Part 32 (1/2)

”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 s.h.i.+fted as the crowd of strangers was s.h.i.+fting 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 superst.i.tious 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 pa.s.sed 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.”