Bannister!” he exclaimed. “Any relation to Mr. John Bannister, the millionaire?” + 

Bailey favoured him with a scrutiny through the gold-rimmed glasses which would have frozen his very spine. + 

“My father’s name is⁠—ah⁠—John, and he is a millionaire.” + 

Percy met the scrutiny with a suave smile. + 

“By Jove!” he said. “I know your sister quite well, Mr. Bannister. I meet her frequently at the studio of my friend Kirk Winfield. Very frequently. She is there nearly every day. Well, I must be moving on. Got a date with a man. Goodbye, Freda. Glad you’re going strong. Good night, Mr. Bannister. Delighted to have made your acquaintance. You must come round to the studio one of these days. Good night.” + 

He moved softly away. Miss Reece watched him go with regret. + 

“He’s a good little feller, Percy,” she said. “And so he knows your sister. Well, ain’t that nice!” + 

Bailey did not reply. And to the feast of reason and flow of soul that went on at the table during the rest of the meal he contributed so little that Miss Reece, in conversation that night with her friend alluded to him, not without justice, first as “that stiff,” and, later, as “a dead one.” + 

If Percy Shanklyn could have seen Bailey in the small hours of that night he would have been satisfied that his words had borne fruit. Like a modern Prometheus, Bailey writhed, sleepless, on his bed till daylight appeared. The discovery that Ruth was in the habit of paying clandestine visits to artists’ studios, where she met men like the little bounder who had been thrust upon him at supper, rent his haughty soul like a bomb. + 

He knew no artists, but he had read novels of Bohemian life in Paris, and he had gathered a general impression that they were, as a class, shock-headed, unwashed persons of no social standing whatever, extremely short of money and much addicted to orgies. And his sister had lowered herself by association with one of these. + 

He rose early. His appearance in the mirror shocked him. He looked positively haggard. + 

Dressing with unwonted haste, he inquired for Ruth, and was told that a telephone message had come from her late the previous evening to say that she was spending the night at the apartment of Mrs. Lora Delane Porter. The hated name increased Bailey’s indignation. He held Mrs. Porter responsible for the whole trouble. But for her pernicious influence, Ruth would have been an ordinary sweet American girl, running as, Bailey held, a girl should, in a decent groove. + 

It increased his troubles that his father was away from New York. Bailey, who enjoyed the dignity of being temporary head of the firm of Bannister & Son, had approved of his departure. But now he would have given much to have him on the spot. He did not doubt his own ability to handle this matter, but he felt that his father ought to know what was going on. + 

His wrath against this upstart artist who secretly entertained his sister in his studio grew with the minutes. It would be his privilege very shortly to read that scrubby dauber a lesson in deportment which he would remember. + 

In the interests of the family welfare he decided to stay away from the office that day. The affairs of Bannister & Son would be safe for the time being in the hands of the head clerk. Having telephoned to Wall Street to announce his decision, he made a moody breakfast and then proceeded, as was his custom of a morning, to the gymnasium for his daily exercise. + 

The gymnasium was a recent addition to the Bannister home. It had been established as the result of a heart-to-heart talk between old John Bannister and his doctor. The doctor spoke earnestly of nervous prostration and stated without preamble the exact number of months which would elapse before Mr. Bannister living his present life, would make firsthand acquaintance with it. He insisted on a regular routine of exercise. The gymnasium came into being, and Mr. Steve Dingle, physical instructor at the New York Athletic Club, took up a position in the Bannister household which he was wont to describe to his numerous friends as a soft snap. + 

Certainly his hours were not long. Thirty minutes with old Mr. Bannister and thirty minutes with Mr. Bailey between eight and nine in the morning and his duties were over for the day. But Steve was conscientious and checked any disposition on the part of his two clients to shirk work with a firmness which Lora Delane Porter might have envied. + 

There were moments when he positively bullied old Mr. Bannister. It would have amazed the clerks in his Wall Street office to see the meekness with which the old man obeyed orders. But John Bannister was a man who liked to get his money’s worth, and he knew that Steve was giving it to the last cent. + 

Steve at that time was twenty-eight years old. He had abandoned an active connection with the ring, which had begun just after his seventeenth birthday, twelve months before his entry into the Bannister home, leaving behind him a record of which any boxer might have been proud. He personally was exceedingly proud of it, and made no secret of the fact. + 

He was a man in private life of astonishingly even temper. The only thing that appeared to have the power to ruffle him to the slightest extent was the contemplation of what he described as the bunch of cheeses who pretended to fight nowadays. He would have considered it a privilege, it seemed, to be allowed to encounter all the middleweights in the country in one ring in a single night without training. But it appeared that he had promised his mother to quit, and he had quit. + 

Steve’s mother was an old lady who in her day had been the best washerwoman on Cherry Hill. She was, moreover, completely lacking in all the qualities which go to make up the patroness of sport. Steve had been injudicious enough to pay her a visit the day after his celebrated unpleasantness with that rugged warrior, Pat O’Flaherty (né Smith), and, though he had knocked Pat out midway through the second round, he bore away from the arena a black eye of such a startling richness that old Mrs. Dingle had refused to be comforted until he had promised never to enter the ring again. Which, as Steve said, had come pretty hard, he being a man who would rather be a water-bucket in a ring than a president outside it. + 

But he had given the promise, and kept it, leaving the field to the above-mentioned bunch of cheeses. There were times when the temptation to knock the head off Battling Dick this and Fighting Jack that became almost agony, but he never yielded to it. All of which suggests that Steve was a man of character, as indeed he was. + 

Bailey, entering the gymnasium, found Steve already there, punching the bag with a force and precision which showed that the bunch of cheeses ought to have been highly grateful to Mrs. Dingle for her anti-pugilistic prejudices. + 

“Good morning, Dingle,” said Bailey precisely. + 

Steve nodded. Bailey began to don his gymnasium costume. Steve gave the ball a final punch and turned to him. He was a young man who gave the impression of being, in a literal sense, perfectly square. This was due to the breadth of his shoulders, which was quite out of proportion to his height. His chest was extraordinarily deep, and his stomach and waist small, so that to the observer seeing him for the first time in boxing trunks, he seemed to begin as a big man and, halfway down, change his mind and become a small one. + 

His arms, which were unusually long and thick, hung down nearly to his knees and were decorated throughout with knobs and ridges of muscle that popped up and down and in and out as he moved, in a manner both fascinating and frightening. His face increased the illusion of squareness, for he had thick, straight eyebrows, a straight mouth, and a chin of almost the minimum degree of roundness. He inspected Bailey with a pair of brilliant brown eyes which no detail of his appearance could escape. And Bailey, that morning, as has been said, was not looking his best. + 

“You’re lookin’ kind o’ sick, bo,” was Steve’s comment. “I guess you was hittin’ it up with the gang last night in one of them lobster parlours.” + 

Bailey objected to being addressed as “bo,” and he was annoyed that Steve should have guessed the truth respecting his overnight movements. Still more was he annoyed that Steve’s material mind should attribute to a surfeit of lobster a pallor that was superinduced by a tortured soul. + 

“I did⁠—ah⁠—take supper last night, it is true,” he said. “But if I am a little pale today, that is not the cause. Things have occurred to annoy me intensely.” + 

“You should worry!” advised Steve. “Catch!” + 

The heavy medicine-ball struck Bailey in the chest before he could bring up his hands and sent him staggering back. + 

“Damn it, Dingle,” he gasped. “Kindly give me warning before you do that sort of thing.” + 

Steve was delighted. It amused his simple, honest soul to catch Bailey napping, and the incident gave him a text on which to hang a lecture. And, next to fighting, he loved best the sound of his own voice. + 

“Warning? Nix!” he said. “Ain’t it just what I been telling you every day for weeks? You gotta be ready always. You seen me holding the pellet. You should oughter have been saying to yourself: ‘I gotta keep an eye on that gink, so’s he don’t soak me one with that thing when I ain’t looking.’ Then you would have caught it and whizzed it back at me, and maybe, if I hadn’t been ready for it, you might have knocked the breeze out of me.” + 

“I should have derived no pleasure⁠—” + 

“Why, say, suppose a plug-ugly sashays up to you on the street to take a crack at your pearl stickpin, do you reckon he’s going to drop you a postal card first? You gotta be ready for him. See what I mean?” + 

“Let us spar,” said Bailey austerely. He had begun to despair of ever making Steve show him that deference and respect which he considered due to the son of the house. The more frigid he was, the more genial and friendly did Steve become. The thing seemed hopeless. + 

It was a pleasing sight to see Bailey spar. He brought to the task the measured dignity which characterized all his actions. A left jab from him had all the majesty of a formal declaration of war. If he was a trifle slow in his movements for a pastime which demands a certain agility from its devotees he at least got plenty of exercise and did himself a great deal of good. + 

He was perspiring freely as he took off the gloves. A shower-bath, followed by brisk massage at the energetic hands of Steve, made him feel better than he had imagined he could feel after that night of spiritual storm and stress. He was glowing as he put on his clothes, and a certain high resolve which had come to him in the night watches now returned with doubled force. + 

“Dingle,” he said, “how did I seem today?” + 

“Fine,” answered Steve courteously. “You’re gettin’ to be a regular terror.” + 

“You think I shape well?” + 

“Sure.” + 

“I am glad. This morning I am going to thrash a man within an inch of his life.” + 

“What!” + 

Steve spun round. Bailey’s face was set and determined. + 

“You are?” said Steve feebly. + 

“I am.” + 

“What’s he been doing to you?” + 

“I am afraid I cannot tell you that. But he richly deserves what he will get.” + 

Steve eyed him with affectionate interest. + 

“Well, ain’t you the wildcat!” he said. “Who’d have thought it? I’d always had you sized up as a kind o’ placid guy.” + 

“I can be roused.” + 

“Gee, can’t I see it! But, say, what sort of a gook is this gink, anyway?” + 

“In what respect?” + 

“Well, I mean is he a heavy or a middle or a welter or what? It makes a kind o’ difference, you know.” + 

“I cannot say. I have not seen him.” + 

“What! Not seen him? Then how’s there this fuss between you?” + 

“That is a matter into which I cannot go.” + 

“Well, what’s his name, then? Maybe I know him. I know a few good people in this burg.” + 

“I have no objection to telling you that. He is an artist, and his name is⁠—his name is⁠—” + 

Wrinkles appeared in Bailey’s forehead. His eyes bulged anxiously behind their glasses. + 

“I’ve forgotten,” he said blankly. + 

“For the love of Mike! Know where he lives?” + 

“I am afraid not.” + 

Steve patted him kindly on the shoulder. + 

“Take my advice, bo,” he said. “Let the poor fellow off this time.” + 

And so it came about that Bailey, instead of falling upon Kirk Winfield, hailed a taxicab and drove to the apartment of Mrs. Lora Delane Porter. + 

V + 

Wherein Opposites Agree + 

The maid who opened the door showed a reluctance to let Bailey in. She said that Mrs. Porter was busy with her writing and had given orders that she was not to be disturbed. + 

Nothing could have infuriated Bailey more. He, Bailey Bannister, was to be refused admittance because this preposterous woman wished to write! It was the duty of all decent citizens to stop her writing. If it had not been for her and her absurd books Ruth would never have made it necessary for him to pay this visit at all. + 

“Kindly take my card to Mrs. Porter and tell her that I must see her at once on a matter of the utmost urgency,” he directed. + 

The domestic workers of America had not been trained to stand up against Bailey’s grand manner. The maid vanished meekly with the card, and presently returned and requested him to step in. + 

Bailey found himself in a comfortable room, more like a man’s study than a woman’s boudoir. Books lined the walls. The furniture was strong and plain. At the window, on a swivel-chair before a roll-top desk, Mrs. Porter sat writing, her back to the door. + 

“The gentleman, ma’am,” announced the maid. + 

“Sit down,” said his aunt, without looking round or ceasing to write. + 

The maid went out. Bailey sat down. The gentle squeak of the quill pen continued. + 

Bailey coughed. + 

“I have called this morning⁠—” + 

The left hand of the writer rose and waggled itself irritably above her left shoulder. + 

“Aunt Lora,” spoke Bailey sternly. + 

“Shish!” said the authoress. Only that and nothing more. Bailey, outraged, relapsed into silence. The pen squeaked on. + 

After what seemed to Bailey a considerable time, the writing ceased. It was succeeded by the sound of paper vigorously blotted. Then, with startling suddenness, Mrs. Porter whirled round on the swivel-chair, tilted it back, and faced him. + 

“Well, Bailey?” she said. + 

She looked at Bailey. Bailey looked at her. Her eyes had the curious effect of driving out of his head what he had intended to say. + 

“Well?” she said again. + 

He tried to remember the excellent opening speech which he had prepared in the cab. + 

“Good gracious, Bailey!” cried Mrs. Porter, “you have not come here and ruined my morning’s work for the pleasure of looking at me surely? Say something.” + 

Bailey found his voice. + 

“I have called to see Ruth, who, I am informed, is with you.” + 

“She is in her room. I made her breakfast in bed. Is there any message I can give her?” + 

Bailey suddenly remembered the speech he had framed in the cab. + 

“Aunt Lora,” he said, “I am sorry to have to intrude upon you at so early an hour, but it is imperative that I see Ruth and ask her to explain the meaning of a most disturbing piece of news that has come to my ears.” + 

Mrs. Porter did not appear to have heard him. + 

“A man of your height should weigh more,” she said. “What is your weight?” + 

“My weight; beside the point⁠—” + 

“Your weight is under a hundred and forty pounds, and it ought to be over a hundred and sixty. Eat more. Avoid alcohol. Keep regular hours.” + 

“Aunt Lora!” + 

“Well?” + 

“I wish to see my sister.” + 

“You will have to wait. What did you wish to see her about?” + 

“That is a matter that concerns⁠—No! I will tell you, for I believe you to be responsible for the whole affair.” + 

“Well?” + 

“Last night, quite by chance, I found out that Ruth has for some time been paying visits to the studio of an artist.” + 

Mrs. Porter nodded. + 

“Quite right. Mr. Kirk Winfield. She is going to marry him.” + 

Bailey’s hat fell to the floor. His stick followed. His mouth opened widely. His glasses shot from his nose and danced madly at the end of their string. + 

“What!” + 

“It will be a most suitable match in every way,” said Mrs. Porter. + 

Bailey bounded to his feet. + 

“It’s incredible!” he shouted. “It’s ridiculous! It’s abominable! It’s⁠—it’s incredible!” + 

Mrs. Porter gazed upon his transports with about the same amount of interest which she would have bestowed upon a whirling dervish at Coney Island. + 

“You have not seen Mr. Winfield, I gather?” + 

“When I do, he will have reason to regret it. I⁠—” + 

“Sit down.” + 

Bailey sat down. + 

“Ruth and Mr. Winfield are both perfect types. Mr. Winfield is really a splendid specimen of a man. As to his intelligence, I say nothing. I have ceased to expect intelligence in man, and I am grateful for the smallest grain. But physically, he is magnificent. I could not wish dear Ruth a better husband.” + 

Bailey had pulled himself together with a supreme effort and had achieved a frozen calm. + 

“Such a marriage is, of course, out of the question,” he said. + 

“Why?” + 

“My sister cannot marry a⁠—a nobody, an outsider⁠—” + 

“Mr. Winfield is not a nobody. He is an extraordinarily healthy young man.” + 

“Are you aware that Ruth, if she had wished, could have married a prince?” + 

“She told me. A little rat of a man, I understand. She had far too much sense to do any such thing. She has a conscience. She knows what she owes to the future of the⁠—” + 

“Bah!” cried Bailey rudely. + 

“I suppose,” said Mrs. Porter, “that, like most men, you care nothing for the future of the race? You are not interested in eugenics?” + 

Bailey quivered with fury at the word, but said nothing. + 

“If you have ever studied even so elementary a subject as the colour heredity of the Andalusian fowl⁠—” + 

The colour heredity of the Andalusian fowl was too much for Bailey. + 

“I decline to discuss any such drivel,” he said, rising. “I came here to see Ruth, and⁠—” + 

“And here she is,” said Mrs. Porter. + 

The door opened, and Ruth appeared. She looked, to Bailey, insufferably radiant and pleased with herself. + 

“Bailey!” she cried. “Whatever brings my little Bailey here, when he ought to be working like a good boy in Wall Street?” + 

