"I don't see how the kid could be much fitter."

"It's not so much what he is now. She is worrying about what might happen to him. She can talk about bacilli till your flesh creeps. Honestly, if Bill ever did get really ill, I believe Aunt Lora could talk me round to her views about them in a minute. It's only the fact that he is so splendidly well that makes it seem so absurd."

Kirk laughed.

"It's all very well to laugh. You haven't heard her. I've caught myself wavering a dozen times. Do you know, she says a child ought not to be kissed?"

"It has struck me," said Kirk meditatively, "that your Aunt Lora, if I may make the suggestion, is the least bit of what Steve would call a shy-dome. Is there anything else she had mentioned?'

"Hundreds of things. Bill ought to be kept in a properly sterilized nursery, with sterilized toys and sterilized everything, and the temperature ought to be just so high and no higher, and just so low and no lower. Get her to talk about it to you. She makes you wonder why everybody is not dead."

"This is a new development, surely? Has she ever broken out in this place before?"

"Oh, yes. In the old days she often used to talk about it. She has written books about it."

"I thought her books were all about the selfishness of the modern young man in not marrying."

"Not at all. Some of them are about how to look after the baby. It's no good the modern young man marrying if he's going to murder his baby directly afterward, is it?"

"Something in that. There's just one objection to this sterilized nursery business, though, which she doesn't seem to have detected. How am I going to provide these things on an income of five thousand and at the same time live in that luxury which the artist soul demands? Bill, my lad, you'll have to sacrifice yourself for your father's good. When I'm a millionaire we'll see about it. Meanwhile—"

"Meanwhile," said Ruth, "come and be dried before you catch your death of cold." She gathered William Bannister into her lap.

"I pity any germ that tries to play catch-as-catch-can with that infant," remarked Kirk. "He'd simply flatten it out in a round. Did you ever see such a chest on a kid of that age?"

It was after the installation of Whiskers at the studio that the diminution of Mrs. Porter's visits became really marked. There was something almost approaching a battle over Whiskers, who was an Irish terrier puppy which Hank Jardine had presented to William Bannister as a belated birthday present.

Mrs. Porter utterly excommunicated Whiskers. Nothing, she maintained, was so notoriously supercharged with bacilli as a long-haired dog. If this was true, William Bannister certainly gave them every chance to get to work upon himself. It was his constant pleasure to clutch Whiskers to him in a vice-like clinch, to bury his face in his shaggy back, and generally to court destruction. Yet the more he clutched, the healthier did he appear to grow, and Mrs. Porter's demand for the dog's banishment was overruled.

Mrs. Porter retired in dudgeon. She liked to rule, and at No. 90 she felt that she had become merely among those present. She was in the position of a mother country whose colony has revolted. For years she had been accustomed to look on Ruth as a disciple, a weaker spirit whom she could mould to her will, and now Ruth was refusing to be moulded.

So Mrs. Porter's visits ceased. Ruth still saw her at the apartment when she cared to go there, but she kept away from the studio. She considered that in the matter of William Bannister her claim had been jumped, that she had been deposed; and she withdrew.

"I shall bear up," said Kirk, when this fact was brought home to him. "I mistrust your Aunt Lora as I should mistrust some great natural force which may become active at any moment and give you yours. An earthquake, for instance. I have no quarrel with your Aunt Lora in her quiescent state, but I fear the developments of that giant mind. We are better off without her."

"All the same," said Ruth loyally, "she's rather a dear. And we ought to remember that, if it hadn't been for her, you and I would never have met."

"I do remember it. And I'm grateful. But I can't help feeling that a woman capable of taking other people's lives and juggling with them as if they were india-rubber balls as she did with ours, is likely at any moment to break out in a new place. My gratitude to her is the sort of gratitude you would feel toward a cyclone if you were walking home late for dinner and it caught you up and deposited you on your doorstep. Your Aunt Lora is a human cyclone. No, on the whole, she's more like an earthquake. She has a habit of splitting up and altering the face of the world whenever she feels like it, and I'm too well satisfied with my world at present to relish the idea of having it changed."

Little by little the garrison of the studio had been whittled down. Except for Steve, the community had no regular members outside the family itself. Hank was generally out of town. Bailey paid one more visit, then seemed to consider that he could now absent himself altogether. And the members of Kirk's bachelor circle stayed away to a man.

Their isolation was rendered more complete by the fact that Ruth, when she had ornamented New York society, had made few real friends. Most of the girls she had known bored her. They were gushing creatures with a passion for sharing and imparting secrets, and Ruth's cool reserve had alienated her from them.

When she married she dropped out. The romance of her wedding gave people something to talk about for a few days, and then she was forgotten.

And so it came about that she had her desire and was able practically to monopolize Kirk. He and she and William Bannister lived in a kind of hermit's cell for three and enjoyed this highly unnatural state of things enormously. Life had never seemed so full either to Kirk or herself. There was always something to do, something to think about, something to look forward to, if it was only a visit to a theatre or the inspection of William Bannister's bath.



Chapter XI

Stung to Action

It was in the third year of the White Hope's life that the placid evenness of Kirk's existence began to be troubled. The orderly procession of the days was broken by happenings of unusual importance, one at least of them extraordinarily unpleasant. This was the failure of a certain stock in which nearly half of Kirk's patrimony was invested, that capital which had always seemed to him as solid a part of life as the asphalt on which he walked, as unchangeable a part of nature as the air he breathed. He had always had it, and he could hardly bring himself to realize that he was not always to have it.

It gave him an extraordinary feeling of panic and discomfort when at length he faced the fact squarely that his private means, on the possession of which he had based the whole lazy scheme of his life, were as much at the mercy of fate as the stake which a gambler flings on the green cloth. He did not know enough of business to understand the complicated processes by which a stock hitherto supposed to be as impregnable as municipal bonds had been hammered into a ragged remnant in the course of a single day; but the result of them was unpleasantly clear and easily grasped.

His income was cut in half, and instead of being a comfortably off young man, idly watching the pageant of life from a seat in the grand stand, he must now plunge into the crowd and endeavour to earn a living as others did.

For his losses did not begin and end with the ruin of this particular stock. At intervals during the past two years he had been nibbling at his capital, and now, forced to examine his affairs frankly and minutely, he was astonished at the inroads he had made upon it.

There had been the upkeep of the summer shack he had bought in Connecticut. There had been expenses in connection with William Bannister. There had been little treats for Ruth. There had been cigars and clothes and dinners and taxi-cabs and all the other trifles which cost nothing but mount up and make a man wander beyond the bounds of his legitimate income.

It was borne in upon Kirk, as he reflected upon these things, that the only evidence he had shown of the possession of the artistic temperament had been the joyous carelessness of his extravagance. In that only had he been the artist. It shocked him to think how little honest work he had done during the past two years. He had lived in a golden haze into which work had not entered.

He was to be shocked still more very soon.

Stung to action by his thoughts, he embarked upon a sweeping attack on the stronghold of those who exchange cash for artists' dreams. He ransacked the studio and set out on his mission in a cab bulging with large, small, and medium-sized canvases. Like a wave receding from a breakwater he returned late in the day, a branded failure.

The dealers had eyed his canvases, large, small, and medium-sized, and, in direct contravention of their professed object in life, had refused to deal. Only one of them, a man with grimy hands but a moderately golden heart, after passing a sepia thumb over some of the more ambitious works, had offered him fifteen dollars for a little sketch which he had made in an energetic moment of William Bannister crawling on the floor. This, the dealer asserted, was the sort of "darned mushy stuff" the public fell for, and he held it to be worth the fifteen, but not a cent more. Kirk, humble by now, accepted three battered-looking bills and departed.

He had a long talk with Ruth that night, and rose from it in the frame of mind which in some men is induced by prayer. Ruth was quite marvellously sensible and sympathetic.

"I wanted you," she said in answer to his self-reproaches, "and here we are, together. It's simply nonsense to talk about ruining my life and dragging me down. What does it matter about this money? We have got plenty left."

"We've got about as much left as you used to spend on hats in the old days."

"Well, we can easily make it do. I've thought for some time that we were growing too extravagant. And talking of hats, I had no right to have that last one you bought me. It was wickedly expensive. We can economize there, at any rate. We can get along splendidly on what you have now. Besides, directly you settle down and start to paint, we shall be quite rich again."

Kirk laughed grimly.

"I wish you were a dealer," he said. "Fifteen dollars is what I have managed to extract from them so far. One of the Great Unwashed on Sixth Avenue gave me that for that sketch I did of Bill on the floor."

"Which took you about three minutes to do," Ruth pointed out triumphantly. "You see! You're bound to make a fortune if you stick to it."

Kirk put his arm round her and gave her a silent hug of gratitude. He had dreaded this talk, and lo! it was putting new life into him.

They sat for a few moments in silence.

"I don't deserve it," said Kirk at last. "Instead of comforting me like this, and making me think I'm rather a fine sort of a fellow, you ought to be lashing me with scorpions. I don't suppose any man has ever made such a criminal idiot of himself in this city before."

