As for his work, he could do that as well in the woods as in New York.
And, anyhow, he had earned a vacation. For days Mr. Penway had been
hinting that the time had arrived for a folding of the hands.
Mr. Penway's views on New York and its record humidity were strong and
crisply expressed. His idea, he told Kirk, was that some sport with a
heart should loan him a couple of hundred bucks and let him beat it to
the seashore before he melted.
In the drawing-room Ruth was playing the piano softly, as she had done
so often at the studio. Kirk went to her and kissed her. A marked
coolness in her reception of the kiss increased the feeling of
nervousness which he had felt at the sight of her. It came back to him
that they had parted that afternoon, for the first time, on definitely
hostile terms.
He decided to ignore the fact. Something told him that Ruth had not
forgotten, but it might be that cheerfulness now would blot out the
resentment of past irritability.
But in his embarrassment he was more than cheerful. As Steve had been
on the occasion of his visit to old John Bannister, he was breezy,
breezy with an effort that was as painful to Ruth as it was to himself,
breezy with a horrible musical comedy breeziness.
He could have adopted no more fatal tone with Ruth at that moment. All
the afternoon she had been a complicated tangle of fretted nerves. Her
quarrel with Kirk, Bailey's visit, a conscience that would not lie down
and go to sleep at her orders, but insisted on running riot, all these
things had unfitted her to bear up amiably under sudden, self-conscious
breeziness.
And the heat of the day, charged now with the oppressiveness of
long-overdue thunder, completed her mood. When Kirk came in and began
to speak, the softest notes of the human voice would have jarred upon
her. And Kirk, in his nervousness, was almost shouting.
His voice rang through the room, and Ruth winced away from it like a
stricken thing. From out of the hell of nerves and heat and interfering
brothers there materialized itself, as she sat there, a very vivid
hatred of Kirk.
Kirk, meanwhile, uneasy, but a little guessing at the fury behind
Ruth's calm face, was expounding his great scheme, his panacea for all
the ills of domestic misunderstandings and parted lives.
'Ruth, old girl.'
Ruth shuddered.
'Ruth, old girl, I've had a bully good idea. It's getting too warm for
anything in New York. Did you ever feel anything like it is to-day? Why
shouldn't you and I pop down to the shack and camp out there for a week
or so? And we would take Bill with us. Just we three, with somebody to
do the cooking. It would be great. What do you say?'
What Ruth said languidly was: 'It's quite impossible.'
It was damping; but Kirk felt that at all costs he must refuse to be
damped. He clutched at his cheerfulness and held it.
'Nonsense,' he retorted. 'Why is it impossible? It's a great idea.'
Ruth half hid a yawn. She knew she was behaving abominably, and she was
glad of it.