“I will tell you,” Bailey’s demeanour was portentous. + 

“He’s frowning,” said Ruth. “You have been stirring his hidden depths, Aunt Lora!” + 

Bailey coughed. + 

“Ruth!” + 

“Bailey, don’t! You don’t know how terrible you look when you’re roused.” + 

“Ruth, kindly answer me one question. Aunt Lora informs me that you are going to marry this man Winfield. Is it or is it not true?” + 

“Of course it’s true.” + 

Bailey drew in his breath. He gazed coldly at Ruth, bowed to Mrs. Porter, and smoothed the nap of his hat. + 

“Very good,” he said stonily. “I shall now call upon this Mr. Winfield and thrash him.” With that he walked out of the room. + 

He directed his cab to the nearest hotel, looked up Kirk’s address in the telephone-book, and ten minutes later was ringing the studio bell. + 

A look of relief came into George Pennicut’s eyes as he opened the door. To George, nowadays, every ring at the bell meant a possible visit from Lora Delane Porter. + 

“Is Mr. Kirk Winfield at home?” inquired Bailey. + 

“Yes, sir. Who shall I say, sir?” + 

“Kindly tell Mr. Winfield that Mr. Bannister wishes to speak to him.” + 

“Yes, sir. Will you step this way, sir?” + 

Bailey stepped that way. + 

While Bailey was driving to the studio in his taxicab, Kirk, in boxing trunks and a sleeveless vest, was engaged on his daily sparring exercise with Steve Dingle. + 

This morning Steve seemed to be amused at something. As they rested, at the conclusion of their fifth and final round, Kirk perceived that he was chuckling, and asked the reason. + 

“Why, say,” explained Steve, “I was only thinking that it takes all kinds of ivory domes to make a nuttery. I ran across a new brand of simp this morning. Just before I came to you I’m scheduled to show up at one of these Astorbilt homes t’other side of the park. First I mix it with the old man, then son and heir blows in and I attend to him. + 

“Well, this morning, son acts like he’s all worked up. He’s one of these half-portion Willie-boys with Chippendale legs, but he throws out a line of talk that would make you wonder if it’s safe to let him run around loose. Says his mind’s made up; he’s going to thrash a gink within an inch of his life; going to muss up his features so bad he’ll have to have ’em replanted. + 

“ ‘Why?’ I says. ‘Never you mind,’ says he. ‘Well, who is he?’ I asks. What do you think happens then? He thinks hard for a spell, rolls his eyes, and says: ‘Search me. I’ve forgotten.’ ‘Know where he lives?’ I asks him. ‘Nope,’ he says. + 

“Can you beat it! Seems to me if I had a kink in my coco that big I’d phone to an alienist and have myself measured for a straitjacket. Gee! You meet all kinds, going around the way I do.” + 

Kirk laughed and lit a cigarette. + 

“If you want to use the shower, Steve,” he said, “you’d better get up there now. I shan’t be ready yet awhile. Then, if this is one of your energetic mornings and you would care to give me a rubdown⁠—” + 

“Sure,” said Steve obligingly. He picked up his clothes and went upstairs to the bathroom, which, like the bedrooms, opened on to the gallery. Kirk threw himself on the couch, fixed his eyes on the ceiling, and began to think of Ruth. + 

“Mr. Bannister,” announced George Pennicut at the door. + 

Kirk was on his feet in one bound. The difference, to a man whose mind is far away, between “Mr. Bannister” and “Miss Bannister” is not great, and his first impression was that it was Ruth who had arrived. + 

He was acutely conscious of his costume, and was quite relieved when he saw, not Ruth, but a severe-looking young man, who advanced upon him in a tight-lipped, pop-eyed manner that suggested dislike and hostility. The visitor was a complete stranger to him, but, his wandering wits returning to their duties, he deduced that this must be one of Ruth’s relatives. + 

It is a curious fact that the possibility of Ruth having other relatives than Mrs. Porter had not occurred to him till now. She herself filled his mind to such an extent that he had never speculated on any possible family that might be attached to her. To him Ruth was Ruth. He accepted the fact that she was Mrs. Porter’s niece. That she might also be somebody’s daughter or sister had not struck him. The look on Bailey’s face somehow brought it home to him that the world was about to step in and complicate the idyllic simplicity of his wooing. + 

Bailey, meanwhile, as Kirk’s hundred and eighty pounds of bone and muscle detached themselves from the couch and loomed up massively before him, was conscious of a weakening of his determination to inflict bodily chastisement. The truth of Steve’s remark, that it made a difference whether one’s intended victim is a heavyweight, a middle, or a welter, came upon him with some force. + 

Kirk, in a sleeveless vest that showed up his chest and shoulders was not an inviting spectacle for a man intending assault and battery. Bailey decided to confine himself to words. There was nothing to be gained by a vulgar brawl. A dignified man of the world avoided violence. + 

“Mr. Winfield?” + 

“Mr. Bannister?” + 

It was at this point that Steve, having bathed and dressed, came out on the gallery. The voices below halted him, and the sound of Bailey’s decided him to remain where he was. Steve was not above human curiosity, and he was anxious to know the reason for Bailey’s sudden appearance. + 

“That is my name. It is familiar to you. My sister,” said Bailey bitterly, “has made it so.” + 

“Won’t you sit down?” said Kirk. + 

“No, thank you. I will not detain you long, Mr. Winfield.” + 

“My dear fellow! There’s no hurry. Will you have a cigarette?” + 

“No, thank you.” + 

Kirk was puzzled by his visitor’s manner. So, unseen in the shadows of the gallery, was Steve. + 

“I can say what I wish to say in two words, Mr. Winfield,” said Bailey. “This marriage is quite out of the question.” + 

“Eh?” + 

“My father would naturally never consent to it. As soon as he hears of what has happened he will forbid it absolutely. Kindly dismiss from your mind entirely the idea that my sister will ever be permitted to marry you, Mr. Winfield.” + 

Steve, in the gallery, with difficulty suppressed a whoop of surprise. Kirk laughed ruefully. + 

“Aren’t you a little premature, Mr. Bannister? Aren’t you taking a good deal for granted?” + 

“In what way?” + 

“Well, that Miss Bannister cares the slightest bit for me, for instance; that I’ve one chance in a million of ever getting her to care the slightest bit for me?” + 

Bailey was disgusted at this futile attempt to hide the known facts of the case from him. + 

“You need not trouble to try and fool me, Mr. Winfield,” he said tartly. “I know everything. I have just seen my sister, and she told me herself in so many words that she intended to marry you.” + 

To his amazement he found his hand violently shaken. + 

“My dear old man!” Kirk was stammering in his delight. “My dear old sport, you don’t know what a weight you’ve taken off my mind. You know how it is. A fellow falls in love and instantly starts thinking he hasn’t a chance on earth. I hadn’t a notion she felt that way about me. I’m not fit to shine her shoes. My dear old man, if you hadn’t come and told me this I never should have had the nerve to say a word to her. + 

“You’re a corker. You’ve changed everything. You’ll have to excuse me. I must go to her. I can’t wait a minute. I must rush and dress. Make yourself at home here. Have you breakfasted? George! George! Say, George, I’ve got to rush away. See that Mr. Bannister has everything he wants. Get him some breakfast. Goodbye, old man.” He gripped Bailey’s hand once more. “You’re all right. Goodbye!” + 

He sprang for the staircase. George Pennicut turned to the speechless Bailey. + 

“How would it be if I made you a nice cup of hot tea and a rasher of ’am, sir?” he inquired with a kindly smile. + 

Bailey eyed him glassily, then found speech. + 

“Go to hell!” he shouted. He strode to the door and shot into the street, a seething volcano. + 

George, for his part, was startled, but polite. + 

“Yes, sir,” he said. “Very good, sir,” and withdrew. + 

Kirk, having reached the top of the stairs, had to check the wild rush he was making for the bathroom in order not to collide with Steve, whom he found waiting for him with outstretched hand and sympathetic excitement writ large upon his face. + 

“Excuse me, squire,” said Steve, “I’ve been playing the part of Rubberneck Rupert in that little drama you’ve just been starring in. I just couldn’t help listening. Say, this mitt’s for you. Shake it! So you’re going to marry Bailey’s sister, Ruth, are you? You’re the lucky guy. She’s a queen!” + 

“Do you know her, Steve?” + 

“Do I know her! Didn’t I tell you I was the tame physical instructor in that palace? I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve thrown the medicine-ball at her. Why, I’m the guy that gave her that figure of hers. She don’t come to me regular, like Bailey and the old man, but do I know her? I should say I did know her.” + 

Kirk shook his hand. + 

“You’re all right, Steve!” he said huskily, and vanished into the bathroom. A sound as of a tropical deluge came from within. + 

Steve hammered upon the door. The downpour ceased. + 

“Say!” called Steve. + 

“Hello?” + 

“I don’t want to discourage you, squire, but⁠—” + 

The door opened and Kirk’s head appeared. + 

“What’s the matter?” + 

“Well, you heard what Bailey said?” + 

“About his father?” + 

“Sure. It goes.” + 

Kirk came out into the gallery, towelling himself vigorously. + 

“Who is her father?” he asked, seating himself on the rail. + 

“He’s a son of a gun,” said Steve with emphasis. “As rich as John D. pretty nearly and about as chummy as a rattlesnake. Were you thinking of calling and asking him for a father’s blessing?” + 

“Something of the sort, I suppose.” + 

“Forget it! He’d give you the hook before you’d got through asking if you might call him daddy.” + 

“You’re comforting, Steve. They call you Little Sunbeam at home, don’t they?” + 

“Hell!” said Steve warmly, “I’m not shooting this at you just to make you feel bad. I gotta reason. I want to make you see this ain’t going to be no society walkover, with the Four Hundred looking on from the pews and poppa signing cheques in the background. Say, did I ever tell you how I beat Kid Mitchell?” + 

“Does it apply to the case in hand?” + 

“Does it what to the which?” + 

“Had it any bearing on my painful position? I only ask, because that’s what is interesting me most just now, and, if you’re going to change the subject, there’s a chance that my attention may wander.” + 

“Sure it does. It’s a⁠—what d’you call it when you pull something that’s got another meaning tucked up its sleeve?” + 

“A parable?” + 

“That’s right. A⁠—what you said. Well, this Kid Mitchell was looked on as a coming champ in those days. He had cleaned up some good boys, while I had only gotten a rep about as big as a nickel with a hole in it. I guess I looked pie to him. He turkey-trotted up to me for the first round and stopped in front of me as if he was wondering what had blown in and whether the Gerry Society would stand for his hitting it. I could see him thinking ‘This is too easy’ as plain as if he’d said it. And then he took another peek at me, as much as to say, ‘Well, let’s get it over. Where shall I soak him first?’ And while he’s doing this I get in range and I put my left pretty smart into his lunch-wagon and I pick up my right off the carpet and hand it to him, and down he goes. And when he gets up again it’s pretty nearly tomorrow morning and I’ve drawn the winner’s end and gone home.” + 

“And the moral?” + 

“Why, don’t spar. Punch! Don’t wait for the wallop. Give it.” + 

“You mean?” + 

“Why, when old man Bannister says: ‘Nix! You shall never marry my child!’ come back at him by saying: ‘Thanks very much, but I’ve just done it!’ ” + 

“Good heavens, Steve!” + 

“You’ll never win out else. You don’t know old man Bannister. I do.” + 

“But⁠—” + 

The doorbell rang. + 

“Who on earth’s that?” said Kirk. “It can’t be Bailey back again.” + 

“Good morning, Pennicut,” spoke the clear voice of Mrs. Lora Delane Porter. “I wish to see Mr. Winfield.” + 

“Yes, ma’am. He’s upstairs in ’is bath!” + 

“I will wait in the studio.” + 

“Good Lord!” cried Kirk, bounding from his seat on the rail. “For Heaven’s sake, Steve, go and talk to her while I dress. I’ll be down in a minute.” + 

“Sure. What’s her name?” + 

“Mrs. Porter. You’ll like her. Tell her all about yourself⁠—where you were born, how much you are round the chest, what’s your favourite breakfast food. That’s what she likes to chat about. And tell her I’ll be down in a second.” + 

Steve, reaching the studio, found Mrs. Porter examining the boxing-gloves which had been thrown on a chair. + 

“Eight-ounce, ma’am,” he said genially, by way of introduction. “Kirk’ll be lining up in a moment. He’s getting into his rags.” + 

Mrs. Porter looked at him with the gimlet stare which made her so intensely disliked by practically every man she knew. + 

“Are you a friend of Mr. Winfield?” she said. + 

“Sure. We just been spieling together up above. He sent me down to tell you he won’t be long.” + 

Mrs. Porter concluded her inspection. + 

“What is your name?” + 

“Dingle, ma’am.” + 

“You are extraordinarily well developed. You have unusually long arms for a man of your height.” + 

“Yep. I got a pretty good reach.” + 

“Are you an artist?” + 

“A which?” + 

“An artist. A painter.” + 

Steve smiled broadly. + 

“I’ve been called a good many things, but no one’s ever handed me that. No, ma’am, I’m a has-been.” + 

“I beg your pardon.” + 

“Granted.” + 

“What did you say you were?” asked Mrs. Porter after a pause. + 

“A has-been. I used to be a middle, but mother kicked, and I quit. All through taking a blue eye home! Wouldn’t that jar you?” + 

“I have no doubt you intend to be explicit⁠—” + 

“Not on your life!” protested Steve. “I may be a roughneck, but I’ve got me manners. I wouldn’t get explicit with a lady.” + 

Mrs. Porter sat down. + 

“We appear to be talking at cross-purposes,” she said. “I still do not gather what your profession is or was.” + 

“Why, ain’t I telling you? I used to be a middle⁠—” + 

“What is a middle?” + 

“Why, it’s in between the light-heavies and the welters. I was a welter when I broke into the fighting game, but⁠—” + 

“Now I understand. You are a pugilist?” + 

“Used to be. But mother kicked.” + 

“Kicked whom?” + 

“You don’t get me, ma’am. When I say she kicked, I mean my blue eye threw a scare into her, and she put a crimp in my career. Made me quit when I should have been champ in another couple of fights.” + 

“I am afraid I cannot follow these domestic troubles of yours. And why do you speak of your blue eye? Your eyes are brown.” + 

“This one wasn’t. It was the fattest blue eye you ever seen. I ran up against a short right hook. I put him out next round, ma’am, mind you, but that didn’t help me any with mother. Directly she seen me blue eye she said: ‘That’ll be all from you, Steve. You stop it this minute.’ So I quit. But gee! It’s tough on a fellow to have to sit out of the game and watch a bunch of cheeses like this new crop of middleweights swelling around and calling themselves fighters when they couldn’t lick a postage-stamp, not if it was properly trained. Hell! Beg pardon, ma’am.” + 

“I find you an interesting study, Mr. Dingle,” said Mrs. Porter thoughtfully. “I have never met a pugilist before. Do you box with Mr. Winfield?” + 

“Sure. Kirk and me go five rounds every morning.” + 

“You have been boxing with him today? Then perhaps you can tell me if an absurd young man in eyeglasses has called here yet? He is wearing a grey⁠—” + 

“Do you mean Bailey, ma’am. Bailey Bannister?” + 

“You know my nephew, Mr. Dingle?” + 

“Sure. I box with him every morning.” + 

“I never expected to hear that my nephew Bailey did anything so sensible as to take regular exercise. He does not look as if he did.” + 

“He certainly is a kind o’ half-portion, ma’am. But say, if he’s your nephew, Miss Ruth’s your niece.” + 

“Perfectly correct.” + 

“Then you know all about this business?” + 

“Which business, Mr. Dingle?” + 

“Why, Kirk and Miss Ruth.” + 

Mrs. Porter raised her eyebrows. + 

“Really, Mr. Dingle! Has Mr. Winfield made you his confidant?” + 

“How’s that?” + 

“Has Mr. Winfield told you about my niece and himself?” + 

“Hell, no! You don’t find a real person like Kirk shooting his head about that kind of thing. I had it from Bailey.” + 

“From Bailey?” + 

“Surest thing you know. He blew in here and shouted it all out at the top of his voice.” + 