"You couldn't tell that this stock was going to fail."

"No; but I could have done some work these last three years and made it not matter whether it failed or not. You can't comfort me out of that knowledge. I knew all along that I was being a waster and a loafer, but I was so happy that I didn't mind. I was so interested in seeing what you and the kid would do next that I didn't seem to have time to work. And the result is that I've gone right back.

"There was a time when I really could paint a bit. Not much, it's true, but enough to get along with. Well, I'm going to start it again in earnest now, and if I don't make good, well, there's always Hank's offer."

Ruth turned a little pale. They had discussed Hank's offer before, but then life had been bright and cloudless and Hank's offer a thing to smile at. Now it had assumed an uncomfortably practical aspect.

"You will make good," said Ruth.

"I'll do my best," said Kirk. But even as he spoke his mind was pondering on the proposition which Hank had made.

Hank, always flitting from New York into the unknown and back again, had called at the studio one evening, after a long absence, looking sick and tired. He was one of those lean, wiry men whom it is unusual to see in this condition, and Kirk was sympathetic and inquisitive.

Hank needed no pressing. He was full of his story.

"I've been in Colombia," he said. "I got back on a fruit-steamer this morning. Do you know anything of Colombia?"

Kirk reflected.

"Only that there's generally a revolution there," he said.

"There wasn't anything of that kind this trip, except in my interior." Hank pulled thoughtfully at his pipe. The odour of his remarkable brand of tobacco filled the studio. "I've had a Hades of a time," he said simply.

Kirk looked at him curiously. Hank was in a singularly chastened mood to-night.

"What took you there?"

"Gold."

"Gold? Mining?"

Hank nodded.

"I didn't know there were gold-mines in that part of the world," said Kirk.

"There are. The gold that filled the holds of Spanish galleons in the sixteenth century came from Colombia. The place is simply stiff with old Spanish relics."

"But surely the mines must have been worked out ages ago."

"Only on the surface."

Kirk laughed.

"How do you mean, only on the surface? Explain. I don't know a thing about gold, except that getting it out of picture-dealers is like getting blood out of a turnip."

"It's simple enough. The earth hoards its gold in two ways. There's auriferous rock and auriferous dirt. If the stuff is in the rock, you crush it. If it's in the dirt, you wash it."

"It sounds simple."

"It is. The difficult part is finding it."

"And you have done that?"

"I have. Or I'm practically certain I have. At any rate, I know that I have discovered the ditches made by the Spaniards three hundred years ago. If there was gold there in those days there is apt to be gold there now. Only it isn't on the surface any longer. They cleaned up as far as the surface is concerned, so I have to sink shafts and dig tunnels."

"I see. It isn't so simple as it used to be."

"It is, practically, if you have any knowledge of mining."

"Well, what's your trouble?" asked Kirk. "Why did you come back? Why aren't you out there grabbing it with both hands and getting yourself into shape to be a walking gold-mine to your friends? I don't like to see this idle spirit in you, Hank."

Hank smoked long and thoughtfully.

"Kirk," he said suddenly.

"Well?"

Hank shook his head.

"No, it's no good."

"What is no good? What do you mean?"

"I came back," said Hank, suddenly lucid, "with a wild notion of getting you to come in with me on this thing."

"What! Go to Colombia with you?"

Hank nodded.

"But, of course, it's not possible. It's no job for a married man."

"Why not? If this gold of yours is just lying about in heaps it seems to me that a married man is exactly the man who ought to be around grabbing it. Or do you believe that old yarn about two being able to live as cheaply as one? Take it from me, it's not so. If there is gold waiting to be gathered up in handfuls, me for it. When do we start? Can I bring Ruth and the kid?"

"I wish we could start. If I could have had you with me these last few months I'd never have quit. But I guess it's out of the question. You've no idea what sort of an inferno it is, and I won't let you come into it with your eyes shut. But if ever you are in a real tight corner let me know. It might be worth your while then to take a few risks."

"Oh! there are risks?"

"Risks! My claims are located along the Atrato River in the Choco district. Does that convey anything to you?"

"Not a thing."

"The workings are three hundred miles inland. Just three hundred miles of pure Hades. You can get all the fevers you ever heard of, and a few more, I got most of them last trip."

"I thought you were looking pretty bad."

"I ought to be. I've swallowed so much quinine since I saw you last that my ears are buzzing still. And then there are the insects. They all bite. Some bite worse than others, but not much. Darn it! even the butterflies bite out there. Every animal in the country has some other animal constantly chasing it until a white man comes along, when they call a truce and both chase him. And the vegetation is so thick and grows so quickly that you have to cut down the jungle about the workings every few days or so to avoid being swamped by it. Otherwise," finished Hank, refilling his pipe and lighting it, "the place is a pretty good kind of summer resort."

"And you're going back to it? Back to the quinine and the beasts and the butterflies?"

"Sure. The gold runs up to twenty dollars the cubic yard and is worth eighteen dollars an ounce."

"When are you going?"

"I'm in no hurry. This year, next year, some time, never. No, not never. Call it some time."

"And you want me to come, too?"

"I would give half of whatever there is in the mine to have you come. But things being as they are, well, I guess we can call it off. Is there any chance in the world, Kirk, of your ever ceasing to be a bloated capitalist? Could any of your stocks go back on you?"

"I doubt it. They're pretty gilt-edged, I fancy, though I've never studied the question of stocks. My little gold-mine isn't in the same class with yours, but it's as solid as a rock, and no fevers and insects attached to it, either."

* * * * *

And now the gold-mine had proved of less than rock-like solidity. The most gilt-edged of all the stocks had failed. The capitalist had become in one brief day the struggling artist.

Hank's proposal seemed a good deal less fantastic now to Kirk as he prepared for his second onslaught, the grand attack, on the stronghold of those who bought art with gold.



Chapter XII

A Climax

One afternoon, about two weeks later, Kirk, returning to the studio from an unprofitable raid into the region of the dealers, found on the table a card bearing the name of Mrs. Robert Wilbur. This had been crossed out, and beneath it, in a straggly hand, the name Miss Wilbur had been written.

The phenomenon of a caller at the cell of the two hermits was so strange that he awaited Ruth's arrival with more than his customary impatience. She would be able to identify the visitor. George Pennicut, questioned on the point, had no information of any value to impart. A very pretty young lady she was, said George, with what you might call a lively manner. She had seemed disappointed at finding nobody at home. No, she had left no message.

Ruth, arriving a few moments later, was met by Kirk with the card in his hand.

"Can you throw any light on this?" he said. "Who is Miss Wilbur, who has what you might call a lively manner and appears disappointed when she does not find us at home?"

Ruth looked at the card.

"Sybil Wilbur? I wonder what she wants."

"Who is she? Let's get that settled first."

"Oh, she's a girl I used to know. I haven't seen her for two years. I thought she had forgotten my existence."

"Call her up on the phone. If we don't solve this mystery we shan't sleep to-night. It's like Robinson Crusoe and the footprint."

Ruth went to the telephone. After a short conversation she turned to Kirk with sparkling eyes and the air of one with news to impart.

"Kirk! She wants you to paint her portrait!"

"What!"

"She's engaged to Bailey! Just got engaged! And the first thing she does is to insist on his letting her come to you for her portrait," Ruth bubbled with laughter. "It's to be a birthday present for Bailey, and Bailey has got to pay for it. That's so exactly like Sybil."

"I hope the portrait will be. She's taking chances."

"I think it's simply sweet of her. She's a real friend."

"At fairly long intervals, apparently. Did you say you had not seen her for two years?"

"She is an erratic little thing with an awfully good heart. I feel touched at her remembering us. Oh, Kirk, you must do a simply wonderful portrait, something that everybody will talk about, and then our fortune will be made! You will become the only painter that people will go to for their portraits."

Kirk did not answer. His experiences of late had developed in him an unwonted mistrust of his powers. To this was added the knowledge that, except for an impressionist study of Ruth for private exhibition only, he had never attempted a portrait. To be called upon suddenly like this to show his powers gave him much the same feeling which he had experienced when called upon as a child to recite poetry before an audience. It was a species of stage fright.

But it was certainly a chance. Portrait-painting was an uncommonly lucrative line of business. His imagination, stirred by Ruth's, saw visions of wealthy applicants turned away from the studio door owing to pressure of work on the part of the famous man for whose services they were bidding vast sums.

"By Jove!" he said thoughtfully.

Another aspect of the matter occurred to him.

"I wonder what Bailey thinks about it!"

"Oh, he's probably so much in love with her that he doesn't mind what she does. Besides, Bailey likes you."

"Does he?"

"Oh, well, if he doesn't, he will. This will bring you together."

"I suppose he knows about it?"

"Oh, yes. Sybil said he did. It's all settled. She will be here to-morrow for the first sitting."

Kirk spoke the fear that was in his mind.

