Part 35 (1/2)
”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 c.o.c.ktail as a reward.”
”Well, mind you sterilize it carefully.”
Ruth laughed. Having gained her point she could afford to. She made the c.o.c.ktail 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. n.o.body 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.