“Indeed! I was wondering if he had arrived yet. He left my apartment saying he was going to thrash Mr. Winfield. I came here to save him from getting hurt. Was there any trouble?” + 

“Not so’s you could notice it. I guess when he’d taken a slant at Kirk he thought he wouldn’t bother to swat him. Say, ma’am⁠—” + 

“Well?” + 

“Whose corner are you in for this scrap?” + 

“I don’t understand you.” + 

“Well, are you rooting for Kirk, or are you holding the towel for old man Bannister?” + 

“You mean, do I wish Mr. Winfield to marry my niece?” + 

“You’re hep.” + 

“Most certainly I do. It was I who brought them together.” + 

“Bully for you! Well, say, I just been shooting the dope into Kirk upstairs. I been⁠—you didn’t happen to read the report of a scrap I once had with a gazook called Kid Mitchell, did you, ma’am?” + 

“I seldom, I may say never, read the sporting section of the daily papers.” + 

Steve looked at her in honest wonder. + 

“For the love of Pete! What else do you find to read in ’em?” he said. “Well, I was telling Kirk about it. The Kid came at me to soak me, but I soaked him first and put him out. It’s the only thing to do, ma’am, when you’re up against it. Get in the first wallop before the other guy can get himself set for his punch. ‘Kirk,’ I says, ‘don’t you wait for old man Bannister to tell you you can’t marry Miss Ruth. Marry her before he can say it.’ I wish you’d tell him the same thing, ma’am. You know the old man as well as I do⁠—better, I guess⁠—and you know that Kirk ain’t got a chance in a million with him if he don’t rush him. Ain’t that right?” + 

“Mr. Dingle,” said Mrs. Porter, “I should like to shake you by the hand. It is amazing to me to find such sound sense in a man. You have expressed my view exactly. If I have any influence with Mr. Winfield, he shall marry my niece today. You are a man of really exceptional intelligence, Mr. Dingle.” + 

“Aw, check it with your hat, ma’am!” murmured Steve modestly. “Nix on the bouquets! I’m only a roughneck. But I fall for Miss Ruth, and there ain’t many like Kirk, so I’d like to see them happy. It would sure get my goat the worst way to have the old man gum the game for them.” + 

“I cannot understand a word you say,” said Mrs. Porter, “but I fancy we mean the same thing. Here comes Mr. Winfield at last. I will speak to him at once.” + 

“Spiel away, ma’am,” said Steve. “The floor’s yours.” + 

Kirk entered the studio. + 

VI + 

Breaking the News + 

Old John Bannister returned that night. Learning from Bailey’s trembling lips the tremendous events that had been taking place in his absence, he was first irritated, then coldly amused. His coolness dampened, while it comforted, Bailey. + 

A bearer of sensational tidings likes to spread a certain amount of dismay and terror; but, on the other hand, it was a relief to him to find that his father appeared to consider trivial a crisis which, to Bailey, had seemed a disaster without parallel in the annals of American social life. + 

“She said she was going to marry him!” + 

Old Bannister opened the nutcracker mouth that always had the appearance of crushing something. His pale eyes glowed for an instant. + 

“Did she?” he said. + 

“She seemed very⁠—ah⁠—determined.” + 

“Did she!” + 

Silence falling like a cloud at this point, Bailey rightly conjectured that the audience was at an end and left the room. His father bit the end off a cigar and began to smoke. + 

Smoking, he reviewed the situation, and his fighting spirit rose to grapple with it. He was not sorry that this had happened. His was a patriarchal mind, and he welcomed opportunities of exercising his authority over his children. It had always been his policy to rule them masterfully, and he had often resented the fact that his daughter, by the nature of things, was to a great extent outside his immediate rule. + 

During office hours business took him away from her. The sun never set on his empire over Bailey, but it needed a definite crisis like the present one to enable him to jerk at the reins which guided Ruth, and he was glad of the chance to make his power felt. + 

The fact that this affair brought him into immediate contact with Mrs. Porter added to his enjoyment. Of all the people, men or women, with whom his business or social life had brought him into conflict, she alone had fought him squarely and retired with the honours of war. When his patriarchal mind had led him to bully his late wife, it was Mrs. Porter who had fought her cause. It was Mrs. Porter who openly expressed her contempt for his money and certain methods of making it. She was the only person in his immediate sphere over whom he had no financial hold. + 

He was a man who liked to be surrounded by dependents, and Mrs. Porter stoutly declined to be a dependent. She moved about the world, blunt and self-sufficing, and he hated her as he hated no one else. The thought that she had now come to grips with him and that he could best her in open fight was pleasant to him. All his life, except in his conflicts with her, he had won. He meant to win now. + 

Bailey’s apprehensions amused him. He had a thorough contempt for all actors, authors, musicians, and artists, whom he classed together in one group as men who did not count, save in so far as they gave mild entertainment to the men who, like himself, did count. The idea of anybody taking them seriously seemed too fantastic to be considered. + 

Of affection for his children he had little. Bailey was useful in the office, and Ruth ornamental at home. They satisfied him. He had never troubled to study their characters. It had never occurred to him to wonder if they were fond of him. They formed a necessary part of his household, and beyond that he was not interested in them. If he had ever thought about Ruth’s nature, he had dismissed her as a feminine counterpart of Bailey, than whom no other son and heir in New York behaved so exactly as a son and heir should. + 

That Ruth, even under the influence of Lora Delane Porter, should have been capable of her present insubordination, was surprising, but the thing was too trivial to be a source of anxiety. The mischief could be checked at once before it amounted to anything. + 

Bailey had not been gone too long before Ruth appeared. She stood in the doorway looking at him for a moment. Her face was pale and her eyes bright. She was breathing quickly. + 

“Are you busy, father? I⁠—I want to tell you something.” + 

John Bannister smiled. He had a wintry smile, a sort of muscular affection of the mouth, to which his eyes contributed nothing. He had made up his mind to be perfectly calm and pleasant with Ruth. He had read in novels and seen on the stage situations of this kind, where the father had stormed and blustered. The foolishness of such a policy amused him. A strong man had no need to behave like that. + 

“I think I have heard it already,” he said. “I have just been seeing Bailey.” + 

“What did Bailey tell you, father?” + 

“That you fancied yourself in love with some actor or artist or other whose name I have forgotten.” + 

“It is not fancy. I do love him.” + 

“Yes?” + 

There was a pause. + 

“Are you very angry, father?” + 

“Why should I be? Let’s talk it over quietly. There’s no need to make a tragedy of it.” + 

“I’m glad you feel like that, father.” + 

John Bannister lit another cigar. + 

“Tell me all about it,” he said. + 

Ruth found herself surprisingly near tears. She had come into the room with every nerve in her body braced for a supreme struggle. Her father’s unexpected gentleness weakened her, exactly as he had foreseen. The plan of action which he had determined upon was that of the wrestler who yields instead of resisting, in order to throw an antagonist off his balance. + 

“How did it begin?” he asked. + 

“Well,” said Ruth, “it began when Aunt Lora took me to his studio.” + 

“Yes, I heard that it was she who set the whole thing going. She is a friend of this fellow⁠—what is his name?” + 

“Kirk Winfield. Yes, she seemed to know him quite well.” + 

“And then?” + 

In spite of her anxiety, Ruth smiled. + 

“Well, that’s all,” she said. “I just fell in love with him.” + 

Mr. Bannister nodded. + 

“You just fell in love with him,” he repeated. “Pretty quick work, wasn’t it?” + 

“I suppose it was.” + 

“You just took one look at him and saw he was the affinity, eh?” + 

“I suppose so.” + 

“And what did he do? Was he equally sudden?” + 

Ruth laughed. She was feeling quite happy now. + 

“He would have liked to be, poor dear, but he felt he had to be cautious and prepare the way before telling me. If it hadn’t been for Bailey, he might be doing it still. Apparently, Bailey went to him and said I had said I was going to marry him, and Kirk came flying round, and⁠—well, then it was all right.” + 

Mr. Bannister drew thoughtfully at his cigar. He was silent for a few moments. + 

“Well, my dear,” he said at last. “I think you had better consider the engagement broken off.” + 

Ruth looked at him quickly. He still smiled, but his eyes were cold and hard. She realized suddenly that she had been played with, that all his kindliness and amiability had been merely a substitute for the storm which she had expected. After all, it was to be war between them, and she braced herself for it! + 

“Father!” she cried. + 

Mr. Bannister continued to puff serenely at his cigar. + 

“We needn’t get worked up about it,” he said. “Let’s keep right on talking it over quietly.” + 

“Very well,” said Ruth. “But, after what you have just said, what is there to talk over?” + 

“You might be interested to hear my reasons for saying it.” + 

“And I will argue my side.” + 

Mr. Bannister waved his hand gently. + 

“You don’t have to argue. You just listen.” + 

Ruth bit her lip. + 

“Well?” + 

“In the first place,” said her father, “about this young man. What is he? Bailey says he is an artist. Well, what has he ever done? Why don’t I know his name? I buy a good many pictures, but I don’t remember ever signing a cheque for one of his. I read the magazines now and then, but I can’t recall seeing his signature to any of the illustrations. How does he live, anyway, without going into the question of how he intends to support a wife?” + 

“Aunt Lora told me he had private means.” + 

“How much?” + 

“Five thousand dollars a year.” + 

“Exactly the amount necessary to let him live without working. I have him placed now. I know his type. I could show you a thousand men in this city in exactly the same position. They don’t starve and they don’t work. This young man of yours is a loafer.” + 

“Well?” + 

Ruth’s voice was quiet, but a faint colour had crept into her face and her eyes were blazing. + 

“Now perhaps you would care to hear what I think of his principles. How do you feel that he comes out of this business? Does he show to advantage? Isn’t there just a suspicion of underhandedness about his behaviour?” + 

“No.” + 

“No? He lets you pay these secret visits⁠—” + 

Ruth interrupted. + 

“There was nothing secret about them⁠—to him. Aunt Lora brought me to the studio in the first place, and she kept on bringing me. I don’t suppose it ever occurred to Kirk to wonder who I was and who my father might be. He has been perfectly straight. If you like to say I have been underhanded, I admit it. I have. More so than you imagine. I just wanted him, and I didn’t care for anything except that.” + 

“It did not strike you that you owed anything to me, for instance?” + 

“No.” + 

“I should have thought that, as your father, I had certain claims.” + 

Ruth was silent. + 

Mr. Bannister sighed. + 

“I thought you were fond of me, Ruth,” he said wistfully. It was the wrestler yielding instead of resisting. Ruth’s hard composure melted instantly. She flung her arms round his neck in a burst of remorseful affection. + 

“Of course I am, father dear. You’re making this awfully hard for me.” + 

Mr. Bannister chuckled inwardly. It seemed to him that victory was in sight. He always won, he told himself, always. + 

“I only want you to be sensible.” + 

Ruth stiffened at the word. It jarred upon her. She felt that they were leagues apart, that they could never be in sympathy with each other. + 

“Father,” she said. + 

“Yes?” + 

“Would you like to see Kirk?” + 

“I have been wondering when he was going to appear on the scene. I always thought it was customary on these occasions for the young man to present himself in person, and not let the lady fight his battles for him. Is this Mr. Winfield a little deficient in nerve?” + 

Ruth flushed angrily. + 

“I particularly asked Kirk not to come here before I had seen you. I insisted on it. Naturally, he wanted to.” + 

“Of course!” + 

There was a sneer in his voice which he did not try to hide. It flicked Ruth like a whip. Her painfully preserved restraint broke up under it. + 

“Do you think Kirk is afraid of you, father?” + 

“It crossed my mind.” + 

“He is not.” + 

“I have only your word for it.” + 

“You can have his if you want it. There is the telephone. You can have him here in ten minutes if you want to see him.” + 

“A very good idea. But, as it happens, I do not want to see him. There is no necessity. His views on this matter do not interest me. I⁠—” + 

There was a hurried knock at the door. Bailey burst in, ruffled and wild as to the eyes. + 

“Father,” he cried, “I don’t want to interrupt you, but that infernal woman, Aunt Lora, has arrived, and says she won’t go till she has seen you. She’s downstairs now.” + 

“Not now,” said Lora Delane Porter, moving him to one side and entering the room. “I thought it would be a comfort to you, Ruth, to have me with you to help explain exactly how matters stand. Good evening, John. Go away, Bailey. Now let us discuss things quietly.” + 

“She is responsible for the whole thing, father,” cried Bailey. + 

Mr. Bannister rose. + 

“There is nothing to discuss,” he said shortly. “I have no wish to speak to you at all. As you appear to have played a large part in this affair, I may as well tell you that it is settled. Ruth will not marry Mr. Winfield.” + 

Lora Delane Porter settled herself comfortably in a chair. She drew off her gloves and placed them on the table. + 

“Please ask that boy Bailey to go,” she said. “He annoys me. I cannot marshal my thoughts in his presence.” + 

Quelled by her eye, Bailey removed himself. His father remained standing. Ruth, who had risen at her aunt’s entry, sat down again. Mrs. Porter looked round the room with some approval. + 

“You have a nice taste in pictures, John,” she said. “That is a Corot, surely, above the mantelpiece?” + 

“Will you⁠—” + 

“But about this little matter. You dislike the idea of Ruth marrying Mr. Winfield? Have you seen Mr. Winfield?” + 

“I have not.” + 

“Then how can you possibly decide whether he is a fit husband for Ruth?” + 

“I know all about him.” + 

“What do you know?” + 

“What Ruth has told me. That he is a loafer who pretends to be an artist.” + 

“He is a poor artist. I grant you that. His drawing is weak. But are you aware that he is forty-three inches round the chest, six feet tall, and in perfect physical condition?” + 

“What has that got to do with it?” + 

“Everything. You have not read my Principles of Selection?” + 

“I have not.” + 

“I will send you a copy tomorrow.” + 

“I will burn it directly it arrives.” + 

“Then you will miss a great deal of valuable information,” said Mrs. Porter tranquilly. + 

There was a pause. John Bannister glared furiously at Mrs. Porter, but her gaze was moving easily about the room, taking in each picture in turn in a leisurely inspection. + 

An exclamation from Ruth broke the silence, a sharp cry like that of an animal in pain. She sprang up, her face working, her eyes filled with tears. + 

“I can’t stand it!” she cried. “I can’t stand it any longer! Father, Kirk and I were married this afternoon.” + 

Mrs. Porter went quickly to her and put her arm round her. Ruth was sobbing helplessly. The strain had broken her. John Bannister’s face was leaden. The veins stood out on his forehead. His mouth twisted dumbly. + 

Mrs. Porter led Ruth gently to the door and pushed her out. Then she closed it and turned to him. + 

“So now you know, John,” she said. “Well, what are you going to do about it?” + 

Self-control was second nature with John Bannister. For years he had cultivated it as a commercial asset. Often a fortune had depended on his mastery of his emotions. Now, in an instant, he had himself under control once more. His face resumed its normal expression of cold impassiveness. Only his mouth twitched a little. + 

“Well?” asked Mrs. Porter. + 

“Take her away,” he said quietly. “Take her out of here. Let her go to him. I have done with her.” + 

“I suppose so,” said Mrs. Porter, and left the room. + 

VII + 

Sufficient Unto Themselves + 

Some months after John Bannister had spoken his ultimatum in the library two drought-stricken men met on the Rialto. It was a close June evening, full of thirst. + 

“I could do with a drink,” said the first man. “Several.” + 

“My tongue is black clear down to the roots,” said the second. + 

“Let’s go up to Kirk Winfield’s,” proposed the first man, inspired. + 

“Not for me,” said the other briefly. “Haven’t you heard about Kirk? He’s married!” + 

“I know⁠—but⁠—” + 

“And when I say married, I mean married. She’s old John Bannister’s daughter, you know, and I guess she inherits her father’s character. She’s what I call a determined girl. She seems to have made up her mind that the old crowd that used to trail around the studio aren’t needed any longer, and they’ve been hitting the sidewalk on one ear ever since the honeymoon. + 

“If you want to see her in action, go up there now. She’ll be perfectly sweet and friendly, but somehow you’ll get the notion that you don’t want to go there again, and that she can bear up if you don’t. It’s something in her manner. I guess it’s a trick these society girls learn. You’ve seen a bouncer handling a souse. He doesn’t roughhouse him. He just puts his arm round his waist and kind of suggests he should leave the place. Well, it’s like that.” + 