"Ruth, old girl, I'm horribly nervous about this. I am taken with a sort of second sight. I see myself making a ghastly failure of this job and Bailey knocking me down and refusing to come across with the cheque."

"Sybil is bringing the cheque with her to-morrow," said Ruth simply.

"Is she?" said Kirk. "Now I wonder if that makes it worse or better. I'm trying to think!"

Sybil Wilbur fluttered in next day at noon, a tiny, restless creature who darted about the studio like a humming-bird. She effervesced with the joy of life. She uttered little squeaks of delight at everything she saw. She hugged Ruth, beamed at Kirk, went wild over William Bannister, thought the studio too cute for words, insisted on being shown all over it, and talked incessantly.

It was about two o'clock before she actually began to sit, and even then she was no statue. A thought would come into her small head and she would whirl round to impart it to Ruth, destroying in a second the pose which it had taken Kirk ten painful minutes to fix.

Kirk was too amused to be irritated. She was such a friendly little soul and so obviously devoted to Ruth that he felt she was entitled to be a nuisance as a sitter. He wondered more and more what weird principle of selection had been at work to bring Bailey and this butterfly together. He had never given any deep thought to the study of his brother-in-law's character; but, from his small knowledge of him, he would have imagined some one a trifle more substantial and serious as the ideal wife for him. Life, he conceived, was to Bailey a stately march. Sybil Wilbur evidently looked on it as a mad gallop.

Ruth felt the same. She was fond of Sybil, but she could not see her as the fore-ordained Mrs. Bailey.

"I suppose she swept him off his feet," she said. "It just shows that you never really get to know a person even if you're their sister. Bailey must have all sorts of hidden sides to his character which I never noticed—unless she has. But I don't think there is much of that about Sybil. She's just a child. But she's very amusing, isn't she? She enjoys life so furiously."

"I think Bailey will find her rather a handful. Does she ever sit still, by the way? If she is going to act right along as she did to-day this portrait will look like that cubist picture of the 'Dance at the Spring'."

As the sittings went on Miss Wilbur consented gradually to simmer down and the portrait progressed with a fair amount of speed. But Kirk was conscious every day of a growing sensation of panic. He was trying his very hardest, but it was bad work, and he knew it.

His hand had never had very much cunning, but what it had had it had lost in the years of his idleness. Every day showed him more clearly that the portrait of Miss Wilbur, on which so much depended, was an amateurish daub. He worked doggedly on, but his heart was cold with that chill that grips the artist when he looks on his work and sees it to be bad.

At last it was finished. Ruth thought it splendid. Sybil Wilbur pronounced it cute, as she did most things. Kirk could hardly bear to look at it. In its finished state it was worse than he could have believed possible.

In the old days he had been a fair painter with one or two bad faults. Now the faults seemed to have grown like weeds, choking whatever of merit he might once have possessed. This was a horrible production, and he was profoundly thankful when it was packed up and removed from the studio. But behind his thankfulness lurked the feeling that all was not yet over, that there was worse to come.

It came.

It was heralded by a tearful telephone call from Miss Wilbur, who rang up Ruth with the agitated information that "Bailey didn't seem to like it." And on the heels of the message came Bailey in person, pink from forehead to collar, and almost as wrathful as he had been on the great occasion of his first visit to the studio. His annoyance robbed his speech of its normal stateliness. He struck a colloquial note unusual with him.

"I guess you know what I've come about," he said.

He had found Kirk alone in the studio, as ill luck would have it. In the absence of Ruth he ventured to speak more freely than he would have done in her presence.

"It's an infernal outrage," he went on. "I've been stung, and you know it."

Kirk said nothing. His silence infuriated Bailey.

"It's the portrait I'm speaking about—the portrait, if you have the nerve to call it that, of Miss Wilbur. I was against her sitting to you from the first, but she insisted. Now she's sorry."

"It's as bad as all that, is it?" said Kirk dully. He felt curiously indisposed to fight. A listlessness had gripped him. He was even a little sorry for Bailey. He saw his point of view and sympathized with it.

"Yes," said Bailey fiercely. "It is, and you know it."

Kirk nodded. Bailey was quite right. He did know it.

"It's a joke," went on Bailey shrilly. "I can't hang it up. People would laugh at it. And to think that I paid you all that money for it. I could have got a real artist for half the price."

"That is easily remedied," said Kirk. "I will send you a cheque to-morrow."

Bailey was not to be appeased. The venom of more than three years cried out for utterance. He had always held definite views upon Kirk, and Heaven had sent him the opportunity of expressing them.

"Yes, I dare say," he said contemptuously. "That would settle the whole thing, wouldn't it? What do you think you are—a millionaire? Talking as if that amount of money made no difference to you? Where does my sister come in? How about Ruth? You sneak her away from her home and then——-"

Kirk's lethargy left him. He flushed.

"I think that will be about all, Bannister?" he said. He spoke quietly, but his voice trembled.

But Bailey's long-dammed hatred, having at last found an outlet, was not to be checked in a moment.

"Will it? Will it? The hell it will. Let me tell you that I came here to talk straight to you, and I'm going to do it. It's about time you had your darned dime-novel romance shown up to you the way it strikes somebody else. You think you're a tremendous dashing twentieth-century Young Lochinvar, don't you? You thought you had done a pretty smooth bit of work when you sneaked Ruth away! You! You haven't enough backbone in you even to make a bluff at working to support her. You're just what my father said you were—a loafer who pretends to be an artist. You've got away with it up to now, but you've shown yourself up at last. You damned waster!"

Kirk walked to the door and flung it open.

"You're perfectly right, Bannister," he said quietly. "Everything you have said is quite true. And now would you mind going?"

"I've not finished yet."

"Yes, you have."

Bailey hesitated. The first time frenzy had left him, and he was beginning to be a little ashamed of himself for having expressed his views in a manner which, though satisfying, was, he felt, less dignified than he could have wished.

He looked at Kirk, who was standing stiffly by the door. Something in his attitude decided Bailey to leave well alone. Such had been his indignation that it was only now that for the first time it struck him that his statement of opinion had not been made without considerable bodily danger to himself. Jarred nerves had stood him in the stead of courage; but now his nerves were soothed and he saw things clearly.

He choked down what he had intended to say and walked out. Kirk closed the door softly behind him and began to pace the studio floor as he had done on that night when Ruth had fought for her life in the room upstairs.

His mind worked slowly at first. Then, as it cleared, he began to think more and more rapidly, till the thoughts leaped and ran like tongues of fire scorching him.

It was all true. That was what hurt. Every word that Bailey had flung at him had been strictly just.

He had thought himself a fine, romantic fellow. He was a waster and a loafer who pretended to be an artist. He had thrown away the little talent he had once possessed. He had behaved shamefully to Ruth, shirking his responsibilities and idling through life. He realized it now, when it was too late.

Suddenly through the chaos of his reflections there shone out clearly one coherent thought, the recollection of what Hank Jardine had offered to him. "If ever you are in a real tight corner——"

* * * * *

His brain cleared. He sat down calmly to wait for Ruth. His mind was made up. Hank's offer was the way out, the only way out, and he must take it.



BOOK TWO



Chapter I

Empty-handed

The steamship Santa Barbara, of the United Fruit Line, moved slowly through the glittering water of the bay on her way to dock. Out at quarantine earlier in the morning there had been a mist, through which passing ships loomed up vague and shapeless; but now the sun had dispersed it and a perfect May morning welcomed the Santa Barbara home.

Kirk leaned on the rail, looking with dull eyes on the city he had left a year before. Only a year! It seemed ten. As he stood there he felt an old man.

A drummer, a cheery soul who had come aboard at Porto Rico, sauntered up, beaming with well-being and good-fellowship.

"Looks pretty good, sir," said he.

Kirk did not answer. He had not heard.

"Some burg," ventured the drummer.

Again encountering silence, he turned away, hurt. This churlish attitude on the part of one returning to God's country on one of God's own mornings surprised and wounded him.

To him all was right with the world. He had breakfasted well; he was smoking a good cigar; and he was strong in the knowledge that he had done well by the firm this trip and that bouquets were due to be handed to him in the office on lower Broadway. He was annoyed with Kirk for having cast even a tiny cloud upon his contentment.

He communicated his feelings to the third officer, who happened to come on deck at that moment.

"Say, who is that guy?" he asked complainingly. "The big son of a gun leaning on the rail. Seems like he'd got a hangover this morning. Is he deaf and dumb or just plain grouchy?"

The third officer eyed Kirk's back with sympathy.

"I shouldn't worry him, Freddie," he said. "I guess if you had been up against it like him you'd be shy on the small talk. That's a fellow called Winfield. They carried him on board at Colon. He was about all in. Got fever in Colombia, inland at the mines, and nearly died. His pal did die. Ever met Hank Jardine?"

"Long, thin man?"

The other nodded.

"One of the best. He made two trips with us."

"And he's dead?"

