Part 58 (1/2)

Sybil, though anxious to look on the bright side, could not quite rise to these heights of scorn for the earthquake which had shaken her world.

”I hope not. It would be awful to go through a time like this again.”

Ruth rea.s.sured her, though it entailed a certain inconsistency on her part. She had a true woman's contempt for consistency.

”Of course you won't have to go through it again. Bailey will be careful in future not to--not to do whatever it is that he has done.”

She felt that the end of her inspiring speech was a little weak, but she did not see how she could mend it. Her talk with Mr. Meadows on the telephone had left her as vague as before as to the actual details of what had been happening that day in Wall Street. She remembered stray remarks of his about bulls, and she had gathered that something had happened to something which Mr. Meadows called G.R.D.'s, which had evidently been at the root of the trouble; but there her grasp of high finance ended.

Sybil, however, was not exigent. She brightened at Ruth's words as if they had been an authoritative p.r.o.nouncement from an expert.

”Bailey is sure to do right,” she said. ”I think I'll creep in and see if he's still asleep.”

Ruth, left alone on the porch, fell into a pleasant train of thought.

There was something in her mental att.i.tude which amused her. She wondered if anybody had ever received the announcement of financial ruin in quite the same way before. Yet to her this att.i.tude seemed the only one possible.

How simple everything was now! She could go to Kirk and, as she had said to Sybil, start again. The golden barrier between them had vanished. One day had wiped out all the wretchedness of the last year.

They were back where they had started, with all the acc.u.mulated experience of those twelve months to help them steer their little s.h.i.+p clear of the rocks on its new voyage.

She was roused from her dream by the sound of an automobile drawing up at the door. A voice that she recognised called her name. She went quickly down the steps.

”Is that you, Aunt Lora?”

Mrs. Porter, masterly woman, never wasted time in useless chatter.

”Jump in, my dear,” she said crisply. ”Your husband has stolen William and eloped with that girl Mamie (whom I never trusted) to Connecticut.”

Chapter XIII

Pastures New

Steve had arrived at the Connecticut shack in the early dawn of the day which had been so eventful to most of his friends and acquaintances. William Bannister's interest in the drive, at first acute, had ceased after the first five miles, and he had pa.s.sed the remainder of the journey in a sound sleep from which the stopping of the car did not awaken him.

Steve jumped down and stretched himself. There was a wonderful freshness in the air which made him forget for a moment his desire for repose. He looked about him, breathing deep draughts of its coolness.

The robins which, though not so well advertised, rise just as punctually as the lark, were beginning to sing as they made their simple toilets before setting out to attend to the early worm. The sky to the east was a delicate blend of pinks and greens and yellows, with a hint of blue behind the grey which was still the prevailing note.

A vaguely sentimental mood came upon Steve. In his heart he knew perfectly well that he could never be happy for any length of time out of sight and hearing of Broadway cars; but at that moment, such was the magic of the dawn, he felt a longing to settle down in the country and pa.s.s the rest of his days a simple farmer with beard unchecked by razor. He saw himself feeding the chickens and addressing the pigs by their pet names, while Mamie, in a cotton frock, called cheerfully to him to come in because breakfast was ready and getting cold.

Mamie! Ah!

His sigh turned into a yawn. He realized with the abruptness which comes to a man who stands alone with nature in the small hours that he was very sleepy. The excitement which had sustained him till now had begun to ebb. The free life of the bearded farmer seemed suddenly less attractive. Bed was what he wanted now, not nature.

He opened the door of the car and lifted William Bannister out, swathed in rugs. The White Hope gurgled drowsily, but did not wake. Steve carried him on to the porch and laid him down. Then he turned his attention to the problem of effecting an entry.

Once an honest man has taken to amateur burgling he soon picks up the tricks of it. To open his knife and shoot back the catch of the nearest window was with Steve the work, if not of a moment, of a very few minutes. He climbed in and unlocked the front door. Then he carried his young charge into the sitting-room and laid him down on a chair, a step nearer his ultimate destination--bed.