“But doesn’t Kirk kick? He used to like having us around.” + 

His friend laughed. + 

“Kick? Kirk? You should see him! He just sits there waiting for you to go, and, when you do go, shuts the door on you so quick you have to jump to keep from getting your coat caught in it. I tell you, those two are about all the company either of them needs. They’ve got the Newlyweds licked to a whisper.” + 

“It’s always the best fellows that get it the worse,” said the other philosophically, “and it’s always the fellows you think are safe too. I could have bet on Kirk. Six months ago I’d have given you any odds you wanted that he would never marry.” + 

“And I wouldn’t have taken you. It’s always the way.” + 

The criticisms of the two thirsty men, though prejudiced, were accurate. Marriage had undeniably wrought changes in Kirk Winfield. It had blown up, decentralized, and rearranged his entire scheme of life. Kirk’s was one of those natures that run to extremes. He had been a wholehearted bachelor, and he was assuredly a much-married man. For the first six months Ruth was almost literally his whole world. His friends, the old brigade of the studio, had dropped away from him in a body. They had visited the studio once or twice at first, but after that had mysteriously disappeared. He was too engrossed in his happiness to speculate on the reasons for this defection: he only knew that he was glad of it. + 

Their visits had not been a success. Conversation had flowed fitfully. Some sixth sense told him that Ruth, though charming to them all, had not liked them; and he himself was astonished to find what bull dogs they really were. It was odd how out of sympathy he felt with them. They seemed so unnecessary: yet what a large part of his life they had once made up! + 

Something had come between him and them. What it was he did not know. + 

Ruth could have told him. She was the angel with the flaming sword who guarded their paradise. Marriage was causing her to make unexpected discoveries with regard to herself. Before she had always looked on herself as a rather unusually reasonable, and certainly not a jealous, woman. But now she was filled with an active dislike for these quite harmless young men who came to try and share Kirk with her. + 

She knew it was utterly illogical. A man must have friends. Life could not be forever a hermitage of two. She tried to analyse her objection to these men, and came to the conclusion that it was the fact that they had known Kirk before she did that caused it. + 

She made a compromise with herself. Kirk should have friends, but they must be new ones. In a little while, when this crazy desire to keep herself and him alone together in a world of their own should have left her, they would begin to build up a circle. But these men whose vocabulary included the words “Do you remember?” must be eliminated one and all. + 

Kirk, blissfully unconscious that his future was being arranged for him and the steering-wheel of his life quietly taken out of his hands, passed his days in a state of almost painful happiness. It never crossed his mind that he had ceased to be master of his fate and captain of his soul. The reins were handled so gently that he did not feel them. It seemed to him that he was travelling of his own free will along a pleasant path selected by himself. + 

He saw his friends go from him without a regret. Perhaps at the bottom of his heart he had always had a suspicion of contempt for them. He had taken them on their surface value, as amusing fellows who were good company of an evening. There was not one of them whom he had ever known as real friends know each other⁠—not one, except Hank Jardine; and Hank had yet to be subjected to the acid test of the new conditions. + 

There were moments when the thought of Hank threw a shadow across his happiness. He could let these others go, but Hank was different. And something told him that Ruth would not like Hank. + 

But these shadows were not frequent. Ruth filled his life too completely to allow him leisure to brood on possibilities of future trouble. + 

Looking back, it struck him that on their wedding-day they had been almost strangers. They had taken each other blindly, trusting to instinct. Since then he had been getting to know her. It was astonishing how much there was to know. There was a fresh discovery to be made about her every day. She was a perpetually recurring miracle. + 

The futility of his old life made him wince whenever he dared think of it. How he had drifted, a useless log on a sluggish current! + 

He was certainly a wholehearted convert. As to Saul of Tarsus, so to him there had come a sudden blinding light. He could hardly believe that he was the same person who had scoffed at the idea of a man giving up his life to one woman and being happy. But then the abstract wife had been a pale, bloodless phantom, and Ruth was real. + 

It was the realness of her that kept him in a state of perpetual amazement. To see her moving about the studio, to touch her, to look at her across the dinner-table, to wake in the night and hear her breathing at his side⁠ ⁠… It seemed to him that centuries might pass, yet these things would still be wonderful. + 

And always in his heart there was the gratitude for what she had done for him. She had given up everything to share his life. She had weighed him in the balance against wealth and comfort and her place among the great ones of the world, and had chosen him. There were times when the thought filled him with a kind of delirious pride: times, again, when he felt a grateful humility that made him long to fall down and worship this goddess who had stooped to him. + 

In a word, he was very young, very much in love, and for the first time in his life was living with every drop of blood in his veins. + 

Hank returned to New York in due course. He came to the studio the same night, and he had not been there five minutes before a leaden weight descended on Kirk’s soul. It was as he had feared. Ruth did not like him. + 

Hank was not the sort of man who makes universal appeal. Also, he was no ladies’ man. He was long and lean and hard-bitten, and his supply of conventional small talk was practically nonexistent. To get the best out of Hank, as has been said, you had to let him take his coat off and put his feet up on the back of a second chair and reconcile yourself to the pestiferous brand of tobacco which he affected. + 

Ruth conceded none of these things. Throughout the interview Hank sat bolt upright, tucking a pair of shoes of the dreadnought class coyly underneath his chair, and drew suspiciously at Turkish cigarettes from Kirk’s case. An air of constraint hung over the party. Again and again Kirk hoped that Hank would embark on the epic of his life, but shyness kept Hank dumb. + 

He had heard, on reaching New York, that Kirk was married, but he had learned no details, and had conjured up in his mind the vision of a jolly little girl of the Bohemian type, who would make a fuss over him as Kirk’s oldest friend. Confronted with Ruth, he lost a nerve which had never before failed him. This gorgeous creature, he felt, would never put up with those racy descriptions of wild adventures which had endeared him to Kirk. As soon as he could decently do so, he left, and Kirk, returning to the studio after seeing him out, sat down moodily, trying to convince himself against his judgment that the visit had not been such a failure after all. + 

Ruth was playing the piano softly. She had turned out all the lights except one, which hung above her head, shining on her white arms as they moved. From where he sat Kirk could see her profile. Her eyes were half closed. + 

The sight of her, as it always did, sent a thrill through him, but he was conscious of an ache behind it. He had hoped so much that Hank would pass, and he knew that he had not. Why was it that two people so completely one as Ruth and himself could not see Hank with the same eyes? + 

He knew that she had thought him uncouth and impossible. Why could not Hank have exerted himself more, instead of sitting there in that stuffed way? Why could not Ruth have unbent? Why had not he himself done something to save the situation? Of the three, he blamed himself most. He was the one who should have taken the lead and made things pleasant for everybody instead of forcing out conversational platitudes. + 

Once or twice he had caught Hank’s eye, and had hated himself for understanding what it said and not being able to deny it. He had marked the end of their old relationship, the parting of the ways, and that a tragedy had been played out that night. + 

He found himself thinking of Hank as of a friend who had died. What times they had had! How smoothly they had got on together! He could not recall a single occasion on which they had fallen out, from the time when they had fought as boys at the prep school and cemented their friendship the next day. After that there had been periods when they had parted, sometimes for more than a year, but they had always come together again and picked up the threads as neatly as if there had been no gap in their intimacy. + 

He had gone to college: Hank had started on the roving life which suited his temperament. But they had never lost touch with each other. And now it was all over. They would meet again, but it would not be the same. The angel with the flaming sword stood between them. + 

For the first time since the delirium of marriage had seized upon him, Kirk was conscious of a feeling that all was not for the best in a best of all possible worlds, a feeling of regret, not that he had married⁠—the mere thought would have been a blasphemy⁠—but that marriage was such a complicated affair. He liked a calm life, free from complications, and now they were springing up on every side. + 

There was the matter of the models. Kirk had supposed that it was only in the comic papers that the artist’s wife objected to his employing models. He had classed it with the mother-in-law joke, respecting it for its antiquity, but not imagining that it ever really happened. And Ruth had brought this absurd situation into the sphere of practical politics only a few days ago. + 

Since his marriage Kirk had dropped his work almost entirely. There had seemed to be no time for it. He liked to spend his days going round the stores with Ruth, buying her things, or looking in at the windows of Fifth Avenue shops and choosing what he would buy her when he had made his fortune. It was agreed upon between them that he was to make his fortune some day. + 

Kirk’s painting had always been more of a hobby with him than a profession. He knew that he had talent, but talent without hard work is a poor weapon, and he had always shirked hard work. He had an instinct for colour, but his drawing was uncertain. He hated linework, while knowing that only through steady practice at linework could he achieve his artistic salvation. He was an amateur, and a lazy amateur. + 

But once in a while the work fever would grip him. It had gripped him a few days before Hank’s visit. An idea for a picture had come to him, and he had set to work upon it with his usual impulsiveness. + 

This had involved the arrival of Miss Hilda Vince at the studio. There was no harm in Miss Vince. Her morals were irreproachable. She supported a work-shy father, and was engaged to be married to a young gentleman who travelled for a hat firm. But she was of a chatty disposition and no respecter of persons. She had posed frequently for Kirk in his bachelor days, and was accustomed to call him by his first name⁠—a fact which Kirk had forgotten until Ruth, who had been out in the park, came in. + 

Miss Vince was saying at the moment: “So I says to her, ‘Kirk’s just phoned to me to sit.’ ‘What! Kirk!’ she says. ‘Is he doin’ a bit of work for a change? Well, it’s about time.’ ‘Aw, Kirk don’t need to work,’ I says. ‘He’s a plute. He’s got it in gobs.’ So⁠—” + 

“I didn’t know you were busy, dear,” said Ruth. “I won’t interrupt you.” + 

She went out. + 

“Was that your wife?” inquired Miss Vince. “She’s got a sweet face. Say, I read the piece about you and her in the paper. You certainly got a nerve, Kirk, breaking in on the millionaires that way.” + 

That night Ruth spoke her mind about Miss Vince. It was in vain that Kirk touched on the work-shy father, dwelt feelingly on the young gentleman who travelled in hats. Ruth had made up her mind. It was thumbs down for Miss Vince. + 

“But if I’m to paint,” said Kirk, “I must have models.” + 

“There must be hundreds who don’t call you by your Christian name.” + 

“After about five minutes they all do,” said Kirk. “It’s a way they’ve got. They mean no harm.” + 

Ruth then made this brilliant suggestion: “Kirk, dear, why don’t you paint landscapes?” + 

In spite of his annoyance, he laughed. + 

“Why don’t I paint landscapes, Ruth? Because I’m not a landscape painter, that’s why.” + 

“You could learn.” + 

“It’s a different branch of the trade altogether. You might just as well tell a catcher to pitch.” + 

“Well, anyhow,” reported Ruth with spirit, “I won’t have that Vince creature in the place again.” + 

It was the first time she had jerked at the reins or given any sign that she was holding them, and undoubtedly this was the moment at which Kirk should have said: “My dearest, the time has come for me to state plainly that my soul is my own. I decline to give in to this absurd suggestion. Marriage is an affair of give and take, not a circus where one party holds the hoop while the other jumps through and shams dead. We shall be happier later on if we get this clearly into our heads now.” + 

What he did say was: “Very well, dear. I’ll write and tell her not to come.” + 

He knew he was being abominably weak, but he did not care. He even felt a certain pleasure in his surrender. Big, muscular men are given to this feebleness with women. Hercules probably wore an idiotic grin of happiness when he spun wool for Omphale. + 

Since then the picture had been laid aside, but Kirk’s desire to be up and at it had grown with inaction. When a lazy man does make up his mind to assail a piece of work, he is like a dog with a bone. + 

The music had stopped. Ruth swung round. + 

“What are you dreaming about, Kirk?” + 

Kirk came to himself with a start. + 

“I was thinking of a lot of things. For one, about that picture of mine.” + 

“What about it?” + 

“Well, when I was going to finish it.” + 

“Why don’t you?” + 

Kirk laughed. + 

“Where’s my model? You’ve scared her up a tree, and I can’t coax her down.” + 

Ruth came over to him and sat down on a low chair at his side. She put her arm round his waist and rested her head in the hollow of his shoulder. + 

“Is he pining for his horrid Vince girl, the poor boy?” + 

“He certainly is,” said Kirk. “Or at any rate, for some understudy to her.” + 

“We must think. Do they all call you Kirk?” + 

“I’ve never met one who didn’t.” + 

“What horrible creatures you artists are!” + 

“My dear kid, you don’t understand the thing at all. When you’re painting a model she ceases to be a girl at all. You don’t think of her as anything except a sort of lay-figure.” + 

“Good gracious! Does your lay-figure call you Kirk too?” + 

“It always looks as if it were going to.” + 

Ruth shuddered. + 

“It’s a repulsive thing. I hate it. It gives me the creeps. I came in here last night and switched on the light, and there it was, goggling at me.” + 

“Are you getting nervous?” + 

Ruth’s face grew grave. + 

“Do you know, Kirk, I really believe I am. This morning as I was dressing, I suddenly got the most awful feeling that something terrible was going to happen. I don’t know what. It was perfectly vague. I just felt a kind of horror. It passed off in a moment or two; but, while it lasted⁠—ugh!” + 

“How ghastly! Why didn’t you tell me before? You must be run down. Look here, let’s shut up this place and get out to Florida or somewhere for the winter!” + 

“Let’s don’t do anything of the kind. Florida indeed! For the love of Mike, as Steve would say, it’s much too expensive. You know, Kirk, we are both frightfully extravagant. I’m sure we are spending too much money as it is. You know you sold out some of your capital only the other day.” + 

“It was only that once. And you had set your heart on that pendant. Surely to goodness, if I drag you away from a comfortable home to live in a hovel, the least I can do is to⁠—” + 

“You didn’t drag me. I just walked in and sat down, and you couldn’t think how to get rid of me, so in despair you married me.” + 

“That was it. And now I’ve got to set to work and make a fortune and⁠—what do you call it?⁠—support you in the style to which you have been accustomed. Which brings us back to the picture. I don’t suppose I shall get ten dollars for it, but I feel I shall curl up and die if I don’t get it finished. Are you absolutely determined about the Vince girl?” + 

“I’m adamant. I’m granite. I’m chilled steel. Oh! Kirk, can’t you find a nice, motherly old model, with white hair and spectacles? I shouldn’t mind her calling you by your first name.” + 

“But it’s absurd. I told you just now that an artist doesn’t look on his models as human beings while⁠—” + 

“I know. I’ve read all about that in books, and I believed it then. Why, when I married you, I said to myself: ‘I mustn’t be foolish. Kirk’s an artist, I mustn’t be a comic-supplement wife and object to his using models!’ Oh, I was going to be so good and reasonable. You would have loved me! And then, when it came to the real thing, I found I just could not stand it. I know it’s silly of me. I know just as well as you do that Miss Vince is quite a nice girl really, and is going to make a splendid Mrs. Travelling Salesman, but that doesn’t help me. It’s my wicked nature, I suppose. I’m just a plain cat, and that’s all there is to it. Look at the way I treat your friends!” + 

Kirk started. + 

“You jumped!” said Ruth. “You jerked my head. Do you think I didn’t know you had noticed it? I knew how unhappy you were when Mr. Jardine was here, and I just hated myself.” + 

“Didn’t you like Hank?” asked Kirk. + 

Ruth was silent for a moment. + 

“I wish you would,” Kirk went on. “You don’t know what a real white man old Hank is. You didn’t see him properly that night. He was nervous. But he’s one of the very best God ever made. We’ve known each other all our lives. He and I⁠—” + 

“Don’t tell me!” cried Ruth. “Don’t you see that that’s just the reason why I can’t like him? Don’t tell me about the things you and he did together, unless you want me to hate him. Don’t you understand, dear? It’s the same with all your friends. I’m jealous of them for having known you before I did. And I hate these models because they come into a part of your life into which I can’t. I want you all to myself. I want to be your whole life. I know it’s idiotic and impossible, but I do.” + 

“You are my whole life,” said Kirk seriously. “I wasn’t born till I met you. There isn’t a single moment when you are not my whole life.” + 

She pressed her head contentedly against his arm. + 

“Kirk.” + 

“Yes?” + 

“Let me pose for your picture.” + 

“What! You couldn’t!” + 

“Why not?” + 

“It’s terribly hard work. It’s an awful strain.” + 

“I’m sure I’m as strong as that Vince girl. You ask Steve; he’s seen me throw the medicine-ball.” + 