"Died of fever away back in the interior, where there's nothing much else except mosquitoes. He and Winfield went in there after gold."

"Did they get any?" asked the drummer, interested.

The third officer spat disgustedly over the rail.

"You ask Winfield. Or, rather, don't, because I guess it's not his pet subject. He told me all about it when he was getting better. There was gold there, all right, in chunks. It only needed to be dug for. And somebody else did the digging. Of all the skin games! It made me pretty hot under the collar, and it wasn't me that was stung.

"Out there you can't buy land if you're a foreigner; you have to lease it from the natives. Poor old Hank leased his bit, all right, and when he'd got to his claim he found somebody else working on it. It seemed there had been a flaw in his agreement and the owners had let it over his head to these other guys, who had slipped them more than what Hank had done."

"What did he do?"

"He couldn't do anything. They were the right side of the law, or what they call law out there. There was nothing to do except beat it back again three hundred miles to the coast. That's where they got the fever which finished Hank. So you can understand," concluded the third officer, "that Mr. Winfield isn't in what you can call a sunny mood. If I were you, I'd go and talk to someone else, if conversation's what you need."

Kirk stood motionless at the rail, thinking. It was not what was past that occupied his thoughts, as the third officer had supposed; it was the future.

The forlorn hope had failed; he was limping back to Ruth wounded and broken. He had sent her a wireless message. She would be at the dock to meet him. How could he face her? Fate had been against him, it was true, but he was in no mood to make excuses for himself. He had failed. That was the beginning and the end of it. He had set out to bring back wealth and comfort to her, and he was returning empty-handed.

That was what the immediate future held, the meeting with Ruth. And after? His imagination was not equal to the task of considering that. He had failed as an artist. There was no future for him there. He must find some other work. But he was fit for no other work. He had no training. What could he do in a city where keenness of competition is a tradition? It would be as if an unarmed man should attack a fortress.

The thought of the years he had wasted was very bitter. Looking back, he could see how fate had tricked him into throwing away his one talent. He had had promise. With hard work he could have become an artist, a professional—a man whose work was worth money in the open market. He had never had it in him to be a great artist, but he had had the facility which goes to make a good worker of the second class. He had it still. Given the time for hard study, it was still in him to take his proper place among painters.

But time for study was out of his reach now. He must set to work at once, without a day's delay, on something which would bring him immediate money. The reflection brought his mind back abruptly to the practical consideration of the future.

Before him, as he stood there, the ragged battlements of New York seemed to frown down on him with a cold cruelty that paralysed his mind. He had seen them a hundred times before. They should have been familiar and friendly. But this morning they were strange and sinister. The skyline which daunts the emigrant as he comes up the bay to his new home struck fear into Kirk's heart.

He turned away and began to walk up and down the deck.

He felt tired and lonely. For the first time he realized just what it meant to him that he should never see Hank again. It had been hard, almost impossible, till now to force his mind to face that fact. He had winced away from it. But now it would not be avoided. It fell upon him like a shadow.

Hank had filled a place of his own in Kirk's life. Theirs had been one of those smooth friendships which absence cannot harm. Often they had not seen each other for months at a time. Indeed, now that he thought of it, Hank was generally away; and he could not remember that they had ever exchanged letters. Yet even so there had been a bond between them which had never broken. And now Hank had dropped out.

Kirk began to think about death. As with most men of his temperament, it was a subject on which his mind had seldom dwelt, never for any length of time. His parents had died when he was too young to understand; and circumstances had shielded him from the shadow of the great mystery. Birth he understood; it had forced itself into the scheme of his life; but death till now had been a stranger to him.

The realization of it affected him oddly. In a sense, he found it stimulating; not stimulating as birth had been, but more subtly. He could recall vividly the thrill that had come to him with the birth of his son. For days he had walked as one in a trance. The world had seemed unreal, like an opium-smoker's dream. There had been magic everywhere.

But death had exactly the opposite effect. It made everything curiously real—himself most of all. He had the sensation, as he thought of Hank, of knowing himself for the first time. Somehow he felt strengthened, braced for the fight, as a soldier might who sees his comrade fall at his side.

There was something almost vindictive in the feeling that came to him. It was too vague to be analysed, but it filled him with a desire to fight, gave him a sense of determination of which he had never before been conscious. It toughened him, and made the old, easy-going Kirk Winfield seem a stranger at whom he could look with detachment and a certain contempt.

As he walked back along the deck the battlements of the city met his gaze once more. But now they seemed less formidable.

In the leisurely fashion of the home-coming ship the Santa Barbara slid into her dock. The gangplank was thrust out. Kirk walked ashore.

For a moment he thought that Ruth had not come to meet him. Then his heart leaped madly. He had seen her.

* * * * *

There are worse spots in the world than the sheds of the New York customs, but few more desolate; yet to Kirk just then the shadowy vastness seemed a sunlit garden. A flame of happiness blazed up in his mind, blotting out in an instant the forebodings which had lurked there like evil creatures in a dark vault. The future, with its explanations and plans, could take care of itself. Ruth was a thing of the present.

He put his arms round her and held her. The friendly drummer, who chanced to be near, observed them with interest and a good deal of pleasure. The third officer's story had temporarily destroyed his feeling that all was right with the world, and his sympathetic heart welcomed this evidence that life held compensations even for men who had been swindled out of valuable gold-mines.

"I guess he's not feeling so worse, after all," he mused, and went on his way with an easy mind to be fawned upon by his grateful firm.

Ruth was holding Kirk at arm's length, her eyes full of tears at the sight.

"You poor boy, how thin you are!"

"I had fever. It's an awful place for fever out there."

"Kirk!"

"Oh, I'm all right now. The voyage set me up. They made a great fuss over me on board."

Ruth's hand was clinging to his arm. He squeezed it against his side. It was wonderful to him, this sense of being together again after these centuries of absence. It drove from his mind the thought of all the explanations which sooner or later he had got to make. Whatever might come after, he would keep this moment in his memory golden and untarnished.

"Don't you worry about me," he said. "Now that I've found you again I'm feeling better than I ever did in my life. You wait till you see me sparring with Steve to-morrow. By the way, how is Steve?"

"Splendid."

"And Bill?"

Ruth drew herself up haughtily.

"You dare to ask about your son after Steve? How clumsy that sounds! I mean you dare to put Steve before your son. I believe you've only just realized that you have a son."

"I've only just realized there's anybody or anything in the world except my wife."

"Well, after that I suppose I've got to forgive you. Since you have asked after Bill at last, I may tell you that he's very well indeed."

Kirk's eyes glowed.

"He ought to be a great kid by now."

"He is."

"And Mamie? Have you still got her?"

"I wouldn't lose her for a million."

"And Whiskers?"

"I'm afraid Whiskers is gone."

"Not dead?"

"No. I gave him away."

"For Heaven's sake! Why?"

"Well, dear, the fact is, I've come around to Aunt Lora's way of thinking."

"Eh?"

"About germs."

Kirk laughed, the first real laugh he had had for a year.

"That insane fad of hers!"

Ruth was serious.

"I have," she said. "We're taking a great deal more care of Bill than in the old days. I hate to think of the way I used to let him run around wild then. He might have died."

"What nonsense! He was simply bursting with health all the time."

"I had a horrible shock after you left," Ruth went on. "The poor little fellow was awfully ill with some kind of a fever. The doctor almost gave him up."

"Good heavens!"

"Aunt Lora helped me to nurse him, and she made me see how I had been exposing him to all sorts of risks, and—well, now we guard against them."

There was a silence.

"I grew to rely on her a great deal, Kirk, when you were away. You know I always used to before we were married. She's so wonderfully strong. And then when your letters stopped coming——"

"There aren't any postal arrangements out there in the interior. It was the worst part of it—not being able to write to you or hear from you. Heavens, what an exile I've been this last year! Anything may have happened!"

"Perhaps something has," said Ruth mysteriously.

"What do you mean?"

"Wait and see. Oh, I know one thing that has happened. I've been looking at you all this while trying to think what it was. You've grown a beard, and it looks perfectly horrid."

"Sheer laziness. It shall come off this very day. I knew you would hate it."

"I certainly do. It makes you look so old."

Kirk's face clouded.

"I feel old."

For the first time since he had left the ship the memory of Hank had come back to him. The sight of Ruth had driven it away, but now it swept back on him. The golden moment was over. Life with all its troubles and its explanations and its burdening sense of failure must be faced.

"What's the matter?" asked Ruth, startled by the sudden change.

"I was thinking of poor old Hank."

"Where is Mr. Jardine? Didn't he come back with you?"

"He's dead, dear," said Kirk gently. "He died of fever while we were working our way back to the coast."

"Oh!"

It was the idea of death that shocked Ruth, not the particular manifestation of it. Hank had not touched her life. She had begun by disliking him and ended by feeling for him the tolerant sort of affection which she might have bestowed upon a dog or a cat. Hank as a man was nothing to her, and she could not quite keep her indifference out of her voice.

