The White Hope had gone to sleep again with the amazing speed of
childhood, and Mamie was looking pityingly at the bedraggled object
which had emerged cautiously from behind the waterproof.
'I got mine,' muttered Steve ruefully. 'You ain't got a towel anywhere,
have you, Mame?'
Mamie produced a towel and watched him apologetically as he attempted
to dry himself.
'I'm so sorry, Steve.'
'Cut it out. It was my fault. I oughtn't to have been there. Say, it
was a bit of luck the kid waking just then.'
'Yes,' said Mamie.
Observe the tricks that conscience plays us. If Mamie had told Steve
what had caused William to wake he would certainly have been so charmed
by her presence of mind, exerted on his behalf to save him from the
warm fate which Mrs. Porter's unconscious hand had been about to bring
down upon him, that he would have forgotten his diffidence then and
there and, as the poet has it, have eased his bosom of much perilous
stuff.
But conscience would not allow Mamie to reveal the secret. Already she
was suffering the pangs of remorse for having, in however good a cause,
broken her idol's rest with a push that might have given the poor lamb
a headache. She could not confess the crime even to Steve.
And if Steve had had the pluck to tell Mamie that he loved her, as
he stood before her dripping with the water which he had suffered
in silence rather than betray her, she would have fallen into his
arms. For Steve at that moment had all the glamour for her of the
self-sacrificing hero of a moving-picture film. He had not actually
risked death for her, perhaps, but he had taken a sudden cold
shower-bath without a murmur, all for her.
Mamie was thrilled. She looked at him with the gleaming eyes of
devotion.
But Steve, just because he knew that he was wet and fancied that he
must look ridiculous, held his peace.
And presently, his secret still locked in his bosom, and his collar
sticking limply to his neck, he crept downstairs, avoiding the society
of his fellow man, and slunk out into the night where, if there was no
Mamie, there were, at any rate, dry clothes.
The new life hit Kirk as a wave hits a bather; and, like a wave, swept
him off his feet, choked him, and generally filled him with a feeling
of discomfort.
He should have been prepared for it, but he was not. He should have
divined from the first that the money was bound to produce changes
other than a mere shifting of headquarters from
Ruth was different from other women, that she was superior to the
artificial pleasures of the Society which is distinguished by the big
S.