“But posing is different. Hilda Vince has been trained for it.” + 

“Well let me try, at any rate.” + 

“But⁠—” + 

“Do! And I’ll promise to like your Hank and not put on my grand manner when he begins telling me what fun you and he used to have in the good old days before I was born or thought of. May I?” + 

“But⁠—” + 

“Quick! Promise!” + 

“Very well.” + 

“You dear! I’ll be the best model you ever had. I won’t move a muscle, and I’ll stand there till I drop.” + 

“You’ll do nothing of the kind. You’ll come right down off that model-throne the instant you feel the least bit tired.” + 

The picture which Kirk was painting was one of those pictures which thousands of young artists are working on unceasingly every day. Kirk’s ideas about it were in a delightfully vague state. He had a notion that it might turn out in the end as “Carmen.” On the other hand, if anything went wrong and he failed to insert a sufficient amount of wild devilry into it, he could always hedge by calling it A Reverie or The Spanish Maiden. + 

Possibly, if the thing became too pensive and soulful altogether, he might give it some title suggestive of the absent lover at the bullfight⁠—The Toreador’s Bride⁠—or something of that sort. The only point on which he was solid was that it was to strike the Spanish note; and to this end he gave Ruth a costume of black and orange and posed her on the model-throne with a rose in her hair. + 

Privately he had decided that ten minutes would be Ruth’s limit. He knew something of the strain of sitting to an artist. + 

“Tired?” he asked at the end of this period. + 

Ruth shook her head and smiled. + 

“You must be. Come and sit down and take a rest.” + 

“I’m quite all right, dear. Go on with your work.” + 

“Well, shout out the moment you feel you’ve had enough.” + 

He began to paint again. The minutes went by and Ruth made no movement. He began to grow absorbed in his work. He lost count of time. Ruth ceased to be Ruth, ceased even to be flesh and blood. She was just something he was painting. + 

“Kirk!” + 

The sharp suddenness of the cry brought him to his feet, quivering. Ruth was swaying on the model-throne. Her eyes were staring straight before her and her face was twisted with fear. + 

As he sprang forward she fell, pitching stiffly head foremost, as he had seen men fall in the ring, her arms hanging at her sides; and he caught her. + 

He carried her to the couch and laid her down. He hung for an instant in doubt whether to go for water or telephone for the doctor. He decided on the telephone. + 

He hung up the receiver and went back to Ruth. She stirred and gave a little moan. He flew upstairs and returned with a pitcher of water. When he got back Ruth was sitting up. The look of terror was gone from her face. She smiled at him, a faint, curiously happy smile. He flung himself on his knees beside her, his arm round her waist, and burst into a babble of self-reproach. + 

He cursed himself for being such a brute, such a beast as to let her stand there, tiring herself to death. She must never do it again. He was a devil. He ought to have known she could not stand it. He was not fit to be married. He was not fit to live. + 

Ruth ruffled his hair. + 

“Stop abusing my husband,” she said. “I’m fond of him. Did you catch me, Kirk?” + 

“Yes, thank God. I got to you just in time.” + 

“That’s the last thing I remember, wondering if you would. You seemed such miles and miles away. It was like looking at something in a mist through the wrong end of a telescope. Oh, Kirk!” + 

“Yes, honey?” + 

“It came again, that awful feeling as if something dreadful was going to happen. And then I felt myself going.” She paused. “Kirk, I think I know now. I understand; and oh, I’m so happy!” + 

She buried her face on his shoulder, and they stayed there silent, till there came a ring at the bell. Kirk got up. George Pennicut ushered in the doctor. It was the same little old doctor who had ministered to George in his hour of need. + 

“Feeling better, Mrs. Winfield?” he said, as he caught sight of Ruth. “Your husband told me over the phone that you were unconscious.” + 

“She fainted,” cried Kirk. “It was all through me. I⁠—” + 

The doctor took him by the shoulders. He had to stretch to do it. + 

“You go away, young man,” he said. “Take a walk round the block. You aren’t on in this scene.” + 

Kirk was waiting in the hall when he left a few minutes later. + 

“Well?” he said anxiously. + 

“Well?” said the little doctor. + 

“Is she all right? There’s nothing wrong, is there?” + 

The doctor grinned a friendly grin. + 

“On the contrary,” he said. “You ought to be very pleased.” + 

“What do you mean?” + 

“It’s quite a commonplace occurrence, though I suppose it will seem like a miracle to you. But, believe me, it has happened before. If it hadn’t, you and I wouldn’t be here now.” + 

Kirk looked at him in utter astonishment. His words seemed meaningless. And then, suddenly, he understood, and his heart seemed to stand still. + 

“You don’t mean⁠—” he said huskily. + 

“Yes, I do,” said the doctor. “Goodbye, my boy. I’ve got to hurry off. You caught me just as I was starting for the hospital.” + 

Kirk went back to the studio, his mind in a whirl. Ruth was lying on the couch. She looked up as the door opened. He came quickly to her side. + 

“Ruth!” he muttered. + 

Her eyes were shining with a wonderful light of joy. She drew his head down and kissed him. + 

“Oh, Kirk,” she whispered. “I’m happy. I’m happy. I’ve wanted this so.” + 

He could not speak. He sat on the edge of the couch and looked at her. She had been wonderful to him before. She was a thousand times more wonderful now. + 

VIII + 

Suspense + 

It seemed to Kirk, as the days went by, that a mist of unreality fell like a curtain between him and the things of this world. Commonplace objects lost their character and became things to marvel at. There was a new bond of sympathy between the world and himself. + 

A citizen walking in the park with his children became a kind of miracle. Here was a man who had travelled the road which he was travelling now, who had had the same hopes and fear and wonder. Once he encountered a prosperous looking individual moving, like a liner among tugs, in the midst of no fewer than six offspring. Kirk fixed him with such a concentrated stare of emotion and excitement that the other was alarmed and went on his way alertly, as one in the presence of danger. It is probable that, if Kirk had happened to ask him the time at that moment, or indeed addressed him at all, he would have screamed for the police. + 

The mystery of childbirth and the wonder of it obsessed Kirk as time crept on. And still more was he conscious of the horrible dread that was gathering within him. Ruth’s unvarying cheerfulness was to him almost uncanny. None of the doubts and fears which blackened his life appeared to touch her. Once he confided these to his friend, the little doctor, and was thoroughly bullied by him for his foolishness. But in spite of ridicule the fear crept back, cringingly, like a whipped dog. + 

And then, time moving on its leisurely but businesslike fashion, the day arrived, and for the first time in his life Kirk knew what fear really meant. All that he had experienced till now had, he saw, been a mild apprehension, not worthy of a stronger name. His flesh crawled with the thoughts which rose in his mind like black bubbles in a pond. There were moments when the temptation to stupefy himself with drink was almost irresistible. + 

It was his utter uselessness that paralysed him. He seemed destined to be of no help to Ruth at just those crises when she needed him most. When she was facing her father with the news of the marriage he had not been at her side. And now, when she was fighting for her life, he could do nothing but pace the empty, quiet studio and think. + 

The doctor had arrived at eight o’clock, cheery as ever, and had come downstairs after seeing Ruth to ask him to telephone to Mrs. Porter. In his overwrought state, this had jarred upon Kirk. Here, he felt, was somebody who could help where he was useless. + 

Mrs. Porter had appeared in a cab and had had the cold brutality to ask for a glass of sherry and a sandwich before going upstairs. She put forward the lame excuse that she had not dined. Kirk gave her the sherry and sandwich and resumed his patrol in a glow of indignation. The idea of anyone requiring food at this moment struck him as gross and revolting. + 

His wrath did not last. In a short while fear came back into its own. + 

The hands of the clock pointed to ten before he stooped to following Mrs. Porter’s example. George Pennicut had been sent out, so he went into the little kitchen, where he found eggs, which he mixed with milk and swallowed. After this he was aware of a momentary excess of optimism. The future looked a little brighter. But not for long. Presently he was prowling the studio as restlessly as ever. + 

Men of Kirk’s type are not given to deep thought. Until now he had probably never spent more than a couple of minutes consecutively in self-examination. This vigil forced him upon himself and caused him to pass his character under review, with strange and unsatisfactory results. He had never realised before what a curiously contemptible and useless person he was. It seemed to him that this was all he was fit for⁠—to hang about doing nothing while everybody else was busy and proving his or her own worth. + 

A door opened and the little doctor came quietly down the stairs. Kirk sprang at him. + 

“Well?” + 

“My dear man, everything’s going splendidly. Couldn’t be better.” The doctor’s eyes searched his face. “When did you have anything to eat last?” + 

“I don’t know. I had some eggs and milk. I don’t know when.” + 

The doctor took him by the shoulders and hustled him into the kitchen, where he searched and found meat and bread. + 

“Eat that,” he said. “I’ll have some, too.” + 

“I couldn’t.” + 

“And some whisky. Where do you keep it?” + 

After the first few mouthfuls Kirk ate wolfishly. The doctor munched a sandwich with the placidity of a summer boarder at a picnic. His calmness amazed and almost shocked Kirk. + 

“You can’t help her by killing yourself,” said the doctor philosophically. “I like that woman with the gimlet eyes. At least I don’t, but she’s got sense. Go on. You haven’t done yet. Another highball won’t hurt you.” He eyed Kirk with some sympathy. “It’s a bad time for you, of course.” + 

“For me? Good God!” + 

“You want to keep your nerve. Nothing awful is going to happen.” + 

“If only there was something I could do.” + 

“ ‘They also serve who only stand and wait,’ ” quoted the doctor sententiously. “There is something you can do.” + 

“What?” + 

“Light your pipe and take it easy.” + 

Kirk snorted. + 

“I mean it. In a very short while now you will be required to take the stage and embrace your son or daughter, as the case may be. You don’t want to appear looking as if you had been run over by an automobile after a night out. You want your appearance to give Mrs. Winfield as little of a shock as possible. Bear that in mind. Well, I must be going.” + 

And Kirk was alone again. + 

The food and the drink and the doctor’s words had a good effect. His mind became quieter. He sat down and filled his pipe. After a few puffs he replaced it in his pocket. It seemed too callous to think of smoking now. The doctor was a good fellow, but he did not understand. All the same, he was glad that he had had that whisky. It had certainly put heart into him for the moment. + 

What was happening upstairs? He strained his ears, but could hear nothing. + 

Gradually, as he waited, his mood of morbid self-criticism returned. He had sunk once more into the depths when he was aware of a soft tapping. The door bell rang very gently. He went to the door and opened it. + 

“I kinder thought I’d look in and see how things were getting along,” said a voice. + 

It was Steve. A subdued and furtive Steve. Kirk’s heart leaped at the sight of him. It was as if he had found something solid to cling to in a shifting world. + 

“Come in, Steve.” + 

He spoke huskily. Steve sidled into the studio, embarrassment written on every line of him. + 

“Don’t mind my butting in, do you? I’ve been walking up and down and round the block till every cop on the island’s standing by waiting for me to pull something. Another minute and they’d have pinched me on suspicion. I just felt I had to come and see how Miss Ruth was making out.” + 

“The doctor was down here just now. He said everything was going well.” + 

“I guess he knows his business.” + 

There was a silence. Kirk’s ears were straining for sounds from above. + 

“It’s hell,” said Steve. + 

Kirk nodded. This kind of talk was more what he wanted. The doctor meant well, but he was too professional. Steve was human. + 

“Go and get yourself a drink, Steve. I expect you need one.” + 

Steve shook his head. + 

“Wagon,” he said briefly. And there was silence again. + 

“Say, Kirk.” + 

“Yes?” + 

“What a wonder she is. Miss Ruth, I mean. I’ve helped her throw that medicine-ball⁠—often⁠—you wouldn’t believe. She’s a wonder.” He paused. “Say, this is hell, ain’t it?” + 

Kirk did not answer. It was very quiet in the studio now. In the street outside a heavy wagon rumbled part. Somebody shouted a few words of a popular song. Steve sprang to his feet. + 

“I’ll fix that guy,” he said. But the singing ceased, and he sat down again. + 

Kirk got up and began to walk quickly up and down. Steve watched him furtively. + 

“You want to take your mind off it,” he said. “You’ll be all in if you keep on worrying about it in that way.” + 

Kirk stopped in his stride. + 

“That’s what the doctor said,” he snapped savagely. “What do you two fools think I’m made of?” He recovered himself quickly, ashamed of the outburst. “I’m sorry, Steve. Don’t mind anything I say. It’s awfully good of you to have come here, and I’m not going to forget it.” + 

Steve scratched his chin reflectively. + 

“Say, I’ll tell you something,” he said. “My mother told me once that when I was born my old dad took it just like you. Found he was getting all worked up by having to hang around and do nothing, so he says to himself: ‘I’ve got to take my mind off this business, or it’s me for the foolish-house.’ + 

“Well, sir, there was a big guy down on that street who’d been picking on dad good and hard for a mighty long while. And this guy suddenly comes into dad’s mind. He felt of his muscle, dad did. ‘Gee!’ he says to himself, ‘I believe the way I’m feeling, I could just go and eat up that gink right away.’ And the more he thought of it, the better it looked to him, so all of a sudden he grabs his hat and beats it like a streak down to the saloon on the corner, where he knew the feller would be at that time, and he goes straight up to him and hands him one. + 

“Back comes the guy at him⁠—he was a great big son of a gun, weighing thirty pounds more than dad⁠—and him and dad mixes it right there in the saloon till the barkeep and about fifty other fellers throws them out, and they goes off to a vacant lot to finish the thing. And dad’s so worked up that he gives the other guy his till he hollers that that’s all he’ll want. And then dad goes home and waits quite quiet and happy and peaceful till they tell him I’m there.” + 

Steve paused. + 

“Kirk,” he said then, “how would you like a round or two with the small gloves, just to get things off your mind for a spell and pass the time? My dad said he found it eased him mighty good.” + 

Kirk stared at him. + 

“Just a couple of rounds,” urged Steve. “And you can go all out at that. I shan’t mind. Just try to think I’m some guy that’s been picking on you and let me have it. See what I mean?” + 

For the first time that day the faint ghost of a grin appeared on Kirk’s face. + 

“I wonder if you’re right, Steve?” + 

“I know I’m right. And, say, don’t think I don’t need it, too. I ain’t known Miss Ruth all this time for nothing. You’ll be doing me a kindness if you knock my face in.” + 

The small gloves occupied a place of honour to themselves in a lower drawer. It was not often that Kirk used them in his friendly bouts with Steve. For ordinary occasions the larger and more padded species met with his approval. Steve, during these daily sparring encounters, was amiability itself; but he could not be counted upon not to forget himself for an occasional moment in the heat of the fray; and though Kirk was courageous enough, he preferred to preserve the regularity of his features at the expense of a little extra excitement. + 

Once, after a brisk rally, he had gone about the world looking as if he was suffering from mumps, owing to a right hook which no one regretted more than Steve himself. + 

But today was different; and Kirk felt that even a repetition of that lethal punch would be welcome. + 

Steve, when the contest opened, was disposed to be consolatory in word as well as deed. He kept up a desultory conversation as he circled and feinted. + 

“You gotta look at it this way,” he began, sidestepping a left, “it ain’t often you hear of anything going wrong at times like this. You gotta remember”⁠—he hooked Kirk neatly on the jaw⁠—“that” he concluded. + 

Kirk came back with a swing at the body which made his adversary grunt. + 

“That’s true,” he said. + 

“Sure,” rejoined Steve a little breathlessly, falling into a clinch. + 

They moved warily round each other. + 

“So,” said Steve, blocking a left, “that ought to comfort you some.” + 

Kirk nodded. He guessed correctly that the other was alluding to his last speech, not to the counter which had just made the sight of his left eye a little uncertain. + 

Gradually, as the bout progressed, Kirk began to lose the slight diffidence which had hampered him at the start. He had been feeling so wonderfully friendly toward Steve, so grateful for his presence, and his sympathy, that it had been hard, in spite of the other’s admonitions, to enter into the fray with any real conviction. Moreover, subconsciously, he was listening all the time for sounds from above which never came. + 

