slipped with a smooth neatness born of experience.
Bailey hated Basil. Men, as a rule, did, without knowing why. Basil's
reputation was shady, without being actually bad. He was a suspect who
had never been convicted. New York contained several husbands who eyed
him askance, but could not verify their suspicions, and the apparent
hopelessness of ever doing so made them look on Basil as a man who had
carried smoothness into the realms of fine art. He was considered too
gifted to be wholesome. The men of his set, being for the most part
amiably stupid, resented his cleverness.
Bailey, just at present, was feeling strongly on the subject of Basil.
He was at that stage of his married life when he would have preferred
his Sybil to speak civilly to no other man than himself. And only
yesterday Sybil had come to him to inform him with obvious delight that
Basil Milbank had invited her to join his yacht party for a lengthy
voyage.
This had stung Bailey. He was not included in the invitation. The whole
affair struck him as sinister. It was true that Sybil had never shown
any sign of being fascinated by Basil; but, he told himself, there was
no knowing. He forbade Sybil to accept the invitation. To soothe her
disappointment, he sent her off then and there to Tiffany's with a
roving commission to get what she liked; for Bailey, the stern, strong
man, the man who knew when to put his foot down, was no tyrant. But he
would have been indignant at the suggestion that he had bribed Sybil to
refuse Basil's invitation.
One of the arguments which Sybil had advanced in the brief discussion
which had followed the putting down of Bailey's foot had been that Ruth
had been invited and accepted, so why should not she? Bailey had not
replied to this, it was at this point of the proceedings that the
Tiffany motive had been introduced, but he had not forgotten it. He
thought it over, and decided to call upon Ruth. He did so.
It was unfortunate that the nervous strain of being the Napoleon of
Wall Street had had the effect of increasing to a marked extent the
portentousness of Bailey's always portentous manner. Ruth rebelled
against it. There was an insufferable suggestion of ripe old age and
fatherliness in his attitude which she found irritating in the extreme.
All her life she had chafed at authority, and now, when Bailey set
himself up as one possessing it, she showed the worst side of herself
to him.
He struck this unfortunate note from the very beginning.
'Ruth,' he said, 'I wish to speak seriously to you.'
Ruth looked at him with hostile eyes, but did not speak. He did not
know it, poor man, but he had selected an exceedingly bad moment for
his lecture. It so happened that, only half an hour before, she and
Kirk had come nearer to open warfare than they had ever come.
It had come about in this way. Kirk had slept badly the night before,
and, as he lay awake in the small hours, his conscience had troubled
him.
Had he done all that it was in him to do to bridge the gap between Ruth
and himself? That was what his conscience had wanted to know. The
