as certain that Kirk was in love with this girl, and the girl was in
love with Kirk, as he had ever been of anything in his life.
As he walked slowly down-town he was thinking hard. The subject
occupying his mind was the problem of how this thing was to be stopped.
Percy Shanklyn was a sleek, suave, unpleasant youth who had been
imported by a theatrical manager two years before to play the part of
an English dude in a new comedy. The comedy had been what its
enthusiastic backer had described in the newspaper advertisements as a
"rousing live-wire success." That is to say, it had staggered along for
six weeks on Broadway to extremely poor houses, and after three weeks
on the road, had perished for all time, leaving Percy out of work.
Since then, no other English dude part having happened along, he had
rested, living in the mysterious way in which out-of-work actors do live.
He had a number of acquaintances, such as the amiable Burrows, who were
good for occasional loans, but Kirk Winfield was the king of them all.
There was something princely about the careless open-handedness of Kirk's
methods, and Percy's whole soul rose in revolt against the prospect of
being deprived of this source of revenue, as something, possibly Ruth's
determined chin, told him that he would be, should Kirk marry this girl.
He had placed Ruth at once, directly he had heard her name. He
remembered having seen her photograph in the society section of the
Sunday paper which he borrowed each week. This was the daughter of old
John Bannister. There was no doubt about that. How she had found her
way to Kirk's studio he could not understand; but there she certainly
was, and Percy was willing to bet the twenty dollars which, despite the
excitement of the moment, he had forgotten to extract from Kirk in a
hurried conversation at the door, that her presence there was not known
and approved by her father.
The only reasonable explanation that Kirk was painting her portrait he
dismissed. There had been no signs of any portrait, and Kirk's
embarrassment had been so obvious that, if there had been any such
explanation, he would certainly have given it. No, Ruth had been there
for other reasons than those of art.
"Unchaperoned, too, by Jove!" thought Percy virtuously, ignorant of
Mrs. Lora Delane Porter, who at the time of his call, had been busily
occupied in a back room instilling into George Pennicut the gospel of
the fit body. For George, now restored to health, had ceased to be a
mere student of "Elementary Rules for the Preservation of the Body" and
had become an active, though unwilling, practiser of its precepts.
Every morning Mrs. Porter called and, having shepherded him into the
back room, put him relentlessly through his exercises. George's groans,
as he moved his stout limbs along the dotted lines indicated in the
book's illustrated plates, might have stirred a faint heart to pity.
But Lora Delane Porter was made of sterner stuff. If George so much as
bent his knees while touching his toes he heard of it instantly, in no
uncertain voice.
Thus, in her decisive way, did Mrs. Porter spread light and sweetness
with both hands, achieving the bodily salvation of George while, at the
same time, furthering the loves of Ruth and Kirk by leaving them alone
together to make each other's better acquaintance in the romantic
dimness of the studio.
* * * * *
Percy proceeded down-town, pondering. His first impulse, I regret to
say, was to send Ruth's father an anonymous letter. This plan he
abandoned from motives of fear rather than of self-respect. Anonymous
letters are too frequently traced to their writers, and the prospect of
facing Kirk in such an event did not appeal to him.
As he could think of no other way of effecting his object, he had begun
to taste the bitterness of futile effort, when fortune, always his
friend, put him in a position to do what he wanted in the easiest
possible way with the minimum of unpleasantness.
Bailey Bannister, that strong, keen Napoleon of finance, was not above
a little relaxation of an evening when his father happened to be out of
town. That giant mind, weary with the strain of business, needed
refreshment.
And so, at eleven thirty that night, his father being in Albany, and
not expected home till next day, Bailey might have been observed,
beautifully arrayed and discreetly jovial, partaking of lobster at one
of those Broadway palaces where this fish is in brisk demand. He was in
company with his rabbit-faced friend, Clarence Grayling, and two
members of the chorus of a neighbouring musical comedy.
One of the two, with whom Clarence was conversing in a lively manner
that showed his heart had not been irreparably broken as the result of
his recent interview with Ruth, we may dismiss. Like Clarence, she is
of no importance to the story. The other, who, not finding Bailey's
measured remarks very gripping, was allowing her gaze to wander idly
around the room, has this claim to a place in the scheme of things,
that she had a wordless part in the comedy in which Percy Shanklyn had
appeared as the English dude and was on terms of friendship with him.
Consequently, seeing him enter the room, as he did at that moment, she
signalled him to approach.
"It's a little feller who was with me in 'The Man from Out West'," she
explained to Bailey as Percy made his way toward them. At which
Bailey's prim mouth closed with an air of disapproval.
The feminine element of the stage he found congenial to his business-
harassed brain, but with the "little fellers" who helped them to keep
the national drama sizzling he felt less in sympathy; and he resented
extremely his companion's tactlessness in inciting this infernal mummer
to intrude upon his privacy.
He prepared to be cold and distant with Percy. And when Bailey, never a
ray of sunshine, deliberately tried to be chilly, those with him at the
time generally had the sensation that winter was once more in their
midst.
Percy, meanwhile, threaded his way among the tables, little knowing
that fate had already solved the problem which had worried him the
greater part of the day.
He had come to the restaurant as a relief from his thoughts. If he
could find some kind friend who would invite him to supper, well and
good. If not, he was feeling so tired and depressed that he was ready
to take the bull by the horns and pay for his meal himself. He had
obeyed Miss Freda Reece's signal because it was impossible to avoid
doing so; but one glance at Bailey's face had convinced him that not
there was his kind host.
"Why, Perce," said Miss Reece, "I ain't saw you in years. Where you
been hiding yourself?"
Percy gave a languid gesture indicative of the man of affairs whose
time is not his own.
"Percy," continued Miss Reece, "shake hands with my friend Mr.
Bannister. I been telling him about how you made such a hit as the pin
in 'Pinafore'!"
The name galvanized Percy like a bugle-blast.
"Mr. Bannister!" he exclaimed. "Any relation to Mr. John Bannister, the
millionaire?"
Bailey favoured him with a scrutiny through the gold-rimmed glasses
which would have frozen his very spine.
"My father's name is...ah...John, and he is a millionaire."
Percy met the scrutiny with a suave smile.
"By Jove!" he said. "I know your sister quite well, Mr. Bannister. I
meet her frequently at the studio of my friend Kirk Winfield. Very
frequently. She is there nearly every day. Well, I must be moving on.