The Coming of Bill

suited his temperament. But they had never lost touch with each other.

And now it was all over. They would meet again, but it would not be the

same. The angel with the flaming sword stood between them.

For the first time since the delirium of marriage had seized upon him,

Kirk was conscious of a feeling that all was not for the best in a best

of all possible worlds, a feeling of regret, not that he had married , the

mere thought would have been a blasphemy , but that marriage was such a

complicated affair. He liked a calm life, free from complications, and

now they were springing up on every side.

There was the matter of the models. Kirk had supposed that it was only

in the comic papers that the artist's wife objected to his employing

models. He had classed it with the mother-in-law joke, respecting it

for its antiquity, but not imagining that it ever really happened. And

Ruth had brought this absurd situation into the sphere of practical

politics only a few days ago.

Since his marriage Kirk had dropped his work almost entirely. There had

seemed to be no time for it. He liked to spend his days going round the

stores with Ruth, buying her things, or looking in at the windows of

Fifth Avenue shops and choosing what he would buy her when he had made

his fortune. It was agreed upon between them that he was to make his

fortune some day.

Kirk's painting had always been more of a hobby with him than a

profession. He knew that he had talent, but talent without hard work is

a poor weapon, and he had always shirked hard work. He had an instinct

for colour, but his drawing was uncertain. He hated linework, while

knowing that only through steady practice at linework could he achieve

his artistic salvation. He was an amateur, and a lazy amateur.

But once in a while the work fever would grip him. It had gripped him a

few days before Hank's visit. An idea for a picture had come to him,

and he had set to work upon it with his usual impulsiveness.

This had involved the arrival of Miss Hilda Vince at the studio. There

was no harm in Miss Vince. Her morals were irreproachable. She

supported a work-shy father, and was engaged to be married to a young

gentleman who travelled for a hat firm. But she was of a chatty

disposition and no respecter of persons. She had posed frequently for

Kirk in his bachelor days, and was accustomed to call him by his first

name , a fact which Kirk had forgotten until Ruth, who had been out in

the park, came in.

Miss Vince was saying at the moment: 'So I says to her, 'Kirk's just

phoned to me to sit.' 'What! Kirk!' she says. 'Is he doin' a bit

of work for a change? Well, it's about time.' 'Aw, Kirk don't need to

work,' I says. 'He's a plute. He's got it in gobs.' So......'

'I didn't know you were busy, dear,' said Ruth. 'I won't interrupt

you.'

She went out.

'Was that your wife?' inquired Miss Vince. 'She's got a sweet face.

Say, I read the piece about you and her in the paper. You certainly got

a nerve, Kirk, breaking in on the millionaires that way.'

That night Ruth spoke her mind about Miss Vince. It was in vain that