kept Hank dumb.
He had heard, on reaching New York, that Kirk was married, but he had
learned no details, and had conjured up in his mind the vision of a
jolly little girl of the Bohemian type, who would make a fuss over him
as Kirk's oldest friend. Confronted with Ruth, he lost a nerve which
had never before failed him. This gorgeous creature, he felt, would
never put up with those racy descriptions of wild adventures which had
endeared him to Kirk. As soon as he could decently do so, he left, and
Kirk, returning to the studio after seeing him out, sat down moodily,
trying to convince himself against his judgment that the visit had not
been such a failure after all.
Ruth was playing the piano softly. She had turned out all the lights
except one, which hung above her head, shining on her white arms as
they moved. From where he sat Kirk could see her profile. Her eyes were
half closed.
The sight of her, as it always did, sent a thrill through him, but he
was conscious of an ache behind it. He had hoped so much that Hank
would pass, and he knew that he had not. Why was it that two people so
completely one as Ruth and himself could not see Hank with the same
eyes?
He knew that she had thought him uncouth and impossible. Why could not
Hank have exerted himself more, instead of sitting there in that
stuffed way? Why could not Ruth have unbent? Why had not he himself
done something to save the situation? Of the three, he blamed himself
most. He was the one who should have taken the lead and made things
pleasant for everybody instead of forcing out conversational
platitudes.
Once or twice he had caught Hank's eye, and had hated himself for
understanding what it said and not being able to deny it. He had marked
the end of their old relationship, the parting of the ways, and that a
tragedy had been played out that night.
He found himself thinking of Hank as of a friend who had died. What
times they had had! How smoothly they had got on together! He could not
recall a single occasion on which they had fallen out, from the time
when they had fought as boys at the prep. school and cemented their
friendship the next day. After that there had been periods when they
had parted, sometimes for more than a year, but they had always come
together again and picked up the threads as neatly as if there had been
no gap in their intimacy.
He had gone to college: Hank had started on the roving life which
suited his temperament. But they had never lost touch with each other.
And now it was all over. They would meet again, but it would not be the
same. The angel with the flaming sword stood between them.
For the first time since the delirium of marriage had seized upon him,
Kirk was conscious of a feeling that all was not for the best in a best
of all possible worlds, a feeling of regret, not that he had married , the
mere thought would have been a blasphemy , but that marriage was such a
complicated affair. He liked a calm life, free from complications, and
now they were springing up on every side.
There was the matter of the models. Kirk had supposed that it was only
in the comic papers that the artist's wife objected to his employing
models. He had classed it with the mother-in-law joke, respecting it
for its antiquity, but not imagining that it ever really happened. And
Ruth had brought this absurd situation into the sphere of practical
politics only a few days ago.
Since his marriage Kirk had dropped his work almost entirely. There had
seemed to be no time for it. He liked to spend his days going round the
stores with Ruth, buying her things, or looking in at the windows of
Fifth Avenue shops and choosing what he would buy her when he had made
his fortune. It was agreed upon between them that he was to make his
fortune some day.
Kirk's painting had always been more of a hobby with him than a
profession. He knew that he had talent, but talent without hard work is
a poor weapon, and he had always shirked hard work. He had an instinct
for colour, but his drawing was uncertain. He hated linework, while
knowing that only through steady practice at linework could he achieve
his artistic salvation. He was an amateur, and a lazy amateur.
But once in a while the work fever would grip him. It had gripped him a
few days before Hank's visit. An idea for a picture had come to him,
and he had set to work upon it with his usual impulsiveness.
This had involved the arrival of Miss Hilda Vince at the studio. There
was no harm in Miss Vince. Her morals were irreproachable. She
supported a work-shy father, and was engaged to be married to a young
gentleman who travelled for a hat firm. But she was of a chatty
disposition and no respecter of persons. She had posed frequently for
Kirk in his bachelor days, and was accustomed to call him by his first
name , a fact which Kirk had forgotten until Ruth, who had been out in
the park, came in.
Miss Vince was saying at the moment: "So I says to her, 'Kirk's just
phoned to me to sit.' 'What! Kirk!' she says. 'Is he doin' a bit
of work for a change? Well, it's about time.' 'Aw, Kirk don't need to
work,' I says. 'He's a plute. He's got it in gobs.' So......"
"I didn't know you were busy, dear," said Ruth. "I won't interrupt
you."
She went out.
"Was that your wife?" inquired Miss Vince. "She's got a sweet face.
Say, I read the piece about you and her in the paper. You certainly got
a nerve, Kirk, breaking in on the millionaires that way."
That night Ruth spoke her mind about Miss Vince. It was in vain that
Kirk touched on the work-shy father, dwelt feelingly on the young
gentleman who travelled in hats. Ruth had made up her mind. It was
thumbs down for Miss Vince.
"But if I'm to paint," said Kirk, "I must have models."
"There must be hundreds who don't call you by your Christian name."
"After about five minutes they all do," said Kirk. "It's a way they've
got. They mean no harm."
Ruth then made this brilliant suggestion: "Kirk, dear, why don't you
paint landscapes?"
In spite of his annoyance, he laughed.
"Why don't I paint landscapes, Ruth? Because I'm not a landscape
painter, that's why."
"You could learn."
"It's a different branch of the trade altogether. You might just as
well tell a catcher to pitch."
"Well, anyhow," reported Ruth with spirit, "I won't have that Vince
creature in the place again."
It was the first time she had jerked at the reins or given any sign
that she was holding them, and undoubtedly this was the moment at which
Kirk should have said: "My dearest, the time has come for me to state
plainly that my soul is my own. I decline to give in to this absurd
suggestion. Marriage is an affair of give and take, not a circus where
one party holds the hoop while the other jumps through and shams dead.
We shall be happier later on if we get this clearly into our heads
now."
What he did say was: "Very well, dear. I'll write and tell her not to
come."
He knew he was being abominably weak, but he did not care. He even felt
a certain pleasure in his surrender. Big, muscular men are given to
this feebleness with women. Hercules probably wore an idiotic grin of
happiness when he spun wool for Omphale.
Since then the picture had been laid aside, but Kirk's desire to be up
and at it had grown with inaction. When a lazy man does make up his
mind to assail a piece of work, he is like a dog with a bone.