These things gave a certain lameness to his operations. It was immediately after this blow in the eye, mentioned above, that he ceased to be an individual with private troubles and a wandering mind, and became a boxer pure and simple, his whole brain concentrated on the problem of how to get past his opponent’s guard. + 

Steve, recognizing the change in an instant, congratulated himself on the success of his treatment. It had worked even more quickly than he had hoped. He helped the cure with another swift jab which shot over Kirk’s guard. + 

Kirk came in with a rush. Steve slipped him. Kirk rushed again. Steve, receiving a hard punch on a nose which, though accustomed to such assaults, had never grown really to enjoy them, began to feel a slight diminution of his detached attitude toward this encounter. Till now his position had been purely that of the kindly physician soothing a patient. The rapidity with which the patient was permitting himself to be soothed rendered the post of physician something of a sinecure; and Steve, as Kirk had done, began to slip back into the boxer. + 

It was while he was in what might be called a transition stage that an unexpected swing sent him with some violence against the wall; and from that moment nature asserted itself. A curious, set look appeared on his face; wrinkles creased his forehead; his jaw protruded slightly. + 

Kirk made another rush. This time Steve did not slip; he went to meet it, head down and hands busy. + 

Mrs. Lora Delane Porter came downstairs with the measured impressiveness of one who bears weighty news. Her determined face was pale and tired, as it had every right to be; but she bore herself proudly, as one who has fought and not been defeated. + 

“Mr. Winfield,” she said. + 

There was no answer. Looking about her, she found the studio empty. + 

Then, from behind the closed door of the inner room, she was aware of a strange, shuffling sound. She listened, astonished. She heard a gasp, then curious thuds, finally a bump louder than the thuds. And then there was silence. + 

These things surprised Mrs. Porter. She opened the door and looked in. + 

It says much for her iron self-control that she remained quiet at this point. A lesser person, after a far less tiring ordeal than she had passed through, would have found relief in some cry or exclamation⁠—possibly even in a scream. + 

Against the far wall, breathing hard and fondling his left eye with a four-ounce glove, leaned Steve Dingle. His nose was bleeding somewhat freely, but this he appeared to consider a trifle unworthy of serious attention. On the floor, an even more disturbing spectacle, Kirk lay at full length. To Mrs. Porter’s startled gaze he appeared to be dead. He too, was bleeding, but he was not in a position to notice it. + 

“It’s all right, ma’am,” said Steve, removing the hand from his face and revealing an eye which for spectacular dilapidation must have rivalled the epoch-making one which had so excited his mother on a famous occasion. “It’s nothing serious.” + 

“Has Mr. Winfield fainted?” + 

“Not exactly fainted, ma’am. It’s like this. He’d got me clear up in a corner, and I seen it’s up to me if I don’t want to be knocked through the wall, so I has to cross him. Maybe I’d gotten a little worked up myself by then. But it was my fault. I told him to go all out, and he sure did. This eye’s going to be a pippin tomorrow.” + 

Mrs. Porter examined the wounded organ with interest. + 

“That, I suppose Mr. Dingle, is what you call a blue eye?” + 

“It sure is, ma’am.” + 

“What has been happening?” + 

“Well, it’s this way. I see he’s all worked up, sitting around doing nothing except wait, so I makes him come and spar a round to take his mind off it. My old dad, ma’am, when I was coming along, found that dope fixed him all right, so I reckoned it would do as much good here. My old dad went and beat the block off a fellow down our street, and it done him a lot of good.” + 

Mrs. Porter shook his gloved hand. + 

“Mr. Dingle,” she said with enthusiasm, “I really believe that you are the only sensible man I have ever met. Your common sense is astonishing. I have no doubt you saved Mr. Winfield from a nervous breakdown. Would you be kind enough, when you are rested, to fetch some water and bring him to and inform him that he is the father of a son?” + 

IX + 

The White Hope Is Turned Down + 

William Bannister Winfield was the most wonderful child. Of course, you had to have a certain amount of intelligence to see this. To the vapid and irreflective observer he was not much to look at in the early stages of his career, having a dough-like face almost entirely devoid of nose, a lacklustre eye, and the general appearance of a poached egg. His immediate circle of intimates, however, thought him a model of manly beauty; and there was the undeniable fact that he had come into the world weighing nine pounds. Take him for all in all, a lad of promise. + 

Kirk’s sense of being in a dream continued. His identity seemed to have undergone a change. The person he had known as Kirk Winfield had disappeared, to be succeeded by a curious individual bubbling over with an absurd pride for which it was not easy to find an outlet. Hitherto a rather reserved man, he was conscious now of a desire to accost perfect strangers in the street and inform them that he was not the ordinary person they probably imagined, but a father with an intensely unusual son at home, and if they did not believe him they could come right along and see for themselves. + 

The only flaw in his happiness at the moment was the fact that his circle of friends was so small. He had not missed the old brigade of the studio before, but now the humblest of them would have been welcome, provided he would have sat still and listened. Even Percy Shanklyn would have been acceptable as an audience. + 

Steve, excellent fellow, was always glad to listen to him on his favourite subject. He had many long talks with Steve on the question of William’s future. Steve, as the infant’s godfather, which post he had claimed and secured at an early date, had definite views on the matter. + 

Here, held Steve, was the chance of a lifetime. With proper training, a baby of such obvious muscular promise might be made the greatest fighter that ever stepped into the ring. He was the real White Hope. He advised Kirk to direct William’s education on the lines which would insure his being, when the time was ripe, undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. To Steve life outside the ring was a poor affair, practically barren of prizes for the ambitious. + 

Mrs. Lora Delane Porter, eyeing William’s brow, of which there was plenty, he being at this time extremely short of hair, predicted a less robust and more intellectual future for him. Something more on the lines of president of some great university or ambassador at some important court struck her as his logical sphere. + 

Kirk’s view was that he should combine both careers and be an ambassador who took a few weeks off every now and then in order to defend his champion’s belt. In his spare time he might paint a picture or two. + 

Ruth hesitated between the army, the navy, the bar, and business. But everyone was agreed that William was to be something special. + 

This remarkable child had a keen sense of humour. Thus he seldom began to cry in his best vein till the small hours of the morning; and on these occasions he would almost invariably begin again after he had been officially pronounced to be asleep. His sudden grab at the hair of any adult who happened to come within reach was very droll, too. + 

As to his other characteristics, he was of rather an imperious nature. He liked to be waited on. He wanted what he wanted when he wanted it. The greater part of his attention being occupied at this period with the important duty of chewing his thumb, he assigned the drudgery of life to his dependants. Their duties were to see that he got up in the morning, dressed, and took his tub; and after that to hang around on the chance of general orders. + 

Any idea Kirk may have had of resuming his work was abandoned during these months. No model, young and breezy or white-haired and motherly, passed the studio doors. Life was far too interesting for work. The canvas which might have become Carmen or A Reverie or even The Toreador’s Bride lay unfinished and neglected in a corner. + 

It astonished Kirk to find how strong the paternal instinct was in him. In the days when he had allowed his mind to dwell upon the abstract wife he had sometimes gone a step further and conjured up the abstract baby. The result had always been to fill him with a firm conviction that the most persuasive of wild horses should not drag him from his bachelor seclusion. He had had definite ideas on babies as a class. And here he was with his world pivoting on one of them. It was curious. + 

The White Hope, as Steve called his godson⁠—possibly with the idea of influencing him by suggestion⁠—grew. The ailments which attacked lesser babies passed him by. He avoided croup, and even whooping-cough paid him but a flying visit hardly worth mentioning. His first tooth gave him a little trouble, but that is the sort of thing which may happen to anyone; and the spirited way in which he protested against the indignity of cutting it was proof of a high soul. + 

Such was the remarkableness of this child that it annoyed Kirk more and more that he should be obliged to give the exhibition of his extraordinary qualities to so small an audience. Ruth felt the same; and it was for this reason that the first overtures were made to the silent camp which contained her father and her brother Bailey. + 

Since that evening in the library there had come no sign from the house on Fifth Avenue that its inmates were aware of her existence. Life had been too full till now to make this a cause of trouble to her; but with William Bannister becoming every day more amazing the desire came to her to try and heal the breach. Her father had so ordered his life in his relation to his children that Ruth’s affection was not so deep as it might have been; but, after all, he was William Bannister’s grandfather, and, as such, entitled to consideration. + 

It was these reflections that led to Steve’s state visit to John Bannister⁠—probably the greatest fiasco on record. + 

Steve had been selected for the feat on the strength of his having the right of entry to the Fifth Avenue house, for John Bannister was still obeying his doctor’s orders and taking his daily spell of exercise with the pugilist⁠—and Steve bungled it hopelessly. + 

His task was not a simple one. He was instructed to employ tact, to hint rather than to speak, to say nothing to convey the impression that Ruth in any way regretted the step she had taken, to give the idea that it was a matter of complete indifference to her whether she ever saw her father again or not, yet at the same time to make it quite clear that she was very anxious to see him as soon as possible. + 

William Bannister, grown to maturity and upholding the interests of his country as ambassador at some important court, might have jibbed at the mission. + 

William Bannister was to accompany Steve and be produced dramatically to support verbal arguments. It seemed to Ruth that for her father to resist William when he saw him was an impossibility. William’s position was that of the ace of trumps in the cards which Steve was to play. + 

Steve made a few objections. His chief argument against taking up the post assigned to him was that he was a roughneck, and that the job in question was one which no roughneck, however gifted in the matter of left hooks, could hope to carry through with real success. But he yielded to pressure, and the expedition set out. + 

William Bannister at this time was at an age when he was beginning to talk a little and walk a little and take a great interest in things. His walking was a bit amateurish, and his speech rather hard to follow unless you had the key to it. But nobody could have denied that his walk, though staggery, was a genuine walk, and his speech, though limited, genuine speech, within the meaning of the act. + 

He made no objections to the expedition. On being told that he was going to see his grandpa he nodded curtly and said: “Gwa-wah,” after his custom. For, as a conversationalist, perhaps the best description of him is to say that he tried hard. He rarely paused for a word. When in difficulties he said something; he did not seek refuge in silence. That the something was not always immediately intelligible was the fault of his audience for not listening more carefully. + 

Perhaps the real mistake of the expedition was the nature of its baggage. William Bannister had stood out for being allowed to take with him his wheelbarrow, his box of bricks, and his particular favourite, the dying pig, which you blew out and then allowed to collapse with a pleasing noise. These properties had struck his parents as excessive, but he was firm; and when he gave signs of being determined to fight it out on these lines if it took all the summer, they gave in. + 

Steve had no difficulty in smuggling William into his grandfather’s house. He was a great favourite below stairs there. His great ally was the English butler, Keggs. + 

Keggs was a stout, dignified, pigeon-toed old sinner, who cast off the butler when not on duty and displayed himself as something of a rounder. He was a man of many parts. It was his chief relaxation to look in at Broadway hotels while some big fight was in progress out West to watch the ticker and assure himself that the man he had backed with a portion of the loot which he had accumulated in the form of tips was doing justice to his judgment, for in private Keggs was essentially the sport. + 

It was this that so endeared Steve to him. A few years ago Keggs had won considerable sums by backing Steve, and the latter was always given to understand that, as far as the lower regions of it were concerned, the house on Fifth Avenue was open to him at all hours. + 

Today he greeted Steve with enthusiasm and suggested a cigar in the pantry before the latter should proceed to his work. + 

“He ain’t ready for you yet, Mr. Dingle. He’s lookin’ over some papers in⁠—for goodness’ sake, who’s this?” + 

He had caught sight of William Bannister, who having wriggled free of Steve, was being made much of by the maids. + 

“The kid,” said Steve briefly. + 

“Not⁠—” + 

Steve nodded. + 

“Sure. His grandson.” + 

Keggs’ solemnity increased. + 

“You aren’t going to take him upstairs with you?” + 

“Surest thing you know. That’s why I brought him.” + 

“Don’t you do it, Mr. Dingle. ’E’s in an awful temper this morning⁠—he gets worse and worse⁠—he’ll fire you as soon as look at you.” + 

“Can’t be helped. I’ve got me instructions.” + 

“You always were game,” said Keggs admiringly. “I used to see that quick enough before you retired from active work. Well, good luck to you, Mr. Dingle.” + 

Steve gathered up William Bannister, the wheelbarrow, the box of bricks, and the dying pig and made his way to the gymnasium. + 

The worst of these prearranged scenes is that they never happen just as one figured them in one’s mind. Steve had expected to have to wait a few minutes in the gymnasium, then there would be a step outside and the old man would enter. The beauty of this, to Steve’s mind, was that he himself would be “discovered,” as the stage term is; the onus of entering and opening the conversation would be on Mr. Bannister. And, as everybody who has ever had an awkward interview knows, this makes all the difference. + 

But the minutes passed, and still no grandfather. The nervousness which he had with difficulty expelled began to return to Steve. This was exactly like having to wait in the ring while one’s opponent tried to get one’s goat by dawdling in the dressing room. + 

An attempt to relieve himself by punching the ball was a dismal failure. At the first bang of the leather against the wood William Bannister, who had been working in a preoccupied way at the dying pig, threw his head back and howled, and would not be comforted till Steve took out the rope and skipped before him, much as dancers used to dance before oriental monarchs in the old days. + 

Steve was just saying to himself for the fiftieth time that he was a fool to have come, when Keggs arrived with the news that Mr. Bannister was too busy to take his usual exercise this morning and that Steve was at liberty to go. + 

It speaks well for Steve’s character that he did not go. He would have given much to retire, for the old man was one of the few people who inspired in him anything resembling fear. But he could not return tamely to the studio with his mission unaccomplished. + 

“Say, ask him if he can see me for a minute. Say it is important.” + 

Keggs’ eye rested on William Bannister, and he shook his head. + 

“I shouldn’t, Mr. Dingle. Really I shouldn’t. You don’t know what an ugly mood he’s in. Something’s been worrying him. It’s what you might call courting disaster.” + 

“Gee! Do you think I want to do it? I’ve just got to. That’s all there is to it.” + 

A few moments later Keggs returned with the news that Mr. Bannister would see Dingle in the library. + 

“Come along, kid,” said Steve. “Gimme hold of the excess baggage, and let’s get a move on.” + 

So in the end it was Mr. Bannister who was discovered and Steve who made the entrance. And, as Steve pointed out to Kirk later, it just made all the difference. + 

The effect of the change on Steve was to make him almost rollicking in his manner, as if he and Mr. Bannister were the nucleus of an Old Home Week celebration or two old college chums meeting after long absence. Nervousness, on the rare occasions when he suffered from it, generally had that effect on him. + 

He breezed into the library, carrying the wheelbarrow, the box of bricks, and the dying pig, and trailing William in his wake. William’s grandfather was seated with his back to the door, dictating a letter to one of his secretaries. + 

He looked up as Steve entered. He took in Steve and William in a rapid glance and guessed the latter’s identity in an instant. He had expected something of this sort ever since he had heard of his grandson’s birth. Indeed, he had been somewhat surprised that the visit had not occurred before. + 

He betrayed no surprise. + 

“One moment, Dingle,” he said, and turned to the secretary again. A faint sneer came and went on his face. + 

The delay completed Steve’s discomfiture. He placed the wheel harrow on the floor, the box of bricks on the wheelbarrow, and the dying pig on the box of bricks, whence it was instantly removed and inflated by William. + 

“ ‘Referring to your letter of the eighth⁠—’ ” said Mr. Bannister in his cold, level voice. + 

He was interrupted by the incisive cry of the dying pig. + 

“Ask your son to be quiet, Dingle,” he said impassively. + 

Steve was staggered. + 

“Say, this ain’t my son, squire,” he began breezily. + 

“Your nephew, then, or whatever relation he happens to be to you.” + 

He resumed his dictation. Steve wiped his forehead and looked helplessly at the White Hope, who, having discarded the dying pig, was now busy with the box of bricks. + 

Steve wished he had not come. He was accustomed to the primitive exhibition of emotions, having moved in circles where the wrathful expressed their wrath in a normal manner. + 

Anger which found its expression in an exaggerated politeness was out of his line and made him uncomfortable. + 

After what seemed to him a century, John Bannister dismissed the secretary. Even then, however, he did not come immediately to Steve. He remained for a few moments writing, with his back turned. Then, just when Steve had given up hope of ever securing his attention, he turned suddenly. + 

