Part 44 (1/2)
”Oh?”
”I understand that he has invited you to form one of his yacht party.”
”How did you know?”
”Sybil told me. He invited her. I refused to allow her to accept the invitation.”
”And what did Sybil say?”
”She was naturally a little disappointed, of course, but she did as I requested.”
”I wonder she didn't pack her things and go straight off.”
”My dear Ruth!”
”That is what I should have done.”
”You don't know what you are saying.”
”Oh? Do you think I should let Kirk dictate to me like that?”
”He is certain to disapprove of your going when he hears of the invitation. What will you do?”
Ruth's eyes opened. For a moment she looked almost ugly.
”What shall I do? Why, go, of course.”
She clenched her teeth. A woman's mind can work curiously, and she was a.s.sociating Kirk with Bailey in what she considered an unwarrantable intrusion into her private affairs. It was as if Kirk, and not Bailey, were standing there, demanding that she should not a.s.sociate with Basil Milbank.
”I shall make it my business,” said Bailey, ”to warn Kirk that this man is not a desirable companion for you.”
The discussion of this miserable yacht affair had brought back to Bailey all the jealousy which he had felt when Sybil had first told him of it. All the vague stories he had ever heard about Basil were surging in his mind like waves of some corrosive acid. He had become a leading member of the extreme wing of the anti-Milbank party. He regarded Basil with the aversion which a dignified pigeon might feel for a circling hawk; and he was now looking on this yacht party as a deadly peril from which Ruth must be saved at any cost.
”I shall speak to him very strongly,” he added.
Ruth's suppressed anger blazed up in the sudden way which before now had disconcerted her brother.
”Bailey, what do you mean by coming here and saying this sort of thing?
You're becoming a perfect old woman. You spend your whole time prying into other people's affairs. I'm sorry for Sybil.”
Bailey cast one reproachable look at her and left the room with pained dignity. Something seemed to tell him that no good could come to him from a prolongation of the interview. Ruth, in this mood, always had been too much for him, and always would be. Well, he had done his duty as far as he was concerned. It now remained to do the same by Kirk.
He hailed a taxi and drove to the studio.
Kirk was busy and not anxious for conversation, least of all with Bailey. He had not forgotten their last _tete-a-tete_.
Bailey, however, was regarding him with a feeling almost of friendliness. They were bound together by a common grievance against Basil Milbank.
”I came here, Winfield,” he said, after a few moments of awkward conversation on neutral topics, ”because I understand that this man Milbank has invited Ruth to join his yacht party.”
”What yacht party?”