Part 10 (2/2)
Mrs. Porter nodded.
”Quite right. Mr. Kirk Winfield. She is going to marry him.”
Bailey's hat fell to the floor. His stick followed. His mouth opened widely. His gla.s.ses shot from his nose and danced madly at the end of their string.
”What!”
”It will be a most suitable match in every way,” said Mrs. Porter.
Bailey bounded to his feet.
”It's incredible!” he shouted. ”It's ridiculous! It's abominable!
It's--it's incredible!”
Mrs. Porter gazed upon his transports with about the same amount of interest which she would have bestowed upon a whirling dervish at Coney Island.
”You have not seen Mr. Winfield, I gather?”
”When I do, he will have reason to regret it. I----”
”Sit down.”
Bailey sat down.
”Ruth and Mr. Winfield are both perfect types. Mr. Winfield is really a splendid specimen of a man. As to his intelligence, I say nothing. I have ceased to expect intelligence in man, and I am grateful for the smallest grain. But physically, he is magnificent. I could not wish dear Ruth a better husband.”
Bailey had pulled himself together with a supreme effort and had achieved a frozen calm.
”Such a marriage is, of course, out of the question,” he said.
”Why?”
”My sister cannot marry a--a n.o.body, an outsider----”
”Mr. Winfield is not a n.o.body. He is an extraordinarily healthy young man.”
”Are you aware that Ruth, if she had wished, could have married a prince?”
”She told me. A little rat of a man, I understand. She had far too much sense to do any such thing. She has a conscience. She knows what she owes to the future of the----”
”Bah!” cried Bailey rudely.
”I suppose,” said Mrs. Porter, ”that, like most men, you care nothing for the future of the race? You are not interested in eugenics?”
Bailey quivered with fury at the word, but said nothing.
”If you have ever studied even so elementary a subject as the colour heredity of the Andalusian fowl----”
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