“Well?” + 

“Say, it’s this way, colonel,” Steve had begun, when a triumphant cry from the direction of the open window stopped him. The White Hope was kneeling on a chair, looking down into the street. + 

“Bix,” he explained over his shoulder. + 

“Kindly ring the bell, Dingle,” said Mr. Bannister, unmoved. “Your little nephew appears to have dropped his bricks into Fifth Avenue.” + 

In answer to the summons Keggs appeared. He looked anxious. + 

“Keggs,” said Mr. Bannister, “tell one of the footmen to go out into the avenue and pick up some wooden bricks which he will find there. Dingle’s little brother has let some fall.” + 

As Keggs left the room Steve’s pent-up nervousness exploded in a whirl of words. + 

“Aw say, boss, quit yer kiddin’. You know this kid ain’t anything to do with me. Why, say, how would he be any relation of a roughneck like me? Come off the roof, bo. You know well enough who he is. He’s your grandson. On the level.” + 

Mr. Bannister looked at William, now engaged in running the wheelbarrow up and down the room, emitting the while a curious sound, possibly to encourage an imaginary horse. The inspection did not seem to excite him or afford him any pleasure. + 

“Oh!” he said. + 

Steve was damped, but resumed gamely: + 

“Say, boss, this is the greatest kid on earth. I’m not stringing you, honest. He’s a wonder. On the level, did you ever see a kid that age with a pair of shoulders on him like what this kid’s got? Say, squire, what’s the matter with calling the fight off and starting fair? Miss Ruth would be tickled to death if you would. Can the rough stuff, colonel. I know you think you’ve been given a raw deal, Kirk chipping in like that and copping off Miss Ruth, but for the love of Mike, what does it matter? You seen for yourself what a dandy kid this is. Well, then, check your grouch with your hat. Do the square thing. Have out the auto and come right round to the studio and make it up. What’s wrong with that, colonel? Honest, they’d be tickled clean through.” + 

At this point Keggs entered, followed by a footman carrying wooden bricks. + 

“Keggs,” said Mr. Bannister, “telephone for the automobile at once⁠—” + 

“That’s the talk, colonel,” cried Steve joyfully. “I know you were a sport.” + 

“⁠⸺⁠to take me down to Wall Street.” + 

Keggs bowed. + 

“Oh Keggs,” said Mr. Bannister, as he turned to leave. + 

“Sir?” + 

“Another thing. See that Dingle does not enter the house again.” + 

And Mr. Bannister resumed his writing, while Steve, gathering up the wheelbarrow, the box of bricks, and the dying pig, took William by the hand and retreated. + 

That terminated Ruth’s attempts to conciliate her father. + 

There remained Bailey. From Bailey she was prepared to stand no nonsense. Meeting him on the street, she fairly kidnapped him, driving him into a taxicab and pushing him into the studio, where he was confronted by his nephew. + 

Bailey came poorly through the ordeal. William Bannister, a stern critic, weighed him up in one long stare, found him wanting, and announced his decision with all the strength of powerful lungs. In the end he had to be removed, hiccupping, and Bailey, after lingering a few uneasy moments making conversation to Kirk, departed, with such a look about the back of him as he sprang into his cab that Ruth felt that the visit was one which would not be repeated. + 

She went back into the studio with a rather heavy heart. She was fond of Bailey. + 

The sight of Kirk restored her. After all, what had happened was only what she had expected. She had chosen her path, and she did not regret it. + 

X + 

An Interlude of Peace + 

Two events of importance in the small world which centred round William B. Winfield occurred at about this time. The first was the entrance of Mamie, the second the exit of Mrs. Porter. + 

Mamie was the last of a series of nurses who came and went in somewhat rapid succession during the early years of the White Hope’s life. She was introduced by Steve, who, it seemed, had known her since she was a child. She was the nineteen-year-old daughter of a compositor on one of the morning papers, a little, mouselike thing, with tiny hands and feet, a soft voice, and eyes that took up far more than their fair share of her face. + 

She had had no professional experience as a nursery-maid; but, as Steve pointed out, the fact that, in the absence of her mother, who had died some years previously, she had had sole charge of three small brothers at the age when small brothers are least easily handled, and had steered them through to the office-boy age without mishap, put her extremely high in the class of gifted amateurs. Mamie was accordingly given a trial, and survived it triumphantly. William Bannister, that discerning youth, took to her at once. Kirk liked the neat way she moved about the studio, his heart being still sore at the performance of one of her predecessors, who had upset and put a substantial foot through his masterpiece, that same Ariadne in Naxos which Lora Delane Porter had criticised on the occasion of her first visit to the studio. Ruth, for her part, was delighted with Mamie. + 

As for Steve, though as an outside member of the firm he cannot be considered to count, he had long ago made up his mind about her. Some time before, when he had found it impossible for him to be in her presence, still less to converse with her, without experiencing a warm, clammy, shooting sensation and a feeling of general weakness similar to that which follows a well-directed blow at the solar plexus, he had come to the conclusion that he must be in love. The furious jealousy which assailed him on seeing her embraced by and embracing a stout person old enough to be her father convinced him of this. + 

The discovery that the stout man actually was her father’s brother relieved his mind to a certain extent, but the episode left him shaken. He made up his mind to propose at once and get it over. When Mamie joined the garrison of No. 90 a year later the dashing feat was still unperformed. There was that about Mamie which unmanned Steve. She was so small and dainty that the ruggedness which had once been his pride seemed to him, when he thought of her, an insuperable defect. The conviction that he was a roughneck deepened in him and tied his tongue. + 

The defection of Mrs. Porter was a gradual affair. From a very early period in the new regime she had been dissatisfied. Accustomed to rule, she found herself in an unexpectedly minor position. She had definite views on the hygienic upbringing of children, and these she imparted to Ruth, who listened pleasantly, smiled, and ignored them. + 

Mrs. Porter was not used to such treatment. She found Ruth considerably less malleable than she had been before marriage, and she resented the change. + 

Kirk, coming in one afternoon, found Ruth laughing. + 

“It’s only Aunt Lora,” she said. “She will come in and lecture me on how to raise babies. She’s crazy about microbes. It’s the new idea. Sterilization, and all that. She thinks that everything a child touches ought to be sterilized first to kill the germs. Bill’s running awful risks being allowed to play about the studio like this.” + 

Kirk looked at his son and heir, who was submitting at that moment to be bathed. He was standing up. It was a peculiarity of his that he refused to sit down in a bath, being apparently under the impression, when asked to do so, that there was a conspiracy afoot to drown him. + 

“I don’t see how the kid could be much fitter.” + 

“It’s not so much what he is now. She is worrying about what might happen to him. She can talk about bacilli till your flesh creeps. Honestly, if Bill ever did get really ill, I believe Aunt Lora could talk me round to her views about them in a minute. It’s only the fact that he is so splendidly well that makes it seem so absurd.” + 

Kirk laughed. + 

“It’s all very well to laugh. You haven’t heard her. I’ve caught myself wavering a dozen times. Do you know, she says a child ought not to be kissed?” + 

“It has struck me,” said Kirk meditatively, “that your Aunt Lora, if I may make the suggestion, is the least bit of what Steve would call a shy-dome. Is there anything else she had mentioned?” + 

“Hundreds of things. Bill ought to be kept in a properly sterilized nursery, with sterilized toys and sterilized everything, and the temperature ought to be just so high and no higher, and just so low and no lower. Get her to talk about it to you. She makes you wonder why everybody is not dead.” + 

“This is a new development, surely? Has she ever broken out in this place before?” + 

“Oh, yes. In the old days she often used to talk about it. She has written books about it.” + 

“I thought her books were all about the selfishness of the modern young man in not marrying.” + 

“Not at all. Some of them are about how to look after the baby. It’s no good the modern young man marrying if he’s going to murder his baby directly afterward, is it?” + 

“Something in that. There’s just one objection to this sterilized nursery business, though, which she doesn’t seem to have detected. How am I going to provide these things on an income of five thousand and at the same time live in that luxury which the artist soul demands? Bill, my lad, you’ll have to sacrifice yourself for your father’s good. When I’m a millionaire we’ll see about it. Meanwhile⁠—” + 

“Meanwhile,” said Ruth, “come and be dried before you catch your death of cold.” She gathered William Bannister into her lap. + 

“I pity any germ that tries to play catch-as-catch-can with that infant,” remarked Kirk. “He’d simply flatten it out in a round. Did you ever see such a chest on a kid of that age?” + 

It was after the installation of Whiskers at the studio that the diminution of Mrs. Porter’s visits became really marked. There was something almost approaching a battle over Whiskers, who was an Irish terrier puppy which Hank Jardine had presented to William Bannister as a belated birthday present. + 

Mrs. Porter utterly excommunicated Whiskers. Nothing, she maintained, was so notoriously supercharged with bacilli as a long-haired dog. If this was true, William Bannister certainly gave them every chance to get to work upon himself. It was his constant pleasure to clutch Whiskers to him in a vice-like clinch, to bury his face in his shaggy back, and generally to court destruction. Yet the more he clutched, the healthier did he appear to grow, and Mrs. Porter’s demand for the dog’s banishment was overruled. + 

Mrs. Porter retired in dudgeon. She liked to rule, and at No. 90 she felt that she had become merely among those present. She was in the position of a mother country whose colony has revolted. For years she had been accustomed to look on Ruth as a disciple, a weaker spirit whom she could mould to her will, and now Ruth was refusing to be moulded. + 

So Mrs. Porter’s visits ceased. Ruth still saw her at the apartment when she cared to go there, but she kept away from the studio. She considered that in the matter of William Bannister her claim had been jumped, that she had been deposed; and she withdrew. + 

“I shall bear up,” said Kirk, when this fact was brought home to him. “I mistrust your Aunt Lora as I should mistrust some great natural force which may become active at any moment and give you yours. An earthquake, for instance. I have no quarrel with your Aunt Lora in her quiescent state, but I fear the developments of that giant mind. We are better off without her.” + 

“All the same,” said Ruth loyally, “she’s rather a dear. And we ought to remember that, if it hadn’t been for her, you and I would never have met.” + 

“I do remember it. And I’m grateful. But I can’t help feeling that a woman capable of taking other people’s lives and juggling with them as if they were india-rubber balls as she did with ours, is likely at any moment to break out in a new place. My gratitude to her is the sort of gratitude you would feel toward a cyclone if you were walking home late for dinner and it caught you up and deposited you on your doorstep. Your Aunt Lora is a human cyclone. No, on the whole, she’s more like an earthquake. She has a habit of splitting up and altering the face of the world whenever she feels like it, and I’m too well satisfied with my world at present to relish the idea of having it changed.” + 

Little by little the garrison of the studio had been whittled down. Except for Steve, the community had no regular members outside the family itself. Hank was generally out of town. Bailey paid one more visit, then seemed to consider that he could now absent himself altogether. And the members of Kirk’s bachelor circle stayed away to a man. + 

Their isolation was rendered more complete by the fact that Ruth, when she had ornamented New York society, had made few real friends. Most of the girls she had known bored her. They were gushing creatures with a passion for sharing and imparting secrets, and Ruth’s cool reserve had alienated her from them. + 

When she married she dropped out. The romance of her wedding gave people something to talk about for a few days, and then she was forgotten. + 

And so it came about that she had her desire and was able practically to monopolize Kirk. He and she and William Bannister lived in a kind of hermit’s cell for three and enjoyed this highly unnatural state of things enormously. Life had never seemed so full either to Kirk or herself. There was always something to do, something to think about, something to look forward to, if it was only a visit to a theatre or the inspection of William Bannister’s bath. + 

XI + 

Stung to Action + 

It was in the third year of the White Hope’s life that the placid evenness of Kirk’s existence began to be troubled. The orderly procession of the days was broken by happenings of unusual importance, one at least of them extraordinarily unpleasant. This was the failure of a certain stock in which nearly half of Kirk’s patrimony was invested, that capital which had always seemed to him as solid a part of life as the asphalt on which he walked, as unchangeable a part of nature as the air he breathed. He had always had it, and he could hardly bring himself to realize that he was not always to have it. + 

It gave him an extraordinary feeling of panic and discomfort when at length he faced the fact squarely that his private means, on the possession of which he had based the whole lazy scheme of his life, were as much at the mercy of fate as the stake which a gambler flings on the green cloth. He did not know enough of business to understand the complicated processes by which a stock hitherto supposed to be as impregnable as municipal bonds had been hammered into a ragged remnant in the course of a single day; but the result of them was unpleasantly clear and easily grasped. + 

His income was cut in half, and instead of being a comfortably off young man, idly watching the pageant of life from a seat in the grand stand, he must now plunge into the crowd and endeavour to earn a living as others did. + 

For his losses did not begin and end with the ruin of this particular stock. At intervals during the past two years he had been nibbling at his capital, and now, forced to examine his affairs frankly and minutely, he was astonished at the inroads he had made upon it. + 

There had been the upkeep of the summer shack he had bought in Connecticut. There had been expenses in connection with William Bannister. There had been little treats for Ruth. There had been cigars and clothes and dinners and taxicabs and all the other trifles which cost nothing but mount up and make a man wander beyond the bounds of his legitimate income. + 

It was borne in upon Kirk, as he reflected upon these things, that the only evidence he had shown of the possession of the artistic temperament had been the joyous carelessness of his extravagance. In that only had he been the artist. It shocked him to think how little honest work he had done during the past two years. He had lived in a golden haze into which work had not entered. + 

He was to be shocked still more very soon. + 

Stung to action by his thoughts, he embarked upon a sweeping attack on the stronghold of those who exchange cash for artists’ dreams. He ransacked the studio and set out on his mission in a cab bulging with large, small, and medium-sized canvases. Like a wave receding from a breakwater he returned late in the day, a branded failure. + 

The dealers had eyed his canvases, large, small, and medium-sized, and, in direct contravention of their professed object in life, had refused to deal. Only one of them, a man with grimy hands but a moderately golden heart, after passing a sepia thumb over some of the more ambitious works, had offered him fifteen dollars for a little sketch which he had made in an energetic moment of William Bannister crawling on the floor. This, the dealer asserted, was the sort of “darned mushy stuff” the public fell for, and he held it to be worth the fifteen, but not a cent more. Kirk, humble by now, accepted three battered-looking bills and departed. + 

He had a long talk with Ruth that night, and rose from it in the frame of mind which in some men is induced by prayer. Ruth was quite marvellously sensible and sympathetic. + 

“I wanted you,” she said in answer to his self-reproaches, “and here we are, together. It’s simply nonsense to talk about ruining my life and dragging me down. What does it matter about this money? We have got plenty left.” + 

“We’ve got about as much left as you used to spend on hats in the old days.” + 

“Well, we can easily make it do. I’ve thought for some time that we were growing too extravagant. And talking of hats, I had no right to have that last one you bought me. It was wickedly expensive. We can economize there, at any rate. We can get along splendidly on what you have now. Besides, directly you settle down and start to paint, we shall be quite rich again.” + 

Kirk laughed grimly. + 

“I wish you were a dealer,” he said. “Fifteen dollars is what I have managed to extract from them so far. One of the Great Unwashed on Sixth Avenue gave me that for that sketch I did of Bill on the floor.” + 

“Which took you about three minutes to do,” Ruth pointed out triumphantly. “You see! You’re bound to make a fortune if you stick to it.” + 

Kirk put his arm round her and gave her a silent hug of gratitude. He had dreaded this talk, and lo! it was putting new life into him. + 

They sat for a few moments in silence. + 

“I don’t deserve it,” said Kirk at last. “Instead of comforting me like this, and making me think I’m rather a fine sort of a fellow, you ought to be lashing me with scorpions. I don’t suppose any man has ever made such a criminal idiot of himself in this city before.” + 

“You couldn’t tell that this stock was going to fail.” + 

“No; but I could have done some work these last three years and made it not matter whether it failed or not. You can’t comfort me out of that knowledge. I knew all along that I was being a waster and a loafer, but I was so happy that I didn’t mind. I was so interested in seeing what you and the kid would do next that I didn’t seem to have time to work. And the result is that I’ve gone right back. + 

“There was a time when I really could paint a bit. Not much, it’s true, but enough to get along with. Well, I’m going to start it again in earnest now, and if I don’t make good, well, there’s always Hank’s offer.” + 

