The Coming of Bill Read online

  Chapter IV

  The Widening Gap

  The new life hit Kirk as a wave hits a bather; and, like a wave, swepthim off his feet, choked him, and generally filled him with a feelingof discomfort.

  He should have been prepared for it, but he was not. He should havedivined from the first that the money was bound to produce changesother than a mere shifting of headquarters from Sixty-First Street toFifth Avenue. But he had deluded himself at first with the idea thatRuth was different from other women, that she was superior to theartificial pleasures of the Society which is distinguished by the bigS.

  In a moment of weakness, induced by hair-ruffling, he had given in onthe point of the hygienic upbringing of William Bannister; but there,he had imagined, his troubles were to cease. He had supposed that hewas about to resume the old hermit's-cell life of the studio and livein a world which contained only Ruth, Bill, and himself.

  He was quickly undeceived. Within two days he was made aware of thefact that Ruth was in the very centre of the social whirlpool and thatshe took it for granted that he would join her there. There was nothingof the hermit about Ruth now. She was amazingly undomestic.

  Her old distaste for the fashionable life of New York seemed to havevanished absolutely. As far as Kirk could see, she was alwaysentertaining or being entertained. He was pitched head-long into aworld where people talked incessantly of things which bored him and didthings which seemed to him simply mad. And Ruth, whom he had thought heunderstood, revelled in it all.

  At first he tried to get at her point of view, to discover what shefound to enjoy in this lunatic existence of aimlessness and futility.One night, as they were driving home from a dinner which had bored himunspeakably, he asked the question point-blank. It seemed to himincredible that she could take pleasure in an entertainment which hadfilled him with such depression.

  "Ruth," he said impulsively, as the car moved off, "what do you see inthis sort of thing? How can you stand these people? What have you incommon with them?"

  "Poor old Kirk. I know you hated it to-night. But we shan't be diningwith the Baileys every night."

  Bailey Bannister had been their host on that occasion, and the dinnerhad been elaborate and gorgeous. Mrs. Bailey was now one of the leadersof the younger set. Bailey, looking much more than a year older thanwhen Kirk had seen him last, had presided at the head of the table withgreat dignity, and the meeting with him had not contributed to thepleasure of Kirk's evening.

  "Were you awfully bored? You seemed to be getting along quite well withSybil."

  "I like her. She's good fun."

  "She's certainly having good fun. I'd give anything to know what Baileyreally thinks of it. She is the most shockingly extravagant littlecreature in New York. You know the Wilburs were quite poor, and poorSybil was kept very short. I think that marrying Bailey and having allthis money to play with has turned her head."

  It struck Kirk that the criticism applied equally well to the critic.

  "She does the most absurd things. She gave a freak dinner when you wereaway that cost I don't know how much. She is always doing something.Well, I suppose Bailey knows what he is about; but at her present paceshe must be keeping him busy making money to pay for all her fads. Youought to paint a picture of Bailey, Kirk, as the typical patientAmerican husband. You couldn't get a better model."

  "Suggest it to him, and let me hide somewhere where I can hear what hesays. Bailey has his own opinion of my pictures."

  Ruth laughed a little nervously. She had always wondered exactly whathad taken place that day in the studio, and the subject was one whichshe was shy of exhuming. She turned the conversation.

  "What did you ask me just now? Something about----"

  "I asked you what you had in common with these people."

  Ruth reflected.

  "Oh, well, it's rather difficult to say if you put it like that.They're just people, you know. They are amusing sometimes. I used toknow most of them. I suppose that is the chief thing which brings ustogether. They happen to be there, and if you're travelling on a roadyou naturally talk to your fellow travellers. But why? Don't you likethem? Which of them didn't you like?"

  It was Kirk's turn to reflect.

  "Well, that's hard to answer, too. I don't think I actively liked ordisliked any of them. They seemed to me just not worth while. My pointis, rather, why are we wasting a perfectly good evening mixing withthem? What's the use? That's my case in a nut-shell."