It was only later, when he looked back on this conversation, that Kirk realized this. At the moment he was unconscious of it, significant as it was of the fact that there were points at which his mind and Ruth's did not touch.

When Ruth spoke again it was to change the subject.

"Well, Kirk," she said, "have you come back with your trunk crammed with nuggets? You haven't said a word about the mine yet, and I'm dying to know."

He groaned inwardly. The moment he had been dreading had arrived more swiftly than he had expected. It was time for him to face facts.

"No," he said shortly.

Ruth looked at him curiously. She met his eyes and saw the pain in them, and intuition told her in an instant what Kirk, stumbling through his story, could not have told her in an hour. She squeezed his arm affectionately.

"Don't tell me," she said. "I understand. And it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter a bit."

"Doesn't matter? But——"

Ruth's eyes were dancing.

"Kirk, dear, I've something to tell you. Wait till we get outside."

"What do you mean?"

"You'll soon see?"

They went out into the street. Against the kerb a large red automobile was standing. The chauffeur touched his cap as he saw them. Kirk stared at him dumbly.

"In you get, dear," said Ruth.

She met his astonished gaze with a smile of triumph. This was her moment, the moment for which she had been waiting. The chauffeur started the machine.

"I don't understand. Whose car is this?"

"Mine. Yours. Ours. Oh, Kirk, darling, I was so afraid that you would come back bulging with a fortune that would make my little one look like nothing. But you haven't, you haven't, and it's just splendid." She caught his hand and pressed it. "It's simply sweet of you to look so astonished. I was hoping you would. This car belongs to us, and there's another just as big besides, and a house, and—oh—everything you can think of. Kirk, dear, we've nothing to worry us any longer. We're rich!"



Chapter II

An Unknown Path

Kirk blinked. He closed his eyes and opened them again. The automobile was still there, and he was still in it. Ruth was still gazing at him with the triumphant look in her eyes. The chauffeur, silent emblem of a substantial bank-balance, still sat stiffly at the steering-wheel.

"Rich?" Kirk repeated.

"Rich," Ruth assured him.

"I don't understand."

Ruth's smile faded.

"Poor father——"

"Your father?"

"He died just after you sailed. Just before Bill got ill." She gave a little sigh. "Kirk, how odd life is!"

"But——-"

"It was terrible. It was some kind of a stroke. He had been working too hard and taking no exercise. You know when he sent Steve away that time he didn't engage anybody else in his place. He went back to his old way of living, which the doctor had warned him against. He worked and worked, until one day, Bailey says, he fainted at the office. They brought him home, and he just went out like a burned-out candle. I—I went to him, but for a long time he wouldn't see me.

"Oh, Kirk, the hours I spent in the library hoping that he would let me come to him! But he never did till right at the end. Then I went up, and he was dying. He couldn't speak. I don't know now how he felt toward me at the last. I kissed him. He was all shrunk to nothing. I had a horrible feeling that I had never been a real daughter to him. But—but—you know, he made it difficult, awfully difficult. And then he died; Bailey was on one side of the bed and I was on the other, and the nurse and the doctor were whispering outside the door. I could hear them through the transom."

She slipped her hand into Kirk's and sat silent while the car slid into the traffic of Fifth Avenue. For the second time the shadow of the Great Mystery had fallen on the brightness of the perfect morning.

The car had stopped at Thirty-Fourth Street to allow the hurrying crowds to cross the avenue. Kirk looked at them with a feeling of sadness. It was not caused by John Bannister's death. He was too honest to be able to plunge himself into false emotion at will. His feeling was more a vague uneasiness, almost a presentiment. Things changed so quickly in this world. Old landmarks shifted as the crowd of strangers was shifting before him now, hurrying into his life and hurrying out of it.

He, too, had changed. Ruth, though he had detected no signs of it, must be different from the Ruth he had left a year ago. The old life was dead. What had the new life in store for him? Wealth for one thing—other standards of living—new experiences.

An odd sensation of regret that this stream of gold had descended upon him deepened his momentary depression. They had been so happy, he and Ruth and the kid, in the old days of the hermit's cell. Something that was almost a superstitious fear of this unexpected legacy came upon him.

It was unlucky money, grudgingly given at the eleventh hour. He seemed to feel John Bannister watching him with a sneer, and he was afraid of him. His nerves were still a little unstrung from the horror of his wanderings, and the fever had left him weak. It seemed to him that there was a curse on the old man's wealth, that somehow it was destined to bring him unhappiness.

The policeman waved his hand. The car jerked forward. The sudden movement brought him to himself. He smiled, a little ashamed of having been so fanciful; the sky was blue; the sun shone; a cool breeze put the joy of life into him; and at his side Ruth sat, smiling now. From her, too, the cloud had been lifted.

"It seems like a fairy-story," said Kirk, breaking the silence that had fallen between them.

"I think it must have been the thought of Bill that made him do it," said Ruth. "He left half his money to Bailey and half to me during my lifetime. Bailey's married now, by the way." She paused. "I'm afraid father never forgave you, dear," she added. "He made Bailey the trustee for the money, and it goes to Bill in trust after my death."

She looked at him rather nervously it seemed to Kirk. The terms of the will had been the cause of some trouble to her. Especially had she speculated on his reception of the news that Bailey was to play so important a part in the administration of the money. Kirk had never told her what had passed between him and Bailey that afternoon in the studio, but her quick intelligence had enabled her to guess at the truth; and she was aware that the minds of the two men, their temperaments, were naturally antagonistic.

Kirk's reception of the news relieved her.

"Of course," he said. "He couldn't do anything else. He knew nothing of me except that I was a kind of man with whom he was quite out of sympathy. He mistrusted all artists, I expect, in a bunch. And, anyway, an artist is pretty sure to be a bad man of business. He would know that. And—and, well, what I mean is, it strikes me as a very sensible arrangement. Why are we stopping here?"

The car had drawn up before a large house on the upper avenue, one of those houses which advertise affluence with as little reticence as a fat diamond solitaire.

"We live here," said Ruth, laughing.

Kirk drew a long breath.

"Do we? By George!" he exclaimed. "I see it's going to take me quite a while to get used to this state of things."

A thought struck him.

"How about the studio? Have you got rid of it?"

"Of course not. The idea! After the perfect times we had there! We're going to keep it on as an annex. Every now and then, when we are tired of being rich, we'll creep off there and boil eggs over the gas-stove and pretend we are just ordinary persons again."

"And oftener than every now and then this particular plutocrat is going to creep off there and try to teach himself to paint pictures."

Ruth nodded.

"Yes, I think you ought to have a hobby. It's good for you."

Kirk said nothing. But it was not as a hobby that he was regarding his painting. He had come to a knowledge of realities in the wilderness and to an appreciation of the fact that he had a soul which could not be kept alive except by honest work.

He had the decent man's distaste for living on his wife's money. He supposed it was inevitable that a certain portion of it must go to his support, but he was resolved that there should be in the sight of the gods who look down on human affairs at least a reasonable excuse for his existence. If work could make him anything approaching a real artist, he would become one.

Meanwhile he was quite willing that Ruth should look upon his life-work as a pleasant pastime to save him from ennui. Even to his wife a man is not always eager to exhibit his soul in its nakedness.

"By the way," said Ruth, "you won't find George Pennicut at the studio. He has gone back to England."

"I'm sorry. I liked George."

"He liked you. He left all sorts of messages. He nearly wept when he said good-bye. But he wouldn't stop. In a burst of confidence he told me what the trouble was. Our blue sky had got on his nerves. He wanted a London drizzle again. He said the thought of it made him homesick."

Kirk entered the house thoughtfully. Somehow this last piece of news had put the coping-stone on the edifice of his—his what? Depression? It was hardly that. No, it was rather a kind of vague regret for the life which had so definitely ended, the feeling which the Romans called desiderium and the Greeks pathos. The defection of George Pennicut was a small thing in itself, but it meant the removal of another landmark.

"We had some bully good times in that studio," he said.

The words were a requiem.

The first person whom he met in this great house, in the kingdom of which he was to be king-consort, was a butler of incredible stateliness. This was none other than Steve's friend Keggs. But round the outlying portions of this official he had perceived, as the door opened, a section of a woman in a brown dress.

The butler moving to one side, he found himself confronting Mrs. Lora Delane Porter.

If other things in Kirk's world had changed, time had wrought in vain upon the great authoress. She looked as masterful, as unyielding, and as efficient as she had looked at the time of his departure. She took his hand without emotion and inspected him keenly.

"You are thinner," she remarked.

"I said that, Aunt Lora," said Ruth. "Poor boy, he's a skeleton."

"You are not so robust."

"I have been ill."

Ruth interposed.

"He's had fever, Aunt Lora, and you are not to tease him."

"I should be the last person to tease any man. What sort of fever?"

"I think it was a blend of all sorts," replied Kirk. "A kind of Irish stew of a fever."

"You are not infectious?"

"Certainly not."

