“I start to go out after him with his raincoat, thinking he’d get wet before he could find a cab, they being so scarce in this city, not like London, where you simply ’ave to raise your ’and to ’ave a dozen flocking round you, but he don’t stop; he just goes walking off through the rain and all, and I gets back into the house, not wishing to be wetted myself on account of my rheumatism, which is always troublesome in the damp weather. And I says to myself: ‘ ’Ullo, ’ullo, ’ullo, what’s all this?’
“See what I mean? I could tell as plain as if I’d been in the room with them that they had been having words. And since that day ’e ain’t been near the ’ouse, and where he is now is more than I can tell you, Mr. Dingle.”
“Why, he’s at the studio.”
“At the studio, is he? Well, I shouldn’t wonder if he wasn’t better off. ’E didn’t strike me as a man what was used to the ways of society. He’s happier where he is, I expect.”
And, having summed matters up in this philosophical manner, Keggs drained his glass and cocked an expectant eye at Steve.
Steve obeyed the signal and ordered a further supply of the beer for which Mr. Keggs had a plebian and unbutlerlike fondness. His companion turned the conversation to the prospects of one of that group of inefficient middleweights whom Steve so heartily despised, between whom and another of the same degraded band a ten-round contest had been arranged and would shortly take place.
Ordinarily this would have been a subject on which Steve would have found plenty to say, but his mind was occupied with what he had just heard, and he sat silent while the silver-haired patron of sport opposite prattled on respecting current form.
Steve felt stunned. It was unthinkable that this thing had really occurred.
Mr. Keggs, sipping beer, discussed the coming fight. He weighed the alleged left hook of one principal against the much-advertised right swing of the other. He spoke with apprehension of a yellow streak which certain purists claimed to have discovered in the gladiator on whose chances he proposed to invest his cash.
Steve was not listening to him. A sudden thought had come to him, filling his mind to the exclusion of all else.
The recollection of his talk with Kirk at the studio had come back to him. He had advised Kirk, as a solution of his difficulties, to kidnap the child and take him to Connecticut. Well, Kirk was out of the running now, but he, Steve, was still in it.
He would do it himself.
The idea thrilled him. It was so in keeping with his theory of the virtue of the swift and immediate punch, administered with the minimum of preliminary sparring. There was a risk attached to the scheme which appealed to him. Above all, he honestly believed that it would achieve its object, the straightening out of the tangle which Ruth and Kirk had made of their lives.
When once an idea had entered Steve’s head he was tenacious of it. He had come to the decision that Ruth needed what he called a jolt to bring her to herself, much as a sleepwalker is aroused by the touch of a hand, and he clung to it.
He interrupted Mr. Keggs in the middle of a speech touching on his man’s alleged yellow streak.
“Will you be at home tonight, colonel?” he asked.
“I certainly will, Mr. Dingle.”
“Mind if I look in?”
“I shall be delighted. I can offer you a cigar that I think you’ll appreciate, and we can continue this little chat at our leisure. Mrs. Winfield’s dining out, and that there Porter, thank Gawd, ’as gone to Boston.”
IX
At One in the Morning
William Bannister Winfield slept the peaceful sleep of childhood in his sterilized cot. The light gleamed faintly on the white tiles. It lit up the brass knobs on the walls, the spotless curtains, the large thermometer.
An intruder, interested in these things, would have seen by a glance at this last that the temperature of the room was exactly that recommended by doctors as the correct temperature for the nursery of a sleeping child; no higher, no lower. The transom over the door was closed, but the window was open at the top to precisely the extent advocated by the authorities, due consideration having been taken for the time of year and the condition of the outer atmosphere.
The hour was one in the morning.
Childhood is a readily adaptable time of life, and William Bannister, after a few days of blank astonishment, varied by open mutiny, had accepted the change in his surroundings and daily existence with admirable philosophy. His memory was not far-reaching, and, as time went on and he began to accommodate himself to the new situation, he had gradually forgotten the days at the studio, as, it is to be supposed, he had forgotten the clouds of glory which he had trailed on his entry into this world. If memories of past bear-hunts among the canvases on the dusty floor ever came to him now, he never mentioned it.
A child can weave romance into any condition of life in which fate places him; and William Bannister had managed to interest himself in his present existence with a considerable gusto. Scraps of conversation between Mrs. Porter and Mamie, overheard and digested, had given him a good working knowledge of the system of hygiene of which he was the centre. He was vague as to details, but not vaguer than most
