herself had had her head turned quite as completely by the new life.
The first time that Kirk realized this was when he came upon an article
in a Sunday paper, printed around a blurred caricature which professed
to be a photograph of Mrs. Kirk Winfield, in which she was alluded to
with reverence and gusto as one of society's leading hostesses. In the
course of the article reference was made to no fewer than three freak
dinners of varying ingenuity which she had provided for her delighted
friends.
It was this that staggered Kirk. That Mrs. Bailey should indulge in
this particular form of insanity was intelligible. But that Ruth should
have descended to it was another thing altogether.
He did not refer to the article when he met Ruth, but he was more than
ever conscious of the gap between them, the gap which was widening
every day.
The experiences he had undergone during the year of his wandering had
strengthened Kirk considerably, but nature is not easily expelled; and
the constitutional weakness of character which had hampered him through
life prevented him from making any open protests or appeal. Moreover,
he could understand now her point of view, and that disarmed him.
He saw how this state of things had come about. In a sense, it was the
natural state of things. Ruth had been brought up in certain
surroundings. Her love for him, new and overwhelming, had enabled her
to free herself temporarily from these surroundings and to become
reconciled to a life for which, he told himself, she had never been
intended. Fate had thrown her back into her natural sphere. And now she
revelled in the old environment as an exile revels in the life of the
homeland from which he has been so long absent.
That was the crux of the tragedy. Ruth was at home. He was not. Ruth
was among her own people. He was a stranger among strangers, a prisoner
in a land where men spoke with an alien tongue.
There was nothing to be done. The gods had played one of their
practical jokes, and he must join in the laugh against himself and try
to pretend that he was not hurt.
Kirk sat in the nursery with his chin on his hands, staring gloomily
at William Bannister. On the floor William Bannister played some game
of his own invention with his box of bricks.
They were alone. It was the first time they had been alone together for
two weeks. As a rule, when Kirk paid his daily visit, Lora Delane
Porter was there, watchful and forbidding, prepared, on the slightest
excuse, to fall upon him with rules and prohibitions. To-day she was
out, and Kirk had the field to himself, for Mamie, whose duty it was to
mount guard, and who had been threatened with many terrible things by
Mrs. Porter if she did not stay on guard, had once more allowed her too
sympathetic nature to get the better of her and had vanished.
Kirk was too dispirited to take advantage of his good fortune. He had a
sense of being there on parole, of being on his honour not to touch. So
he sat in his chair, and looked at Bill; while Bill, crooning to
himself, played decorously with bricks.