Mrs. Porter checked Ruth as she was about to speak.

"We owe it to William to be careful," she explained. "After all the trouble we have taken to exclude him from germs it is only reasonable to make these inquiries."

"Come along, dear," said Ruth, "and I'll show you the house. Don't mind Aunt Lora," she whispered; "she means well, and she really is splendid with Bill."

Kirk followed her. He was feeling chilled again. His old mistrust of Mrs. Porter revived. If their brief interview was to be taken as evidence, she seemed to have regained entirely her old ascendancy over Ruth. He felt vaguely uneasy, as a man might who walks in a powder magazine.

"Aunt Lora lives here now," observed Ruth casually, as they went upstairs.

Kirk started.

"Literally, do you mean? Is this her home?"

Ruth smiled at him over her shoulder.

"She won't interfere with you," she said. "Surely this great house is large enough for the three of us. Besides, she's so devoted to Bill. She looks after him all the time; of course, nowadays I don't get quite so much time to be with him myself. One has an awful lot of calls on one. I feel Bill is so safe with Aunt Lora on the premises."

She stopped at a door on the first floor.

"This is Bill's nursery. He's out just now. Mamie takes him for a drive every morning when it's fine."

Something impelled Kirk to speak.

"Don't you ever take him for walks in the morning now?" he asked. "He used to love it."

"Silly! Of course I do, when I can manage it. For drives, rather. Aunt Lora is rather against his walking much in the city. He might so easily catch something, you know."

She opened the door.

"There!" she said. "What do you think of that for a nursery?"

If Kirk had spoken his mind he would have said that of all the ghastly nurseries the human brain could have conceived this was the ghastliest. It was a large, square room, and to Kirk's startled eyes had much the appearance of an operating theatre at a hospital.

There was no carpet on the tiled floor. The walls, likewise tiled, were so bare that the eye ached contemplating them. In the corner by the window stood the little white cot. Beside it on the wall hung a large thermometer. Various knobs of brass decorated the opposite wall. At the farther end of the room was a bath, complete with shower and all the other apparatus of a modern tub.

It was probably the most horrible room in all New York.

"Well, what do you think of it?" demanded Ruth proudly.

Kirk gazed at her, speechless. This, he said to himself, was Ruth, his wife, who had housed his son in the spare bedroom of the studio and allowed a shaggy Irish terrier to sleep on his bed; who had permitted him to play by the hour in the dust of the studio floor, who had even assisted him to do so by descending into the dust herself in the role of a bear or a snake.

What had happened to this world from which he had been absent but one short year? Was everybody mad, or was he hopelessly behind the times?

"Well?" Ruth reminded him.

Kirk eyed the dreadful room.

"It looks clean," he said at last.

"It is clean," said the voice of Lora Delane Porter proudly behind him. She had followed them up the stairs to do the honours of the nursery, the centre of her world. "It is essentially clean. There is not an object in that room which is not carefully sterilized night and morning with a weak solution of boric acid!"

"Even Mamie?" inquired Kirk.

It had been his intention to be mildly jocular, but Mrs. Porter's reply showed him that in jest he had spoken the truth.

"Certainly. Have you any idea, Kirk, of the number of germs there are on the surface of the human body? It runs into billions. You"—she fixed him with her steely eye—"you are at the present moment one mass of microbes."

"I sneaked through quarantine all right."

"To the adult there is not so much danger in these microbes, provided he or she maintains a reasonable degree of personal cleanliness. That is why adults may be permitted to mix with other adults without preliminary sterilization. But in the case of a growing child it is entirely different. No precaution is excessive. So——"

From below at this point there came the sound of the front-door bell. Ruth went to the landing and looked over the banisters.

"That ought to be Bill and Mamie back from their drive," she said.

The sound of a child's voice came to Kirk as he stood listening; and as he heard it all the old feeling of paternal pride and excitement, which had left him during his wanderings, swept over him like a wave. He reproached himself that, while the memory of Ruth had been with him during every waking moment of the past year, there had been occasions when that of William Bannister had become a little faded.

He ran down the stairs.

"Hello, Mamie!" he said. "How are you? You're looking well."

Mamie greeted him with the shy smile which was wont to cause such havoc in Steve's heart.

"And who's this you've got with you? Mamie, you know you've no business going about with young men like this. Who is he?"

He stood looking at William Bannister, and William Bannister stood looking at him, Kirk smiling, William staring with the intense gravity of childhood and trying to place this bearded stranger among his circle of friends. He seemed to be thinking that the familiarity of the other's manner indicated a certain amount of previous acquaintanceship.

"Watch that busy brain working," said Kirk. "He's trying to place me. It's all right, Bill, old man; it's my fault. I had no right to spring myself on you with eight feet of beard. It isn't giving you a square deal. Never mind, it's coming off in a few minutes, never to return, and then, perhaps, you'll remember that you've a father."

"Fa-a-a-ar!" shrieked William Bannister triumphantly, taking the cue with admirable swiftness.

He leaped at Kirk, and Kirk swung him up in the air. It was quite an effort, for William Bannister had grown astonishingly in the past year.

"Pop," said he firmly, as if resolved to prevent any possibility of mistake. "Daddy," he added, continuing to play upon the theme. He summed up. "You're my pop."

Then, satisfied that this was final and that there could now be no chance for Kirk to back out of the contract, he reached out a hand and gave a tug at the beard which had led to all the confusion.

"What's this?"

"You may well ask," said Kirk. "I got struck that way because I left you and mummy for a whole year. But now I'm back I'm going to be allowed to take it off and give it away. Whom shall I give it to? Steve? Do you think Steve would like it? Yes, you can go on pulling it; it won't break. On the other hand, I should just like to mention that it's hurting something fierce, my son. It's fastened on at the other end, you know."

"Why?"

"Don't ask me. That's the way it's built."

William Bannister obligingly disentangled himself from the beard.

"Where you been?" he inquired.

"Miles and miles away. You know the Battery?"

William Bannister nodded.

"Well, a long way past that. First I took a ship and went ever so many miles. Then I landed and went ever so many more miles, with all sorts of beasts trying to bite pieces out of me."

This interested William Bannister.

"Tigers?" he inquired.

"I didn't actually see any tigers, but I expect they were sneaking round. There were mosquitoes, though. You know what a mosquito is?"

William nodded.

"Bumps," he observed crisply.

"That's right. You see this lump here, just above my mouth? Well, that's not a mosquito-bite; that's my nose; but think of something about that size and you'll have some idea of what a mosquito-bite is like out there. But why am I boring you with my troubles? Tell me all about yourself. You've certainly been growing, whatever else you may have been doing while I've been away; I can hardly lift you. Has Steve taught you to box yet?"

At this moment he was aware that he had become the centre of a small group. Looking round he found himself gazing into a face so stiff with horror and disapproval that he was startled almost into dropping William. What could have happened to induce Mrs. Porter to look like that he could not imagine; but her expression checked his flow of light conversation as if it had been turned off with a switch. He lowered Bill to the ground.

"What on earth's the matter?" he asked. "What has happened?"

Without replying, Mrs. Porter made a gesture in the direction of the nursery, which had the effect of sending Mamie and her charge off again on the journey upstairs which Kirk's advent had interrupted. Bill seemed sorry to go, but he trudged sturdily on without remark. Kirk followed him with his eyes till he disappeared at the bend of the stairway.

"What's the matter?" he repeated.

"Are you mad, Kirk?" demanded Mrs. Porter in a tense voice.

Kirk turned helplessly to Ruth.

"You had better let me explain, Aunt Lora," she said. "Of course Kirk couldn't be expected to know, poor boy. You seem to forget that he has only this minute come into the house."

Aunt Lora was not to be appeased.

"That is absolutely no excuse. He has just left a ship where he cannot have failed to pick up bacilli of every description. He has himself only recently recovered from a probably infectious fever. He is wearing a beard, notoriously the most germ-ridden abomination in existence."

Kirk started. He was not proud of his beard, but he had not regarded it as quite the pestilential thing which it seemed to be in the eyes of Mrs. Porter.

"And he picks up the child!" she went on. "Hugs him! Kisses him! And you say he could not have known better! Surely the most elementary common sense—"

"Aunt Lora!" said Ruth.

She spoke quietly, but there was a note in her voice which acted on Mrs. Porter like magic. Her flow of words ceased abruptly. It was a small incident, but it had the effect of making Kirk, grateful as he was for the interruption, somehow vaguely uneasy for a moment.

It seemed to indicate some subtle change in Ruth's character, some new quality of hardness added to it. The Ruth he had left when he sailed for Colombia would, he felt, have been incapable of quelling her masterful aunt so very decisively and with such an economy of words. It suggested previous warfare, in which the elder women had been subdued to a point where a mere exclamation could pull her up when she forgot herself.

Kirk felt uncomfortable. He did not like these sudden discoveries about Ruth.

"I will explain to Kirk," she said. "You go up and see that everything is right in the nursery."

