was hardly that. No, it was rather a kind of vague regret for the life
which had so definitely ended, the feeling which the Romans called
desiderium and the Greeks pathos. The defection of George
Pennicut was a small thing in itself, but it meant the removal of
another landmark.
"We had some bully good times in that studio," he said.
The words were a requiem.
The first person whom he met in this great house, in the kingdom of
which he was to be king-consort, was a butler of incredible
stateliness. This was none other than Steve's friend Keggs. But round
the outlying portions of this official he had perceived, as the door
opened, a section of a woman in a brown dress.
The butler moving to one side, he found himself confronting Mrs. Lora
Delane Porter.
If other things in Kirk's world had changed, time had wrought in vain
upon the great authoress. She looked as masterful, as unyielding, and
as efficient as she had looked at the time of his departure. She took
his hand without emotion and inspected him keenly.
"You are thinner," she remarked.
"I said that, Aunt Lora," said Ruth. "Poor boy, he's a skeleton."
"You are not so robust."
"I have been ill."
Ruth interposed.
"He's had fever, Aunt Lora, and you are not to tease him."
"I should be the last person to tease any man. What sort of fever?"
"I think it was a blend of all sorts," replied Kirk. "A kind of Irish
stew of a fever."
"You are not infectious?"
"Certainly not."
Mrs. Porter checked Ruth as she was about to speak.
"We owe it to William to be careful," she explained. "After all the
trouble we have taken to exclude him from germs it is only reasonable
to make these inquiries."
"Come along, dear," said Ruth, "and I'll show you the house. Don't mind
Aunt Lora," she whispered; "she means well, and she really is splendid
with Bill."
Kirk followed her. He was feeling chilled again. His old mistrust of
Mrs. Porter revived. If their brief interview was to be taken as
evidence, she seemed to have regained entirely her old ascendancy over
Ruth. He felt vaguely uneasy, as a man might who walks in a powder
magazine.
"Aunt Lora lives here now," observed Ruth casually, as they went
upstairs.
Kirk started.
"Literally, do you mean? Is this her home?"
Ruth smiled at him over her shoulder.
"She won't interfere with you," she said. "Surely this great house is
large enough for the three of us. Besides, she's so devoted to Bill.
She looks after him all the time; of course, nowadays I don't get quite
so much time to be with him myself. One has an awful lot of calls on
one. I feel Bill is so safe with Aunt Lora on the premises."
She stopped at a door on the first floor.
"This is Bill's nursery. He's out just now. Mamie takes him for a drive
every morning when it's fine."
Something impelled Kirk to speak.
"Don't you ever take him for walks in the morning now?" he asked. "He
used to love it."
"Silly! Of course I do, when I can manage it. For drives, rather. Aunt
Lora is rather against his walking much in the city. He might so easily
catch something, you know."
She opened the door.
"There!" she said. "What do you think of that for a nursery?"
If Kirk had spoken his mind he would have said that of all the ghastly
nurseries the human brain could have conceived this was the ghastliest.
It was a large, square room, and to Kirk's startled eyes had much the
appearance of an operating theatre at a hospital.
There was no carpet on the tiled floor. The walls, likewise tiled, were
so bare that the eye ached contemplating them. In the corner by the
window stood the little white cot. Beside it on the wall hung a large
thermometer. Various knobs of brass decorated the opposite wall. At the
farther end of the room was a bath, complete with shower and all the
other apparatus of a modern tub.
It was probably the most horrible room in all New York.
"Well, what do you think of it?" demanded Ruth proudly.
Kirk gazed at her, speechless. This, he said to himself, was Ruth, his
wife, who had housed his son in the spare bedroom of the studio and
allowed a shaggy Irish terrier to sleep on his bed; who had permitted
him to play by the hour in the dust of the studio floor, who had even
assisted him to do so by descending into the dust herself in the role
of a bear or a snake.
What had happened to this world from which he had been absent but one
short year? Was everybody mad, or was he hopelessly behind the times?
"Well?" Ruth reminded him.
Kirk eyed the dreadful room.
"It looks clean," he said at last.
"It is clean," said the voice of Lora Delane Porter proudly behind him.
She had followed them up the stairs to do the honours of the nursery,
the centre of her world. "It is essentially clean. There is not an
object in that room which is not carefully sterilized night and morning
with a weak solution of boric acid!"
"Even Mamie?" inquired Kirk.
It had been his intention to be mildly jocular, but Mrs. Porter's reply
showed him that in jest he had spoken the truth.
"Certainly. Have you any idea, Kirk, of the number of germs there are
on the surface of the human body? It runs into billions. You", she
fixed him with her steely eye, "you are at the present moment one mass
of microbes."
"I sneaked through quarantine all right."
"To the adult there is not so much danger in these microbes, provided
he or she maintains a reasonable degree of personal cleanliness. That
is why adults may be permitted to mix with other adults without
preliminary sterilization. But in the case of a growing child it is
entirely different. No precaution is excessive. So......"
From below at this point there came the sound of the front-door bell.
Ruth went to the landing and looked over the banisters.
"That ought to be Bill and Mamie back from their drive," she said.
The sound of a child's voice came to Kirk as he stood listening; and as
he heard it all the old feeling of paternal pride and excitement, which
had left him during his wanderings, swept over him like a wave. He
reproached himself that, while the memory of Ruth had been with him
during every waking moment of the past year, there had been occasions
when that of William Bannister had become a little faded.
He ran down the stairs.
"Hello, Mamie!" he said. "How are you? You're looking well."
Mamie greeted him with the shy smile which was wont to cause such havoc
in Steve's heart.
"And who's this you've got with you? Mamie, you know you've no business
going about with young men like this. Who is he?"
He stood looking at William Bannister, and William Bannister stood
looking at him, Kirk smiling, William staring with the intense gravity
of childhood and trying to place this bearded stranger among his circle
of friends. He seemed to be thinking that the familiarity of the
other's manner indicated a certain amount of previous acquaintanceship.
"Watch that busy brain working," said Kirk. "He's trying to place me.
It's all right, Bill, old man; it's my fault. I had no right to spring
myself on you with eight feet of beard. It isn't giving you a square
deal. Never mind, it's coming off in a few minutes, never to return,
and then, perhaps, you'll remember that you've a father."
"Fa-a-a-ar!" shrieked William Bannister triumphantly, taking the cue
with admirable swiftness.
He leaped at Kirk, and Kirk swung him up in
the air. It was quite an effort, for William Bannister had grown