“Because Mr. Winfield’s destination has only just occurred to me.” She looked at him closely. “You are a curious and not uninteresting object, Mr. Penway.”
Mr. Penway started. “Eh?”
“Object lesson, I should have said. I should like to exhibit you as a warning to the youth of this country.”
“What!”
“From the look of your frame I should imagine that you were once a man of some physique. Your shoulders are good. Even now a rigorous course of physical training might save you. I have known more helpless cases saved by firm treatment. You have allowed yourself to deteriorate much as did a man named Pennicut who used to be employed here by Mr. Winfield. I saved him. I dare say I could make something of you. I can see at a glance that you eat, drink, and smoke too much. You could not hold out your hand now, at this minute, without it trembling.”
“I could,” said Mr. Penway indignantly.
He held it out, and it quivered like a tuning-fork.
“There!” said Mrs. Porter calmly. “What do you expect? You know your own business best, I suppose, but I should like to tell you that if you do not become a teetotaller instantly, and begin taking exercise, you will probably die suddenly within a very few years. Personally I shall bear the calamity with fortitude. Good evening, Mr. Penway.”
For some moments after she had gone Mr. Penway sat staring before him. His eyes wore a glassy look. His mouth was still ajar.
“Damn woman!” he said at length.
He turned to his meditations.
“Damn impertinent woman!”
Another interval for reflection, and he spoke again.
“Damn impertinent, interfering woman that!”
He reached out for the bottle of Bourbon and filled his glass. He put it to his lips, then slowly withdrew it.
“Damn impertinent, inter—I wonder!”
There was a small mirror on the opposite wall. He walked unsteadily toward it and put out his tongue. He continued in this attitude for a time, then, with increased dejection, turned away.
He placed a hand over his heart. This seemed to depress him still further. Finally he went to the table, took up the glass, poured its contents carefully back into the bottle, which he corked and replaced on the shelf.
On the floor against the wall was a pair of Indian clubs. He picked these up and examined them owlishly. He gave them little tentative jerks. Finally, with the air of a man carrying out a great resolution, he began to swing them. He swung them in slow, irregular sweeps, his eyes the while, still glassy, staring fixedly at the ceiling.
XII
Dolls with Souls
Ruth had not seen Bailey since the afternoon when he had called to warn her against Basil Milbank. Whether it was offended dignity that kept him away, or merely pressure of business, she did not know.
That pressure of business existed, she was aware. The papers were full, and had been full for several days, of wars and rumours of wars down in Wall Street; and, though she understood nothing of finance, she knew that Bailey was in the forefront of the battle. Her knowledge was based partly on occasional references in the papers to the firm of Bannister & Co. and partly on what she heard in society.
She did not hear all that was said in society about Bailey’s financial operations—which, as Bailey had the control of her money, was unfortunate for her. The manipulation of money bored her, and she had left the investing of her legacy entirely to Bailey. Her father, she knew, had always had a high opinion of Bailey’s business instincts, and that was good enough for her.
She could not know how completely revolutionized the latter’s mind had become since the old man’s death, and how freedom had turned him from a steady young man of business to a frenzied financier.
It was common report now that Bailey was taking big chances. Some went so far as to say that he was “asking for it,” “it” in his case being presumably the Nemesis which waits on those who take big chances in an uncertain market. It was in the air that he was “going up against” the Pinkey-Dowd group and the Norman-Graham combination, and everybody knew that the cemeteries of Wall Street were full of the unhonoured graves of others who in years past had attempted to do the same.
Pinkey, that sinister buccaneer, could have eaten a dozen Baileys. Devouring aspiring young men of the Bailey type was Norman’s chief diversion.
Ruth knew nothing of these things. She told herself that it was her abruptness that had driven Bailey away.
Weariness and depression had settled on Ruth since that afternoon of the storm. It was as if the storm had wrought an awakening in her. It had marked a definite point of change in her outlook. She felt as if she had been roused from a trance by a sharp blow.
If Steve had but known, she had had the “jolt” by which he set such store. She knew now that she had thrown away the substance for the shadow.
Kirk’s anger, so unlike him, so foreign to the weak, easygoing person she had always thought him, had brought her to herself. But it was too late. There could be no going back and picking up the threads. She had lost him, and must bear the consequences.
The withdrawal of Bailey was a small thing by comparison, a submotive in the greater tragedy. But she had always been fond of Bailey, and it hurt her to think that she should have driven him out of her life.
It seemed to her that she was very much alone now. She was marooned on a desert island of froth and laughter. Everything that mattered she had lost.
Even Bill had gone from her. The bitter justice of Kirk’s words came home to her now in her time of clear thinking. It was all true. In the first excitement of the new life he had bored her. She had looked upon Mrs. Porter as a
