He caught Bill to him in a grip that made the child cry out, held him
for a long minute, then put him gently down and made blindly for the
door.
The storm had burst by the time Kirk found himself in the street. The
thunder crashed and great spears of lightning flashed across the sky. A
few heavy drops heralded the approach of the rain, and before he had
reached the corner it was beating down in torrents.
He walked on, raising his face to the storm, finding in it a curious
relief. A magical coolness had crept into the air, and with it a
strange calm into his troubled mind. He looked back at the scene
through which he had passed as at something infinitely remote. He could
not realize distinctly what had happened. He was only aware that
everything was over, that with a few words he had broken his life into
small pieces. Too impatient to unravel the tangled knot, he had cut it,
and nothing could mend it now.
'Why?'
The rain had ceased as suddenly as it had begun. The sun was struggling
through a mass of thin cloud over the park. The world was full of the
drip and rush of water. All that had made the day oppressive and
strained nerves to breaking point had gone, leaving peace behind. Kirk
felt like one waking from an evil dream.
'Why did it happen?' he asked himself. 'What made me do it?'
A distant rumble of thunder answered the question.
It is an unfortunate fact that, when a powder-magazine explodes, the
damage is not confined to the person who struck the match, but extends
to the innocent bystanders. In the present case it was Steve Dingle who
sustained the worst injuries.
Of the others who might have been affected, Mrs. Lora Delane Porter was
bomb-proof. No explosion in her neighbourhood could shake her. She
received the news of Kirk's outbreak with composure. Privately, in her
eugenic heart, she considered his presence superfluous now that William
Bannister was safely launched upon his career.
In the drama of which she was the self-appointed stage-director, Kirk
was a mere super supporting the infant star. Her great mind, occupied
almost entirely by the past and the future, took little account of the
present. So long as Kirk did not interfere with her management of Bill,
he was at liberty, so far as she was concerned, to come or go as he
pleased.
Steve could not imitate her admirable detachment. He was a poor
philosopher, and all that his mind could grasp was that Kirk was in
trouble and that Ruth had apparently gone mad.
The affair did not come to his ears immediately. He visited the studio
at frequent intervals and found Kirk there, working hard and showing no
signs of having passed through a crisis which had wrecked his life. He
was quiet, it is true, but then he was apt to be quiet nowadays.
Probably, if it had not been for Keggs, he would have been kept in
ignorance of what had happened for a time.
Walking one evening up Broadway, he met Keggs taking the air and
observing the night-life of New York like himself.