And—amazing spectacle!—off went Mrs. Porter without another word.

Ruth put her arm in Kirk's and led him off to the smoking-room.

"You may smoke a cigar while I tell you all about Bill," she said.

Kirk lit a cigar, bewildered. It is always unpleasant to be the person to whom things have to be explained.

"Poor old boy," Ruth went on, "you certainly are thin. But about Bill. I am afraid you are going to be a little upset about Bill, Kirk. Aunt Lora has no tact, and she will make a speech on every possible occasion; but she was right just now. It really was rather dangerous, picking Bill up like that and kissing him."

Kirk stared.

"I don't understand. Did you expect me to wave my hand to him? Or would it have been more correct to bow?"

"Don't be so satirical, Kirk; you wither me. No, seriously, you really mustn't kiss Bill. I never do. Nobody does."

"What!"

"I dare say it sounds ridiculous to you, but you were not here when he was so ill and nearly died. You remember what I was telling you at the dock? About giving Whiskers away? Well, this is all part of it. After what happened I feel, like Aunt Lora, that we simply can't take too many precautions. You saw his nursery. Well, it would be simply a waste of money giving him a nursery like that if he was allowed to be exposed to infection when he was out of it."

"And I am supposed to be infectious?"

"Not more than anybody else. There's no need to be hurt about it. It's just as much a sacrifice for me."

"So nobody makes a fuss over Bill now—is that it?"

"Well, no. Not in the way you mean."

"Pretty dreary outlook for the kid, isn't it?"

"It's all for his good."

"What a ghastly expression!"

Ruth left her chair and came and sat on the arm of Kirk's. She ruffled his hair lightly with the tips of her fingers. Kirk, who had been disposed to be militant, softened instantly. The action brought back a flood of memories. It conjured up recollections of peaceful evenings in the old studio, for this had been a favourite habit of Ruth's. It made him feel that he loved her more than he had ever done in his life; and—incidentally—that he was a brute to try and thwart her in anything whatsoever.

"I know it's horrid for you, dear old boy," said Ruth coaxingly; "but do be good and not make a fuss about it. Not kissing Bill doesn't mean that you need be any the less fond of him. I know it will be strange at first—I didn't get used to it for ever so long—but, honestly, it is for his good, however ghastly the expression of the thing may sound."

"It's treating the kid like a wretched invalid," grumbled Kirk.

"You wait till you see him playing, and then you'll know if he's a wretched invalid or not!"

"May I see him playing?"

"Don't be silly. Of course."

"I thought I had better ask. Being the perambulating plague-spot I am, I was not taking any risks."

"How horribly self-centred you are! You will talk as if you were in some special sort of quarantine. I keep on telling you it's the same for all of us."

"I suppose when I'm with him I shall have to be sterilized?"

"I don't think it necessary myself, but Aunt Lora does, so it's always done. It humours her, and it really isn't any trouble. Besides, it may be necessary after all. One never knows, and it's best to be on the safe side."

Kirk laid down his cigar firmly, the cold cigar which stress of emotion had made him forget to keep alight.

"Ruth, old girl," he said earnestly, "this is pure lunacy."

Ruth's fingers wandered idly through his hair. She did not speak for some moments.

"You will be good about it, won't you, Kirk dear?" she said at last.

It is curious what a large part hair and its treatment may play in the undoing of strong men. The case of Samson may be recalled in this connection. Kirk, with Ruth ruffling the wiry growth that hid his scalp, was incapable of serious opposition. He tried to be morose and resolute, but failed miserably.

"Oh, very well," he grunted.

"That's a good boy. And you promise you won't go hugging Bill again?"

"Very well."

"There's an angel for you. Now I'll fix you a cocktail as a reward."

"Well, mind you sterilize it carefully."

Ruth laughed. Having gained her point she could afford to. She made the cocktail and brought it to him.

"And now I'll be off and dress, and then you can take me out to lunch somewhere."

"Aren't you dressed?"

"My goodness, no. Not for going to restaurants. You forget that I'm one of the idle rich now. I spend my whole day putting on different kinds of clothes. I've a position to keep up now, Mr. Winfield."

Kirk lit a fresh cigar and sat thinking. The old feeling of desolation which had attacked him as he came up the bay had returned. He felt like a stranger in a strange world. Life was not the same. Ruth was not the same. Nothing was the same.

The more he contemplated the new regulations affecting Bill the chillier and more unfriendly did they seem to him. He could not bring himself to realize Ruth as one of the great army of cranks preaching and carrying out the gospel of Lora Delane Porter. It seemed so at variance with her character as he had known it. He could not seriously bring himself to believe that she genuinely approved of these absurd restrictions. Yet, apparently she did.

He looked into the future. It had a grey and bleak aspect. He seemed to himself like a man gazing down an unknown path full of unknown perils.



Chapter III

The Misadventure of Steve

Kirk was not the only person whom the sudden change in the financial position of the Winfield family had hit hard. The blighting effects of sudden wealth had touched Steve while Kirk was still in Colombia.

In a sense, it had wrecked Steve's world. Nobody had told him to stop or even diminish the number of his visits, but the fact remained that, by the time Kirk returned to New York, he had practically ceased to go to the house on Fifth Avenue.

For all his roughness, Steve possessed a delicacy which sometimes almost amounted to diffidence; and he did not need to be told that there was a substantial difference, as far as he was concerned, between the new headquarters of the family and the old. At the studio he had been accustomed to walk in when it pleased him, sure of a welcome; but he had an idea that he did not fit as neatly into the atmosphere of Fifth Avenue as he had done into that of Sixty-First Street; and nobody disabused him of it.

It was perhaps the presence of Mrs. Porter that really made the difference. In spite of the compliments she had sometimes paid to his common sense, Mrs. Porter did not put Steve at his ease. He was almost afraid of her. Consequently, when he came to Fifth Avenue, he remained below stairs, talking pugilism with Keggs.

It was from Keggs that he first learned of the changes that had taken place in the surroundings of William Bannister.

"I've 'ad the privilege of serving in some of the best houses in England," said the butler one evening, as they sat smoking in the pantry, "and I've never seen such goings on. I don't hold with the pampering of children."

"What do you mean, pampering?" asked Steve.

"Well, Lord love a duck!" replied the butler, who in his moments of relaxation was addicted to homely expletives of the lower London type. "If you don't call it pampering, what do you call pampering? He ain't allowed to touch nothing that ain't been—it's slipped my memory what they call it, but it's got something to do with microbes. They sprinkle stuff on his toys and on his clothes and on his nurse; what's more, and on any one who comes to see him. And his nursery ain't what I call a nursery at all. It's nothing more or less than a private 'ospital, with its white tiles and its antiseptics and what not, and the temperature just so and no lower nor higher. I don't call it 'aving a proper faith in Providence, pampering and fussing over a child to that extent."

"You're stringing me!"

"Not a bit of it, Mr. Dingle. I've seen the nursery with my own eyes, and I 'ave my information direct from the young person who looks after the child."

"But, say, in the old days that kid was about the dandiest little sport that ever came down the pike. You seen him that day I brought him round to say hello to the old man. He didn't have no nursery at all then, let alone one with white tiles. I've seen him come up off the studio floor looking like a coon with the dust. And Miss Ruth tickled to see him like that, too. For the love of Mike, what's come to her?"

"It's all along of this Porter," said Keggs morosely. "She's done it all. And if," he went on with sudden heat, "she don't break her 'abit of addressing me in a tone what the 'umblest dorg would resent, I'm liable to forget my place and give her a piece of my mind. Coming round and interfering!"

"Got your goat, has she?" commented Steve, interested. "She's what you'd call a tough proposition, that dame. I used to have my eye on her all the time in the old days, waiting for her to start something. But say, I'd like to see this nursery you've been talking about. Take me up and let me lamp it."

Keggs shook his head.

"I daren't, Mr. Dingle. It 'ud be as much as my place is worth."

"But, darn it! I'm the kid's godfather."

"That wouldn't make no difference to that Porter. She'd pick on me just the same. But, if you care to risk it, Mr. Dingle, I'll show you where it is. You'll find the young person up there. She'll tell you more about the child's 'abits and daily life than I can."

"Good enough," said Steve.

He had not seen Mamie for some time, and absence had made the heart grow fonder. It embittered him that his meetings with her were all too rare nowadays. She seemed to have abandoned the practice of walking altogether, for, whenever he saw her now she was driving in the automobile with Bill. Keggs' information about the new system threw some light upon this and made him all the more anxious to meet her now.

It was a curious delusion of Steve's that he was always going to pluck up courage and propose to Mamie the very next time he saw her. This had gone on now for over two years, but he still clung to it. Repeated failures to reveal his burning emotions never caused him to lose the conviction that he would do it for certain next time.

It was in his customary braced-up, do-or-die frame of mind that he entered the nursery now.

