Ruth smiled indulgently.
“That’s more like my little man,” she said. “He knows as well as I do how wrong it is to swear.”
“Be quiet! Ever since Aunt Lora got hold of you, I say, you have become a sort of gramophone, spouting her opinions.”
“But what sensible opinions!”
“It’s got to stop. Aunt Lora! My God! Who is she? Just look at her record. She disgraces the family by marrying a grubby newspaper fellow called Porter. He has the sense to die. I will say that for him. She thrusts herself into public notice by a series of books and speeches on subjects of which a decent woman ought to know nothing. And now she gets hold of you, fills you up with her disgusting nonsense, makes a sort of disciple of you, gives you absurd ideas, poisons your mind, and—er—er—”
“Bailey! This is positive eloquence!”
“It’s got to stop. It’s bad enough in her; but everyone knows she is crazy, and makes allowances. But in a young girl like you.”
He choked.
“In a young girl like me,” prompted Ruth in a low, tragic voice.
“It—it’s not right. It—it’s not proper.” He drew a long breath. “It’s all wrong. It’s got to stop.”
“He’s perfectly wonderful!” murmured Ruth. “He just opens his mouth and the words come out. But I knew he was somebody, directly I saw him, by his forehead. Like a dome!” Bailey mopped the dome.
“Perhaps you don’t know it,” he said, “but you’re getting yourself talked about. You go about saying perfectly impossible things to people. You won’t marry. You have refused nearly every friend I have.”
Ruth shuddered.
“Your friends are awful, Bailey. They are all turned out on a pattern, like a flock of sheep. They bleat. They have all got little, narrow faces without chins or big, fat faces without foreheads. Ugh!”
“None of them good enough for you, is that it?”
“Not nearly.”
Emotion rendered Bailey—for him—almost vulgar.
“I guess you hate yourself!” he snapped.
“No sir” beamed Ruth. “I think I’m perfectly beautiful.”
Bailey grunted. Ruth came to him and gave him a sisterly kiss. She was very fond of Bailey, though she declined to reverence him.
“Cheer up, Bailey boy,” she said. “Don’t you worry yourself. There’s a method in my madness. I’ll find him sooner or later, and then you’ll be glad I waited.”
“Him? what do you mean?”
“Why, him, of course. The ideal young man. That’s who—or is it whom?—I’m waiting for. Bailey, shall I tell you something? You’re so scarlet already—poor boy, you ought not to rush around in this hot weather—that it won’t make you blush. It’s this. I’m ambitious. I mean to marry the finest man in the world and have the greatest little old baby you ever dreamed of. By the way, now I remember, I told Clarence that.”
Bailey uttered a strangled exclamation.
“It has made you blush! You turned purple. Well, now you know. I mean my baby to be the most splendid baby that was ever born. He’s going to be strong and straight and clever and handsome, and—oh, everything else you can think of. That’s why I’m waiting for the ideal young man. If I don’t find him I shall die an old maid. But I shall find him. We may pass each other on Fifth Avenue. We may sit next each other at a theatre. Wherever it is, I shall just reach right out and grab him and whisk him away. And if he’s married already, he’ll have to get a divorce. And I shan’t care who he is. He may be anyone. I don’t mind if he’s a ribbon clerk or a prizefighter or a policeman or a cabdriver, so long as he’s the right man.”
Bailey plied the handkerchief on his streaming forehead. The heat of the day and the horror of this conversation were reducing his weight at the rate of ounces a minute. In his most jaundiced mood he had never imagined these frightful sentiments to be lurking in Ruth’s mind.
“You can’t mean that!” he cried.
“I mean every word of it,” said Ruth. “I hope, for your sake, he won’t turn out to be a waiter or a prizefighter, but it won’t make any difference to me.”
“You’re crazy!”
“Well, just now you said Aunt Lora was. If she is, I am.”
“I knew it! I said she had been putting these ghastly ideas into your head. I’d like to strangle that woman.”
“Don’t you try! Have you ever felt Aunt Lora’s biceps? It’s like a man’s. She does dumbbells every morning.”
“I’ve a good mind to speak to father. Somebody’s got to make you stop this insanity.”
“Just as you please. But you know how father hates to be worried about things that don’t concern business.”
Bailey did. His father, of whom he stood in the greatest awe, was very little interested in any subject except the financial affairs of the firm of Bannister & Son. It required greater courage than Bailey possessed to place this matter before him. He had an uneasy feeling that Ruth knew it.
“I would, if it were necessary,” he said. “But I don’t believe you’re serious.”
“Stick to that idea as long as ever you can, Bailey dear,” said Ruth. “It will comfort you.”
III
The Mates Meet
Kirk Winfield was an amiable, if rather weak, young man with whom life, for twenty-five years, had dealt kindly. He had perfect health, an income more than sufficient for his needs, a profession which interested without monopolizing him, a thoroughly contented disposition, and the happy knack of surrounding himself with friends.
That he had to contribute to the support of the majority of these friends might have seemed a drawback to some men. Kirk did not object to it in the least. He had enough money to meet their needs, and, being a sociable person who enjoyed mixing with all sorts and conditions of men, he found the Liberty Hall regime pleasant.
He liked to be a magnet, attracting New York’s Bohemian population. If he had his preferences among the impecunious crowd who used the studio as a chapel of ease,
