Winfield seem a stranger at whom he could look with detachment and a
certain contempt.
As he walked back along the deck the battlements of the city met his
gaze once more. But now they seemed less formidable.
In the leisurely fashion of the home-coming ship the Santa
Barbara slid into her dock. The gangplank was thrust out. Kirk
walked ashore.
For a moment he thought that Ruth had not come to meet him. Then his
heart leaped madly. He had seen her.
* * * * *
There are worse spots in the world than the sheds of the New York
customs, but few more desolate; yet to Kirk just then the shadowy
vastness seemed a sunlit garden. A flame of happiness blazed up in his
mind, blotting out in an instant the forebodings which had lurked there
like evil creatures in a dark vault. The future, with its explanations
and plans, could take care of itself. Ruth was a thing of the present.
He put his arms round her and held her. The friendly drummer, who
chanced to be near, observed them with interest and a good deal of
pleasure. The third officer's story had temporarily destroyed his
feeling that all was right with the world, and his sympathetic heart
welcomed this evidence that life held compensations even for men who
had been swindled out of valuable gold-mines.
"I guess he's not feeling so worse, after all," he mused, and went on
his way with an easy mind to be fawned upon by his grateful firm.
Ruth was holding Kirk at arm's length, her eyes full of tears at the
sight.
"You poor boy, how thin you are!"
"I had fever. It's an awful place for fever out there."
"Kirk!"
"Oh, I'm all right now. The voyage set me up. They made a great fuss
over me on board."
Ruth's hand was clinging to his arm. He squeezed it against his side.
It was wonderful to him, this sense of being together again after these
centuries of absence. It drove from his mind the thought of all the
explanations which sooner or later he had got to make. Whatever might
come after, he would keep this moment in his memory golden and
untarnished.
"Don't you worry about me," he said. "Now that I've found you again I'm
feeling better than I ever did in my life. You wait till you see me
sparring with Steve to-morrow. By the way, how is Steve?"
"Splendid."
"And Bill?"
Ruth drew herself up haughtily.
"You dare to ask about your son after Steve? How clumsy that sounds! I
mean you dare to put Steve before your son. I believe you've only just
realized that you have a son."
"I've only just realized there's anybody or anything in the world
except my wife."
"Well, after that I suppose I've got to forgive you. Since you have
asked after Bill at last, I may tell you that he's very well indeed."
Kirk's eyes glowed.
"He ought to be a great kid by now."
"He is."
"And Mamie? Have you still got her?"
"I wouldn't lose her for a million."
"And Whiskers?"
"I'm afraid Whiskers is gone."
"Not dead?"
"No. I gave him away."
"For Heaven's sake! Why?"
"Well, dear, the fact is, I've come around to Aunt Lora's way of
thinking."
"Eh?"
"About germs."
Kirk laughed, the first real laugh he had had for a year.
"That insane fad of hers!"
Ruth was serious.
"I have," she said. "We're taking a great deal more care of Bill than
in the old days. I hate to think of the way I used to let him run
around wild then. He might have died."
"What nonsense! He was simply bursting with health all the time."
"I had a horrible shock after you left," Ruth went on. "The poor little
fellow was awfully ill with some kind of a fever. The doctor almost
gave him up."
"Good heavens!"
"Aunt Lora helped me to nurse him, and she made me see how I had been
exposing him to all sorts of risks, and, well, now we guard against
them."
There was a silence.
"I grew to rely on her a great deal, Kirk, when you were away. You know
I always used to before we were married. She's so wonderfully strong.
And then when your letters stopped coming......"
"There aren't any postal arrangements out there in the interior. It was
the worst part of it, not being able to write to you or hear from you.
Heavens, what an exile I've been this last year! Anything may have
happened!"
"Perhaps something has," said Ruth mysteriously.
"What do you mean?"
"Wait and see. Oh, I know one thing that has happened. I've been
looking at you all this while trying to think what it was. You've grown
a beard, and it looks perfectly horrid."
"Sheer laziness. It shall come off this very day. I knew you would hate
it."
"I certainly do. It makes you look so old."
Kirk's face clouded.
"I feel old."
For the first time since he had left the ship the memory of Hank had
come back to him. The sight of Ruth had driven it away, but now it
swept back on him. The golden moment was over. Life with all its
troubles and its explanations and its burdening sense of failure must
be faced.
"What's the matter?" asked Ruth, startled by the sudden change.
"I was thinking of poor old Hank."
"Where is Mr. Jardine? Didn't he come back with you?"
"He's dead, dear," said Kirk gently. "He died of fever while we were
working our way back to the coast."
"Oh!"
It was the idea of death that shocked Ruth, not the particular
manifestation of it. Hank had not touched her life. She had begun by
disliking him and ended by feeling for him the tolerant sort of
affection which she might have bestowed upon a dog or a cat. Hank as a
man was nothing to her, and she could not quite keep her indifference
out of her voice.
It was only later, when he looked back on this conversation, that Kirk
realized this. At the moment he was unconscious of it, significant as
it was of the fact that there were points at which his mind and Ruth's
did not touch.
When Ruth spoke again it was to change the subject.
"Well, Kirk," she said, "have you come back with your trunk crammed
with nuggets? You haven't said a word about the mine yet, and I'm dying
to know."
He groaned inwardly. The moment he had been dreading had arrived more
swiftly than he had expected. It was time for him to face facts.
"No," he said shortly.
Ruth looked at him curiously. She met his eyes and saw the pain in
them, and intuition told her in an instant what Kirk, stumbling through
his story, could not have told her in an hour. She squeezed his arm
affectionately.
"Don't tell me," she said. "I understand. And it doesn't matter. It
doesn't matter a bit."
"Doesn't matter? But......"
Ruth's eyes were dancing.
"Kirk, dear, I've something to tell you. Wait till we get outside."
"What do you mean?"
"You'll soon see?"
They went out into the street. Against the kerb a large red automobile
was standing. The chauffeur touched his cap as he saw them. Kirk stared
at him dumbly.
"In you get, dear," said Ruth.
She met his astonished gaze with a smile of triumph. This was her
moment, the moment for which she had been waiting. The chauffeur
started the machine.
"I don't understand. Whose car is this?"
"Mine. Yours. Ours. Oh, Kirk, darling, I was so afraid that you would
come back bulging with a fortune that would make my little one look
like nothing. But you haven't, you haven't, and it's just splendid."
She caught his hand and pressed it. "It's simply sweet of you to look
so astonished. I was hoping you would. This car belongs to us, and