Kirk, meanwhile, uneasy, but a little guessing at the fury behind
Ruth's calm face, was expounding his great scheme, his panacea for all
the ills of domestic misunderstandings and parted lives.
"Ruth, old girl."
Ruth shuddered.
"Ruth, old girl, I've had a bully good idea. It's getting too warm for
anything in New York. Did you ever feel anything like it is to-day? Why
shouldn't you and I pop down to the shack and camp out there for a week
or so? And we would take Bill with us. Just we three, with somebody to
do the cooking. It would be great. What do you say?"
What Ruth said languidly was: "It's quite impossible."
It was damping; but Kirk felt that at all costs he must refuse to be
damped. He clutched at his cheerfulness and held it.
"Nonsense," he retorted. "Why is it impossible? It's a great idea."
Ruth half hid a yawn. She knew she was behaving abominably, and she was
glad of it.
"It's impossible as far as I'm concerned. I have a hundred things to do
before I can leave New York."
"Well, I could do with a day or two to clear up a few bits of work I
have on hand. Why couldn't we start this day week?"
"It is out of the question for me. About then I shall be on Mr.
Milbank's yacht. He has invited me to join his party. The actual day is
not settled, but it will be in about a week's time."
"Oh!" said Kirk.
Ruth said nothing.
"Have you accepted the invitation?"
"I have not actually answered his letter. I was just going to when you
came in."
"But you mean to accept it?"
"Certainly. Several of my friends will be there. Sybil for one."
"Not Sybil."
"Oh, I know Bailey has made some ridiculous objection to her going, but
I mean to persuade her."
Kirk did not answer. She looked at him steadily.
"So Bailey did call on you this afternoon? He told me he was going to,
but I hoped he would think better of it. But apparently there are no
limits to Bailey's stupidity."
"Yes, Bailey came to the studio. He seemed troubled about this yacht
party."
"Did he advise you to forbid me to go?"
"Well, yes; he did."
"And now you have come to do it?"
"Not at all. I told Bailey that you were not the sort of woman one
forbade to do things."
"I'm not."
There was a pause.
"All the same, I wish you wouldn't go."
Ruth did not answer.
"It would be very jolly out at the shack."
Ruth shuddered elaborately and gave a little laugh.
"Would it? It's rather a question of taste. Personally, I can't imagine
anything more depressing and uncomfortable than being cooped up in a
draughty frame house miles away from anywhere. There's no reason why
you should not go, though, if you like that sort of thing. Of course,
you must not take Bill."
"Why not?"
Kirk spoke calmly enough, but he was very near the breaking point. All
his good resolutions had vanished under the acid of Ruth's manner.
"I couldn't let him rough it like that. Aunt Lora would have a fit."
Conditions being favourable, it only needs a spark to explode a powder
magazine; and there are moments when a word can turn an outwardly calm
and patient man into a raging maniac. This introduction of Mrs.
Porter's name into the discussion at this particular point broke down
the last remnants of Kirk's self-control.
For a few seconds his fury so mastered him that he could not speak.
Then, suddenly, the storm passed and he found himself cool and
venomous. He looked at Ruth curiously. It seemed incredible to him that
he had ever loved her.
"We had better get this settled," he said in a hard, quiet voice.
Ruth started. She had never heard him speak like this before. She had
not imagined him capable of speaking in that way. Even in the days
when she had loved him most she had never looked up to him. She had
considered his nature weak, and she had loved his weakness. Except
in the case of her father, she had always dominated the persons with
whom she mixed; and she had taken it for granted that her will was
stronger than Kirk's. Something in his voice now told her that she had
under-estimated him.
"Get what settled?" she asked, and was furious with herself because her
voice shook.
"Is Mrs. Porter the mother of the child, or are you? What has Mrs.
Porter to do with it? Why should I ask her permission? How does it
happen to be any business of Mrs. Porter's at all?"
Ruth felt baffled. He was giving her no chance to take the offensive.
There was nothing in his tone which she could openly resent. He was not
shouting at her, he was speaking quietly. There was nothing for her to
do but answer the question, and she knew that her answer would give him
another point in the contest. Even as she spoke she knew that her words
were ridiculous.
"Aunt Lora has been wonderful with him. No child could have been better
looked after."
"I know she has used him as a vehicle for her particular form of
insanity, but that's not the point. What I am asking is why she was
introduced at all."
"I told you. When you were away, Bill nearly......"
"Died. I know. I'm not forgetting that. And naturally for a time you
were frightened. It is just possible that for the moment you lost your
head and honestly thought that Mrs. Porter's methods were the only
chance for him. But that state of mind could not last all the time with
you. You are not a crank like your aunt. You are a perfectly sensible,
level-headed woman. And you must have seen the idiocy of it all long
before I came back. Why did you let it go on?"
Ruth did not answer.
"I will tell you why. Because it saved you trouble. Because it gave you
more leisure for the sort of futile waste of time which seems to be the
only thing you care for nowadays. Don't trouble to deny it. Do you
think I haven't seen in these last few months that Bill bores you to
death? Oh, I know you always have some perfect excuse for keeping away
from him. It's too much trouble for you to be a mother to him, so you
hedge with your conscience by letting Mrs. Porter pamper him and
sterilize his toys and all the rest of it, and try to make yourself
think that you have done your duty to him. You know that, as far as
everything goes that matters, any tenement child is better off than
Bill."
"I......"
"You had better let me finish what I have got to say. I will be as
brief as I can. That is my case as regards Bill. Now about myself. What
do you think I am made of? I've stood it just as long as I could; you
have tried me too hard. I'm through. Heaven knows why it should have
come to this. It is not so very long ago that Bill was half the world
to you and I was the other half. Now, apparently, there is not room in
your world for either of us."
Ruth had risen. She was trembling.
"I think we had better end this."
He broke in on her words.
"End it? Yes, you're right. One way or the other. Either go back to the
old life or start a new one. What we are living now is a horrible
burlesque."
"What do you mean? How start a new life?"
"I mean exactly what I say. In the life you are living now I am an
anachronism. I'm a survival. I'm out of date and in the way. You would
be freer without me."
"That's absurd."
"Is the idea so novel? Is our marriage the only failure in New York?"
"Do you mean that we ought to separate?"
"Only a little more, a very little more, than we are separated now.
Never see each other again instead of seeing each other for a few
minutes every day. It's not a very big step to take."