He could have adopted no more fatal tone with Ruth at that moment. All the afternoon she had been a complicated tangle of fretted nerves. Her quarrel with Kirk, Bailey’s visit, a conscience that would not lie down and go to sleep at her orders, but insisted on running riot—all these things had unfitted her to bear up amiably under sudden, self-conscious breeziness.
And the heat of the day, charged now with the oppressiveness of long-overdue thunder, completed her mood. When Kirk came in and began to speak, the softest notes of the human voice would have jarred upon her. And Kirk, in his nervousness, was almost shouting.
His voice rang through the room, and Ruth winced away from it like a stricken thing. From out of the hell of nerves and heat and interfering brothers there materialized itself, as she sat there, a very vivid hatred of Kirk.
Kirk, meanwhile, uneasy, but a little guessing at the fury behind Ruth’s calm face, was expounding his great scheme, his panacea for all the ills of domestic misunderstandings and parted lives.
“Ruth, old girl.”
Ruth shuddered.
“Ruth, old girl, I’ve had a bully good idea. It’s getting too warm for anything in New York. Did you ever feel anything like it is today? Why shouldn’t you and I pop down to the shack and camp out there for a week or so? And we would take Bill with us. Just we three, with somebody to do the cooking. It would be great. What do you say?”
What Ruth said languidly was: “It’s quite impossible.”
It was damping; but Kirk felt that at all costs he must refuse to be damped. He clutched at his cheerfulness and held it.
“Nonsense,” he retorted. “Why is it impossible? It’s a great idea.”
Ruth half hid a yawn. She knew she was behaving abominably, and she was glad of it.
“It’s impossible as far as I’m concerned. I have a hundred things to do before I can leave New York.”
“Well, I could do with a day or two to clear up a few bits of work I have on hand. Why couldn’t we start this day week?”
“It is out of the question for me. About then I shall be on Mr. Milbank’s yacht. He has invited me to join his party. The actual day is not settled, but it will be in about a week’s time.”
“Oh!” said Kirk.
Ruth said nothing.
“Have you accepted the invitation?”
“I have not actually answered his letter. I was just going to when you came in.”
“But you mean to accept it?”
“Certainly. Several of my friends will be there. Sybil for one.”
“Not Sybil.”
“Oh, I know Bailey has made some ridiculous objection to her going, but I mean to persuade her.”
Kirk did not answer. She looked at him steadily.
“So Bailey did call on you this afternoon? He told me he was going to, but I hoped he would think better of it. But apparently there are no limits to Bailey’s stupidity.”
“Yes, Bailey came to the studio. He seemed troubled about this yacht party.”
“Did he advise you to forbid me to go?”
“Well, yes; he did.”
“And now you have come to do it?”
“Not at all. I told Bailey that you were not the sort of woman one forbade to do things.”
“I’m not.”
There was a pause.
“All the same, I wish you wouldn’t go.”
Ruth did not answer.
“It would be very jolly out at the shack.”
Ruth shuddered elaborately and gave a little laugh.
“Would it? It’s rather a question of taste. Personally, I can’t imagine anything more depressing and uncomfortable than being cooped up in a draughty frame house miles away from anywhere. There’s no reason why you should not go, though, if you like that sort of thing. Of course, you must not take Bill.”
“Why not?”
Kirk spoke calmly enough, but he was very near the breaking point. All his good resolutions had vanished under the acid of Ruth’s manner.
“I couldn’t let him rough it like that. Aunt Lora would have a fit.”
Conditions being favourable, it only needs a spark to explode a powder magazine; and there are moments when a word can turn an outwardly calm and patient man into a raging maniac. This introduction of Mrs. Porter’s name into the discussion at this particular point broke down the last remnants of Kirk’s self-control.
For a few seconds his fury so mastered him that he could not speak. Then, suddenly, the storm passed and he found himself cool and venomous. He looked at Ruth curiously. It seemed incredible to him that he had ever loved her.
“We had better get this settled,” he said in a hard, quiet voice.
Ruth started. She had never heard him speak like this before. She had not imagined him capable of speaking in that way. Even in the days when she had loved him most she had never looked up to him. She had considered his nature weak, and she had loved his weakness. Except in the case of her father, she had always dominated the persons with whom she mixed; and she had taken it for granted that her will was stronger than Kirk’s. Something in his voice now told her that she had underestimated him.
“Get what settled?” she asked, and was furious with herself because her voice shook.
“Is Mrs. Porter the mother of the child, or are you? What has Mrs. Porter to do with it? Why should I ask her permission? How does it happen to be any business of Mrs. Porter’s at all?”
Ruth felt baffled. He was giving her no chance to take the offensive. There was nothing in his tone which she could openly resent. He was not shouting at her, he was speaking quietly. There was nothing for her to do but answer the question, and she knew that her answer would give him another point in the contest. Even as she spoke she knew that her words were ridiculous.
“Aunt Lora has been wonderful with him. No child could have been better
