The Coming of Bill

"Don't waste your sympathy, my dear," said Mrs. Porter. "That he is injured at all is his own fault. For years he has allowed himself to become gross and flabby, with the result that the collision did damage which it would not have done to a man in hard condition. You, Mr. Winfield," she added, turning abruptly to Kirk, "would scarcely have felt it. But then you," went on Mrs. Porter, "are in good condition. Cold baths!"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Do you take cold baths?"

"I do."

"Do you do Swedish exercises?"

"I go through a series of evolutions every morning, with the utmost loathing. I started them as a boy, and they have become a habit like dram-drinking. I would leave them off if I could, but I can't."

"Do nothing of the kind. They are invaluable."

"But undignified."

"Let me feel your biceps, Mr. Winfield," said Mrs. Porter. She nodded approvingly. "Like iron." She poised a finger and ran a meditative glance over his form. Kirk eyed her apprehensively. The finger darted forward and struck home in the region of the third waistcoat button. "Wonderful!" she exclaimed. "Ruth!"

"Yes, aunt."

"Prod Mr. Winfield where my finger is pointing. He is extraordinarily muscular."

"I say, really!" protested Kirk. He was a modest young man, and this exploration of his more intimate anatomy by the finger-tips of the girl he loved was not to be contemplated.

"Just as you please," said Mrs. Porter. "If I were a man of your physique, I should be proud of it."

"Wouldn't you like to go up and see George?" asked Kirk. It was hard on George, but it was imperative that this woman be removed somehow. 

"Very well. I have brought him a little book to read, which will do him good. It is called 'Elementary Rules for the Preservation of the Body'."

"He has learned one of them, all right, since yesterday," said Kirk. "Not to walk about in front of automobiles." 

"The rules I refer to are mainly concerned with diet and wholesome exercise," explained Mrs. Porter. "Careful attention to them may yet save him. His case is not hopeless. Ruth, let Mr. Winfield show you his pictures. They are poor in many respects, but not entirely without merit."

Ruth, meanwhile, had been sitting on the couch, listening to the conversation without really hearing it. She was in a dreamy, contented mood. She found herself curiously soothed by the atmosphere of the studio, with its shaded lights and its atmosphere of peace. That was the keynote of the place, peace.

From outside came the rumble of an elevated train, subdued and softened, like faintly heard thunder. Somebody passed the window, whistling. A barrier seemed to separate her from these noises of the city. New York was very far away.

"I believe I could be wonderfully happy in a place like this," she thought.

She became suddenly aware, in the midst of her meditations, of eyes watching her intently. She looked up and met Kirk's.

She could read the message in them as clearly as if he had spoken it, and she was conscious of a little thrill of annoyance at the thought of all the tiresome formalities which must be gone through before he could speak it. They seemed absurd.

It was all so simple. He wanted her; she wanted him. She had known it from the moment of their meeting. The man had found his woman, the woman her man. Nature had settled the whole affair in an instant. And now civilization, propriety, etiquette, whatever one cared to call it, must needs step in with the rules and regulations and precedents.

The goal was there, clear in sight, but it must be reached by the winding road appointed. She, being a woman and, by virtue of her sex, primeval, scorned the road, and would have ignored it. But she knew men, and especially, at that moment as their eyes met, she knew Kirk; and she understood that to him the road was a thing that could not be ignored. The mere idea of doing so would seem grotesque and impossible, probably even shocking, to him. Men were odd, formal creatures, slaves to precedent.

He must have time, it was the prerogative of the male; time to reveal himself to her, to strut before her, to go through the solemn comedy of proving to her, by the exhibition of his virtues and the careful suppression of his defects, what had been clear to her from the first instant, that here was her mate, the man nature had set apart for her.

He would begin by putting on a new suit of clothes and having his hair cut.

She smiled. It was silly and tiresome, but it was funny.

"Will you show me your pictures, Mr. Winfield?" she asked.

"If you'd really care to see them. I'm afraid they're pretty bad."

"Exhibit A. Modesty," thought Ruth.

The journey had begun.

Chapter IV Troubled Waters

It is not easy in this world to take any definite step without annoying somebody, and Kirk, in embarking on his wooing of Ruth Bannister, failed signally to do so. Lora Delane Porter beamed graciously upon him, like a pleased Providence, but the rest of his circle of acquaintances were ill at ease.