His visit to Keggs had been rather a late one and had lasted some time before the subject of the White Hope had been broached, with the result that, when Steve arrived among the white tiles and antiseptics, he found his godson in bed and asleep. In a chair by the cot Mamie sat sewing.

Her eyes widened with surprise when she saw who the visitor was, and she put a finger to her lip and pointed to the sleeper. And, as we have to record another of the long list of Steve's failures to propose we may say here, in excuse, that this reception took a great deal of the edge off the dashing resolution which had been his up to that moment. It made him feel self-conscious from the start.

"Whatever brings you up here, Steve?" whispered Mamie.

It was not a very tactful remark, perhaps, considering that Steve was the child's godfather, and, as such, might reasonably expect to be allowed a free pass to his nursery; but Mamie, like Keggs, had fallen so under the domination of Lora Delane Porter that she had grown to consider it almost a natural law that no one came to see Bill unless approved of and personally conducted by her.

Steve did not answer. He was gaping at the fittings of the place in which he found himself. It was precisely as Keggs had described it, white tiles and all.

He was roused from his reflections by the approach of Mamie, or, rather, not so much by her approach as by the fact that at this moment she suddenly squirted something at him. It was cold and wet and hit him in the face before, as he put it to Keggs later, he could get his guard up.

"For the love of——"

"Sh!" said Mamie warningly.

"What's the idea? What are you handing me?"

"I've got to. It's to sterilize you. I do it to every one."

"Gee! You've got a swell job! Well, go to it, then. Shoot! I'm ready."

"It's boric acid," explained Mamie.

"I shouldn't wonder. Is this all part of the Porter circus?"

"Yes."

"Where is she?" inquired Steve in sudden alarm. "Is she likely to butt in?"

"No. She's out."

"Good," said Steve, and sat down, relieved, to resume his inspection of the room.

When he had finished he drew a deep breath.

"Well!" he said softly. "Say, Mamie, what do you think about it?"

"I'm not paid to think about it, Steve."

"That means you agree with me that it's the punkest state of things you ever struck. Well, you're quite right. It is. It's a shame to think of that innocent kid having this sort of deal handed to him. Why, just think of him at the studio!"

But Mamie, whatever her private views, was loyal to her employers. She refused to be drawn into a discussion on the subject.

"Have you been downstairs with Mr. Keggs, Steve?"

"Yes. It was him that told me about all this. Say, Mame, we ain't seen much of each other lately."

"No."

"Mighty little."

"Yes."

Having got as far as this, Steve should, of course, have gone resolutely ahead. After all, it is not a very long step from telling a girl in a hushed whisper with a shake in it that you have not seen much of her lately to hinting that you would like to see a great deal more of her in the future.

Steve was on the right lines, and he knew it; but that fatal lack of nerve which had wrecked him on all the other occasions when he had got as far as this undid him now. He relapsed into silence, and Mamie went on sewing.

In a way, if you shut your eyes to the white tiles and the thermometer and the brass knobs and the shower-bath, it was a peaceful scene; and Steve, as he sat there and watched Mamie sew, was stirred by it. Remove the white tiles, the thermometer the brass knobs, and the shower-bath, and this was precisely the sort of scene his imagination conjured up when the business of life slackened sufficiently to allow him to dream dreams.

There he was, sitting in one chair; there was Mamie, sitting in another; and there in the corner was the little white cot—well, perhaps that was being a shade too prophetic; on the other hand, it always came into these dreams of his. There, in short, was everything arranged just as he pictured it; and all that was needed to make the picture real was for him to propose and Mamie to accept him.

It was the disturbing thought that the second condition did not necessarily follow on to the first that had kept Steve from taking the plunge for the last two years. Unlike the hero of the poem, he feared his fate too much to put it to the touch, to win or lose it all.

Presently the silence began to oppress Steve. Mamie had her needlework, and that apparently served her in lieu of conversation; but Steve had nothing to occupy him, and he began to grow restless. He always despised himself thoroughly for his feebleness on these occasions; and he despised himself now. He determined to make a big effort.

"Mamie!" he said.

As he was nervous and had been silent so long that his vocal cords had gone off duty under the impression that their day's work was over, the word came out of him like a husky gunshot. Mamie started, and the White Hope, who had been sleeping peacefully, stirred and muttered.

"S-sh!" hissed Mamie.

Steve collapsed with the feeling that it was not his lucky night, while Mamie bent anxiously over the cot. The sleeper, however, did not wake. He gurgled, gave a sigh, then resumed his interrupted repose. Mamie returned to her seat.

"Yes?" she said, as if nothing had occurred, and as if there had been no interval between Steve's remark and her reply.

Steve could not equal her calmness. He had been strung up when he spoke, and the interruption had undone him. He reflected ruefully that he might have said something to the point if he had been allowed to go straight on; now he had forgotten what he had meant to say.

"Oh, nothing," he replied.

Silence fell once more on the nursery.

Steve was bracing himself up for another attack when suddenly there came a sound of voices from the stairs. One voice was a mere murmur, but the other was sharp and unmistakable, the incisive note of Lora Delane Porter. It brought Steve and Mamie to their feet simultaneously.

"What's it matter?" said Steve stoutly, answering the panic in Mamie's eyes. "It's not her house, and I got a perfect right to be here."

"You don't know her. I shall get into trouble."

Mamie was pale with apprehension. She knew her Lora Delane Porter, and she knew what would happen if Steve were to be discovered there. It was, as Keggs put it, as much as her place was worth.

For a brief instant Mamie faced a future in which she was driven from Bill's presence into outer darkness, dismissed, and told never to return. That was what would happen. Sitting and talking with Steve in the sacred nursery at this time of night was a crime, and she had known it all the time. But she had been glad to see Steve again after all this while—if Steve had known how glad, he would certainly have found courage and said what he had so often failed to say—and, knowing that Mrs. Porter was out, she had thought the risk of his presence worth taking. Now, with discovery imminent, panic came upon her.

The voices were quite close now. There was no doubt of the destination of the speakers. They were heading slowly but directly for the nursery.

Steve, not being fully abreast of the new rules and regulations of the sacred apartment, could not read Mamie's mind completely. He did not know that, under Mrs. Porter's code, the admission of a visitor during the hours of sleep was a felony in the first degree, punishable by instant dismissal. But Mamie's face and her brief reference to trouble were enough to tell him that the position was critical, and with the instinct of the trapped he looked round him for cover.

But the White Hope's nursery was not constructed with a view to providing cover for bulky gentlemen who should not have been there. It was as bare as a billiard-table as far as practicable hiding-places were concerned.

And then his eye caught the water-proof sheet of the shower-bath. Behind that there was just room for concealment.

With a brief nod of encouragement to Mamie, he leaped at it. The door opened as he disappeared.

Mrs. Porter's rules concerning visitors, though stringent as regarded Mamie, were capable of being relaxed when she herself was the person to relax them. She had a visitor with her now—a long, severe-looking lady with a sharp nose surmounted by spectacles, who, taking in the white tiles, the thermometer, the cot, and the brass knobs in a single comprehensive glance, observed: "Admirable!"

Mrs, Porter was obviously pleased with this approval. Her companion was a woman doctor of great repute among the advanced apostles of hygiene; and praise from her was praise indeed. She advanced into the room with an air of suppressed pride.

"These tiles are thoroughly cleaned twice each day with an antiseptic solution."

"Just so," said the spectacled lady.

"You notice the thermometer."

"Exactly."

"Those knobs you see on the wall have various uses."

"Quite."

They examined the knobs with an air of profound seriousness, Mrs. Porter erect and complacent, the other leaning forward and peering through her spectacles. Mamie took advantage of their backs and turned to cast a hurried glance at the water-proof curtain. It was certainly an admirable screen; no sign of Steve was visible; but nevertheless she did not cease to quake.

"This," said Mrs. Porter, "controls the heat. This, this, and this are for the ventilation."

"Just so, just so, just so," said the doctor. "And this, of course, is for the shower-bath? I understand!"

And, extending a firm finger, she gave the knob a forceful push.

Mrs. Porter nodded.

"That is the cold shower," she said. "This is the hot. It is a very ingenious arrangement, one of Malcolmson's patents. There is a regulator at the side of the bath which enables the nurse to get just the correct temperature. I will turn on both, and then——"

It was as Mrs. Porter's hand was extended toward the knob that the paralysis which terror had put upon Mamie relaxed its grip. She had stood by without a movement while the cold water splashed down upon the hidden Steve. Her heart had ached for him, but she had not stirred. But now, with the prospect of allowing him to be boiled alive before her, she acted.

It is generally only on the stage that a little child comes to the rescue of adults at critical moments; but William Bannister was accorded the opportunity of doing so off it. It happened that at the moment of Mrs. Porter's entry Mamie had been standing near his cot, and she had not moved since. The consequence was that she was within easy reach of him; and, despair giving her what in the circumstances amounted to a flash of inspiration, she leaned quickly forward, even as Mrs. Porter's finger touched the knob, and gave the round head on the pillow a rapid push.