Ruth turned a little pale. They had discussed Hank’s offer before, but then life had been bright and cloudless and Hank’s offer a thing to smile at. Now it had assumed an uncomfortably practical aspect. + 

“You will make good,” said Ruth. + 

“I’ll do my best,” said Kirk. But even as he spoke his mind was pondering on the proposition which Hank had made. + 

Hank, always flitting from New York into the unknown and back again, had called at the studio one evening, after a long absence, looking sick and tired. He was one of those lean, wiry men whom it is unusual to see in this condition, and Kirk was sympathetic and inquisitive. + 

Hank needed no pressing. He was full of his story. + 

“I’ve been in Colombia,” he said. “I got back on a fruit-steamer this morning. Do you know anything of Colombia?” + 

Kirk reflected. + 

“Only that there’s generally a revolution there,” he said. + 

“There wasn’t anything of that kind this trip, except in my interior.” Hank pulled thoughtfully at his pipe. The odour of his remarkable brand of tobacco filled the studio. “I’ve had a Hades of a time,” he said simply. + 

Kirk looked at him curiously. Hank was in a singularly chastened mood tonight. + 

“What took you there?” + 

“Gold.” + 

“Gold? Mining?” + 

Hank nodded. + 

“I didn’t know there were goldmines in that part of the world,” said Kirk. + 

“There are. The gold that filled the holds of Spanish galleons in the sixteenth century came from Colombia. The place is simply stiff with old Spanish relics.” + 

“But surely the mines must have been worked out ages ago.” + 

“Only on the surface.” + 

Kirk laughed. + 

“How do you mean, only on the surface? Explain. I don’t know a thing about gold, except that getting it out of picture-dealers is like getting blood out of a turnip.” + 

“It’s simple enough. The earth hoards its gold in two ways. There’s auriferous rock and auriferous dirt. If the stuff is in the rock, you crush it. If it’s in the dirt, you wash it.” + 

“It sounds simple.” + 

“It is. The difficult part is finding it.” + 

“And you have done that?” + 

“I have. Or I’m practically certain I have. At any rate, I know that I have discovered the ditches made by the Spaniards three hundred years ago. If there was gold there in those days there is apt to be gold there now. Only it isn’t on the surface any longer. They cleaned up as far as the surface is concerned, so I have to sink shafts and dig tunnels.” + 

“I see. It isn’t so simple as it used to be.” + 

“It is, practically, if you have any knowledge of mining.” + 

“Well, what’s your trouble?” asked Kirk. “Why did you come back? Why aren’t you out there grabbing it with both hands and getting yourself into shape to be a walking goldmine to your friends? I don’t like to see this idle spirit in you, Hank.” + 

Hank smoked long and thoughtfully. + 

“Kirk,” he said suddenly. + 

“Well?” + 

Hank shook his head. + 

“No, it’s no good.” + 

“What is no good? What do you mean?” + 

“I came back,” said Hank, suddenly lucid, “with a wild notion of getting you to come in with me on this thing.” + 

“What! Go to Colombia with you?” + 

Hank nodded. + 

“But, of course, it’s not possible. It’s no job for a married man.” + 

“Why not? If this gold of yours is just lying about in heaps it seems to me that a married man is exactly the man who ought to be around grabbing it. Or do you believe that old yarn about two being able to live as cheaply as one? Take it from me, it’s not so. If there is gold waiting to be gathered up in handfuls, me for it. When do we start? Can I bring Ruth and the kid?” + 

“I wish we could start. If I could have had you with me these last few months I’d never have quit. But I guess it’s out of the question. You’ve no idea what sort of an inferno it is, and I won’t let you come into it with your eyes shut. But if ever you are in a real tight corner let me know. It might be worth your while then to take a few risks.” + 

“Oh! there are risks?” + 

“Risks! My claims are located along the Atrato River in the Choco district. Does that convey anything to you?” + 

“Not a thing.” + 

“The workings are three hundred miles inland. Just three hundred miles of pure Hades. You can get all the fevers you ever heard of, and a few more, I got most of them last trip.” + 

“I thought you were looking pretty bad.” + 

“I ought to be. I’ve swallowed so much quinine since I saw you last that my ears are buzzing still. And then there are the insects. They all bite. Some bite worse than others, but not much. Darn it! even the butterflies bite out there. Every animal in the country has some other animal constantly chasing it until a white man comes along, when they call a truce and both chase him. And the vegetation is so thick and grows so quickly that you have to cut down the jungle about the workings every few days or so to avoid being swamped by it. Otherwise,” finished Hank, refilling his pipe and lighting it, “the place is a pretty good kind of summer resort.” + 

“And you’re going back to it? Back to the quinine and the beasts and the butterflies?” + 

“Sure. The gold runs up to twenty dollars the cubic yard and is worth eighteen dollars an ounce.” + 

“When are you going?” + 

“I’m in no hurry. This year, next year, some time, never. No, not never. Call it some time.” + 

“And you want me to come, too?” + 

“I would give half of whatever there is in the mine to have you come. But things being as they are, well, I guess we can call it off. Is there any chance in the world, Kirk, of your ever ceasing to be a bloated capitalist? Could any of your stocks go back on you?” + 

“I doubt it. They’re pretty gilt-edged, I fancy, though I’ve never studied the question of stocks. My little goldmine isn’t in the same class with yours, but it’s as solid as a rock, and no fevers and insects attached to it, either.” + 

And now the goldmine had proved of less than rocklike solidity. The most gilt-edged of all the stocks had failed. The capitalist had become in one brief day the struggling artist. + 

Hank’s proposal seemed a good deal less fantastic now to Kirk as he prepared for his second onslaught, the grand attack, on the stronghold of those who bought art with gold. + 

XII + 

A Climax + 

One afternoon, about two weeks later, Kirk, returning to the studio from an unprofitable raid into the region of the dealers, found on the table a card bearing the name of Mrs. Robert Wilbur. This had been crossed out, and beneath it, in a straggly hand, the name Miss Wilbur had been written. + 

The phenomenon of a caller at the cell of the two hermits was so strange that he awaited Ruth’s arrival with more than his customary impatience. She would be able to identify the visitor. George Pennicut, questioned on the point, had no information of any value to impart. A very pretty young lady she was, said George, with what you might call a lively manner. She had seemed disappointed at finding nobody at home. No, she had left no message. + 

Ruth, arriving a few moments later, was met by Kirk with the card in his hand. + 

“Can you throw any light on this?” he said. “Who is Miss Wilbur, who has what you might call a lively manner and appears disappointed when she does not find us at home?” + 

Ruth looked at the card. + 

“Sybil Wilbur? I wonder what she wants.” + 

“Who is she? Let’s get that settled first.” + 

“Oh, she’s a girl I used to know. I haven’t seen her for two years. I thought she had forgotten my existence.” + 

“Call her up on the phone. If we don’t solve this mystery we shan’t sleep tonight. It’s like Robinson Crusoe and the footprint.” + 

Ruth went to the telephone. After a short conversation she turned to Kirk with sparkling eyes and the air of one with news to impart. + 

“Kirk! She wants you to paint her portrait!” + 

“What!” + 

“She’s engaged to Bailey! Just got engaged! And the first thing she does is to insist on his letting her come to you for her portrait,” Ruth bubbled with laughter. “It’s to be a birthday present for Bailey, and Bailey has got to pay for it. That’s so exactly like Sybil.” + 

“I hope the portrait will be. She’s taking chances.” + 

“I think it’s simply sweet of her. She’s a real friend.” + 

“At fairly long intervals, apparently. Did you say you had not seen her for two years?” + 

“She is an erratic little thing with an awfully good heart. I feel touched at her remembering us. Oh, Kirk, you must do a simply wonderful portrait, something that everybody will talk about, and then our fortune will be made! You will become the only painter that people will go to for their portraits.” + 

Kirk did not answer. His experiences of late had developed in him an unwonted mistrust of his powers. To this was added the knowledge that, except for an impressionist study of Ruth for private exhibition only, he had never attempted a portrait. To be called upon suddenly like this to show his powers gave him much the same feeling which he had experienced when called upon as a child to recite poetry before an audience. It was a species of stage fright. + 

But it was certainly a chance. Portrait-painting was an uncommonly lucrative line of business. His imagination, stirred by Ruth’s, saw visions of wealthy applicants turned away from the studio door owing to pressure of work on the part of the famous man for whose services they were bidding vast sums. + 

“By Jove!” he said thoughtfully. + 

Another aspect of the matter occurred to him. + 

“I wonder what Bailey thinks about it!” + 

“Oh, he’s probably so much in love with her that he doesn’t mind what she does. Besides, Bailey likes you.” + 

“Does he?” + 

“Oh, well, if he doesn’t, he will. This will bring you together.” + 

“I suppose he knows about it?” + 

“Oh, yes. Sybil said he did. It’s all settled. She will be here tomorrow for the first sitting.” + 

Kirk spoke the fear that was in his mind. + 

“Ruth, old girl, I’m horribly nervous about this. I am taken with a sort of second sight. I see myself making a ghastly failure of this job and Bailey knocking me down and refusing to come across with the cheque.” + 

“Sybil is bringing the cheque with her tomorrow,” said Ruth simply. + 

“Is she?” said Kirk. “Now I wonder if that makes it worse or better. I’m trying to think!” + 

Sybil Wilbur fluttered in next day at noon, a tiny, restless creature who darted about the studio like a hummingbird. She effervesced with the joy of life. She uttered little squeaks of delight at everything she saw. She hugged Ruth, beamed at Kirk, went wild over William Bannister, thought the studio too cute for words, insisted on being shown all over it, and talked incessantly. + 

It was about two o’clock before she actually began to sit, and even then she was no statue. A thought would come into her small head and she would whirl round to impart it to Ruth, destroying in a second the pose which it had taken Kirk ten painful minutes to fix. + 

Kirk was too amused to be irritated. She was such a friendly little soul and so obviously devoted to Ruth that he felt she was entitled to be a nuisance as a sitter. He wondered more and more what weird principle of selection had been at work to bring Bailey and this butterfly together. He had never given any deep thought to the study of his brother-in-law’s character; but, from his small knowledge of him, he would have imagined someone a trifle more substantial and serious as the ideal wife for him. Life, he conceived, was to Bailey a stately march. Sybil Wilbur evidently looked on it as a mad gallop. + 

Ruth felt the same. She was fond of Sybil, but she could not see her as the foreordained Mrs. Bailey. + 

“I suppose she swept him off his feet,” she said. “It just shows that you never really get to know a person even if you’re their sister. Bailey must have all sorts of hidden sides to his character which I never noticed⁠—unless she has. But I don’t think there is much of that about Sybil. She’s just a child. But she’s very amusing, isn’t she? She enjoys life so furiously.” + 

“I think Bailey will find her rather a handful. Does she ever sit still, by the way? If she is going to act right along as she did today this portrait will look like that cubist picture of the Dance at the Spring.” + 

As the sittings went on Miss Wilbur consented gradually to simmer down and the portrait progressed with a fair amount of speed. But Kirk was conscious every day of a growing sensation of panic. He was trying his very hardest, but it was bad work, and he knew it. + 

His hand had never had very much cunning, but what it had had it had lost in the years of his idleness. Every day showed him more clearly that the portrait of Miss Wilbur, on which so much depended, was an amateurish daub. He worked doggedly on, but his heart was cold with that chill that grips the artist when he looks on his work and sees it to be bad. + 

At last it was finished. Ruth thought it splendid. Sybil Wilbur pronounced it cute, as she did most things. Kirk could hardly bear to look at it. In its finished state it was worse than he could have believed possible. + 

In the old days he had been a fair painter with one or two bad faults. Now the faults seemed to have grown like weeds, choking whatever of merit he might once have possessed. This was a horrible production, and he was profoundly thankful when it was packed up and removed from the studio. But behind his thankfulness lurked the feeling that all was not yet over, that there was worse to come. + 

It came. + 

It was heralded by a tearful telephone call from Miss Wilbur, who rang up Ruth with the agitated information that “Bailey didn’t seem to like it.” And on the heels of the message came Bailey in person, pink from forehead to collar, and almost as wrathful as he had been on the great occasion of his first visit to the studio. His annoyance robbed his speech of its normal stateliness. He struck a colloquial note unusual with him. + 

“I guess you know what I’ve come about,” he said. + 

He had found Kirk alone in the studio, as ill luck would have it. In the absence of Ruth he ventured to speak more freely than he would have done in her presence. + 

“It’s an infernal outrage,” he went on. “I’ve been stung, and you know it.” + 

Kirk said nothing. His silence infuriated Bailey. + 

“It’s the portrait I’m speaking about⁠—the portrait, if you have the nerve to call it that, of Miss Wilbur. I was against her sitting to you from the first, but she insisted. Now she’s sorry.” + 

“It’s as bad as all that, is it?” said Kirk dully. He felt curiously indisposed to fight. A listlessness had gripped him. He was even a little sorry for Bailey. He saw his point of view and sympathized with it. + 

“Yes,” said Bailey fiercely. “It is, and you know it.” + 

Kirk nodded. Bailey was quite right. He did know it. + 

“It’s a joke,” went on Bailey shrilly. “I can’t hang it up. People would laugh at it. And to think that I paid you all that money for it. I could have got a real artist for half the price.” + 

“That is easily remedied,” said Kirk. “I will send you a cheque tomorrow.” + 

Bailey was not to be appeased. The venom of more than three years cried out for utterance. He had always held definite views upon Kirk, and Heaven had sent him the opportunity of expressing them. + 

“Yes, I dare say,” he said contemptuously. “That would settle the whole thing, wouldn’t it? What do you think you are⁠—a millionaire? Talking as if that amount of money made no difference to you? Where does my sister come in? How about Ruth? You sneak her away from her home and then⁠—” + 

Kirk’s lethargy left him. He flushed. + 

“I think that will be about all, Bannister?” he said. He spoke quietly, but his voice trembled. + 

But Bailey’s long-dammed hatred, having at last found an outlet, was not to be checked in a moment. + 

“Will it? Will it? The hell it will. Let me tell you that I came here to talk straight to you, and I’m going to do it. It’s about time you had your darned dime-novel romance shown up to you the way it strikes somebody else. You think you’re a tremendous dashing twentieth-century Young Lochinvar, don’t you? You thought you had done a pretty smooth bit of work when you sneaked Ruth away! You! You haven’t enough backbone in you even to make a bluff at working to support her. You’re just what my father said you were⁠—a loafer who pretends to be an artist. You’ve got away with it up to now, but you’ve shown yourself up at last. You damned waster!” + 

Kirk walked to the door and flung it open. + 

“You’re perfectly right, Bannister,” he said quietly. “Everything you have said is quite true. And now would you mind going?” + 

“I’ve not finished yet.” + 

“Yes, you have.” + 

Bailey hesitated. The first time frenzy had left him, and he was beginning to be a little ashamed of himself for having expressed his views in a manner which, though satisfying, was, he felt, less dignified than he could have wished. + 

He looked at Kirk, who was standing stiffly by the door. Something in his attitude decided Bailey to leave well alone. Such had been his indignation that it was only now that for the first time it struck him that his statement of opinion had not been made without considerable bodily danger to himself. Jarred nerves had stood him in the stead of courage; but now his nerves were soothed and he saw things clearly. + 

He choked down what he had intended to say and walked out. Kirk closed the door softly behind him and began to pace the studio floor as he had done on that night when Ruth had fought for her life in the room upstairs. + 

His mind worked slowly at first. Then, as it cleared, he began to think more and more rapidly, till the thoughts leaped and ran like tongues of fire scorching him. + 

It was all true. That was what hurt. Every word that Bailey had flung at him had been strictly just. + 

He had thought himself a fine, romantic fellow. He was a waster and a loafer who pretended to be an artist. He had thrown away the little talent he had once possessed. He had behaved shamefully to Ruth, shirking his responsibilities and idling through life. He realized it now, when it was too late. + 

Suddenly through the chaos of his reflections there shone out clearly one coherent thought, the recollection of what Hank Jardine had offered to him. “If ever you are in a real tight corner⁠—” + 

His brain cleared. He sat down calmly to wait for Ruth. His mind was made up. Hank’s offer was the way out, the only way out, and he must take it. + 