Bailey rose, pink and wrathful.
'If you're going to break another vase,' said Ruth, 'you will really
have to go.'
'Ever since that...that......' cried Bailey. 'Ever since Aunt Lora......'
Ruth smiled indulgently.
'That's more like my little man,' she said. 'He knows as well as I do
how wrong it is to swear.'
'Be quiet! Ever since Aunt Lora got hold of you, I say, you have become
a sort of gramophone, spouting her opinions.'
'But what sensible opinions!'
'It's got to stop. Aunt Lora! My God! Who is she? Just look at her
record. She disgraces the family by marrying a grubby newspaper fellow
called Porter. He has the sense to die. I will say that for him. She
thrusts herself into public notice by a series of books and speeches on
subjects of which a decent woman ought to know nothing. And now she
gets hold of you, fills you up with her disgusting nonsense, makes a
sort of disciple of you, gives you absurd ideas, poisons your mind,
and, er...er......-'
'Bailey! This is positive eloquence!'
'It's got to stop. It's bad enough in her; but every one knows she is
crazy, and makes allowances. But in a young girl like you.'
He choked.
'In a young girl like me,' prompted Ruth in a low, tragic voice.
'It, it's not right. It, it's not proper.' He drew a long breath. 'It's
all wrong. It's got to stop.'
'He's perfectly wonderful!' murmured Ruth. 'He just opens his mouth and
the words come out. But I knew he was somebody, directly I saw him, by
his forehead. Like a dome!' Bailey mopped the dome.
'Perhaps you don't know it,' he said, 'but you're getting yourself
talked about. You go about saying perfectly impossible things to
people. You won't marry. You have refused nearly every friend I have.'
Ruth shuddered.
'Your friends are awful, Bailey. They are all turned out on a pattern,
like a flock of sheep. They bleat. They have all got little, narrow
faces without chins or big, fat faces without foreheads. Ugh!'
'None of them good enough for you, is that it?'
'Not nearly.'
Emotion rendered Bailey, for him, almost vulgar.
'I guess you hate yourself!' he snapped.
'No sir' beamed Ruth. 'I think I'm perfectly beautiful.'
Bailey grunted. Ruth came to him and gave him a sisterly kiss. She was
very fond of Bailey, though she declined to reverence him.
'Cheer up, Bailey boy,' she said. 'Don't you worry yourself. There's a
method in my madness. I'll find him sooner or later, and then you'll be
glad I waited.'
'Him? what do you mean?'
'Why, him, of course. The ideal young man. That's who, or is it
whom?, I'm waiting for. Bailey, shall I tell you something? You're so
scarlet already, poor boy, you ought not to rush around in this hot
