Marrying Ruth did not involve obligations. He had never considered her
in that light, but perhaps she was a girl who had to be protected from
herself. She was certainly impulsive. Bailey had been right there, if
nowhere else.
Who was this fellow Milbank who had sprung suddenly from nowhere into
the position of a menace? What were Ruth's feelings toward him? Kirk
threw his mind back to the dinner-party at Bailey's and tried to place
him.
Was it the man, yes, he had it now. It was the man with the wave of
hair over his forehead, the fellow who looked like a poet. Memory came
to him with a rush. He recalled his instinctive dislike for the fellow.
So that was Milbank, was it? He got up and put away his brushes. There
would be no more work for him that afternoon.
He walked slowly home. The heat of the day had grown steadily more
oppressive. It was one of those airless, stifling afternoons which
afflict New York in the summer. He remembered seeing something about a
record in the evening paper which he had bought on his way to the
studio, a whole column about heat and humidity. It certainly felt
unusually warm even for New York.
It was one of those days when nerves are strained, when molehills
become mountains, and mountains are all Everests. He had felt it when
he talked with Ruth about Bill and the squirrels, and he felt it now.
He was conscious of being extraordinarily irritated, not so much with
any particular person as with the world in general. The very vagueness
of Bailey's insinuations against Basil Milbank increased his
resentment.
What a pompous ass Bailey was! What a fool he had been to give Bailey
such a chance of snubbing him! What an extraordinarily futile and
unpleasant world it was altogether!
He braced himself with an effort. It was this heat which was making him
magnify trifles. Bailey was a fool. Probably there was nothing whatever
wrong with this fellow Milbank. Probably he had some personal objection
to the man, and that was all.
And yet the image of Basil which had come back to his mind was not
reassuring. He had mistrusted him that night, and he mistrusted him
now.
What should he do? Ruth was not Sybil. She was not the sort of woman a
man could forbid to do things. It would require tact to induce her to
refuse Basil's invitation.
As he reached the door an idea came to him, so simple that he wondered
that it had not occurred to him before. It was, perhaps, an echo of his
conversation with Steve.
He would get Ruth to come away with him to the shack in the Connecticut
woods. As he dwelt on the idea the heat of the day seemed to become
less oppressive and his heart leaped. How cool and pleasant it would be
out there! They would take Bill with them and live the simple life
again, in the country this time instead of in town. Perhaps out there,
far away from the over-crowded city, he and Ruth would be able to come
to an understanding and bridge over that ghastly gulf.
