truth; and she was aware that the minds of the two men, their
temperaments, were naturally antagonistic.
Kirk's reception of the news relieved her.
'Of course,' he said. 'He couldn't do anything else. He knew nothing of
me except that I was a kind of man with whom he was quite out of
sympathy. He mistrusted all artists, I expect, in a bunch. And, anyway,
an artist is pretty sure to be a bad man of business. He would know
that. And, and, well, what I mean is, it strikes me as a very sensible
arrangement. Why are we stopping here?'
The car had drawn up before a large house on the upper avenue, one of
those houses which advertise affluence with as little reticence as a
fat diamond solitaire.
'We live here,' said Ruth, laughing.
Kirk drew a long breath.
'Do we? By George!' he exclaimed. 'I see it's going to take me quite a
while to get used to this state of things.'
A thought struck him.
'How about the studio? Have you got rid of it?'
'Of course not. The idea! After the perfect times we had there! We're
going to keep it on as an annex. Every now and then, when we are tired
of being rich, we'll creep off there and boil eggs over the gas-stove
and pretend we are just ordinary persons again.'
'And oftener than every now and then this particular plutocrat is going
to creep off there and try to teach himself to paint pictures.'
Ruth nodded.
'Yes, I think you ought to have a hobby. It's good for you.'
Kirk said nothing. But it was not as a hobby that he was regarding his
painting. He had come to a knowledge of realities in the wilderness and
to an appreciation of the fact that he had a soul which could not be
kept alive except by honest work.
He had the decent man's distaste for living on his wife's money. He
supposed it was inevitable that a certain portion of it must go to his
support, but he was resolved that there should be in the sight of the
gods who look down on human affairs at least a reasonable excuse for
his existence. If work could make him anything approaching a real
artist, he would become one.
Meanwhile he was quite willing that Ruth should look upon his life-work
as a pleasant pastime to save him from ennui. Even to his wife a man is
not always eager to exhibit his soul in its nakedness.
'By the way,' said Ruth, 'you won't find George Pennicut at the studio.
He has gone back to England.'
'I'm sorry. I liked George.'
'He liked you. He left all sorts of messages. He nearly wept when he
said good-bye. But he wouldn't stop. In a burst of confidence he told
me what the trouble was. Our blue sky had got on his nerves. He wanted
a London drizzle again. He said the thought of it made him homesick.'
Kirk entered the house thoughtfully. Somehow this last piece of news
had put the coping-stone on the edifice of his, his what? Depression? It
was hardly that. No, it was rather a kind of vague regret for the life