  "If you put it like that, what's the use of anything? One must dosomething. We can't be hermits."

  A curious feeling of being infinitely far from Ruth came over Kirk. Shedismissed his dream as a whimsical impossibility not worthy of seriousconsideration. Why could they not be hermits? They had been hermitsbefore, and it had been the happiest period of both their lives. Why,just because an old man had died and left them money, must they ruleout the best thing in life as impossible and plunge into a nightmarewhich was not life at all?

  He had tried to deceive himself, but he could do so no longer. Ruth hadchanged. The curse with which his sensitive imagination had investedJohn Bannister's legacy was, after all no imaginary curse. Like agolden wedge, it had forced Ruth and himself apart.

  Everything had changed. He was no longer the centre of Ruth's life. Hewas just an encumbrance, a nuisance who could not be got rid of andmust remain a permanent handicap, always in the way.

  So thought Kirk morbidly as the automobile passed through the silentstreets. It must be remembered that he had been extremely bored for asolid three hours, and was predisposed, consequently, to gloomythoughts.

  Whatever his faults, Kirk rarely whined. He had never felt so miserablein his life, but he tried to infuse a tone of lightness into theconversation. After all, if Ruth's intuition fell short of enabling herto understand his feelings, nothing was to be gained by parading them.

  "I guess it's my fault," he said, "that I haven't got abreast of thesociety game as yet. You had better give me a few pointers. My troubleis that, being new to them, I can't tell whether these people are typesor exceptions. Take Clarence Grayling, for instance. Are there any moreat home like Clarence?"

  "My dear child, _all_ Bailey's special friends are like Clarence,exactly like. I remember telling him so once."

  "Who was the specimen with the little black moustache who thoughtAmerica crude and said that the only place to live in was southernItaly? Is he an isolated case or an epidemic?"

  "He is scarcer than Clarence, but he's quite a well-marked type. He isthe millionaire's son who has done Europe and doesn't mean you toforget it."

  "There was a chesty person with a wave of hair coming down over hisforehead. A sickeningly handsome fellow who looked like a poet. I thinkthey called him Basil. Does he run around in flocks, or is he unique?"

  Ruth did not reply for a moment. Basil Milbank was a part of the pastwhich, in the year during which Kirk had been away, had come ratherstartlingly to life.

  There had been a time when Basil had been very near and important toher. Indeed, but for the intervention of Mrs. Porter, described in anearlier passage, she would certainly have married Basil. Then Kirk hadcrossed her path and had monopolized her. During the studio period therecollection of Basil had grown faint. After that, just at the momentwhen Kirk was not there to lend her strength, he had come back into herlife. For nearly a year she had seen him daily; and gradually--at firstalmost with fear--she had realized that the old fascination was by nomeans such a thing of the past as she had supposed.

  She had hoped for Kirk's return as a general, sorely pressed, hopes forreinforcements. With Kirk at her side she felt Basil would slip backinto his proper place in the scheme of things. And, behold! Kirk hadreturned and still the tension remained unrelaxed.

  For Kirk had changed. After the first day she could not conceal it fromherself. That it was she who had changed did not present itself to heras a possible explanation of the fact that she now felt out of touchwith her husband. All she knew was that they ha
d been linked togetherby bonds of sympathy, and were so no longer.

  She found Kirk dull. She hated to admit it, but the truth forced itselfupon her. He had begun to bore her.

  She collected her thoughts and answered his question.

  "Basil Milbank? Oh, I should call him unique."

  She felt a wild impulse to warn him, to explain the real significanceof this man whom he classed contemptuously with Clarence Grayling andthat absurd little Dana Ferris as somebody of no account. She wanted tocry out to him that she was in danger and that only he could help her.But she could not speak, and Kirk went on in the same tone ofhalf-tolerant contempt:

  "Who is he?"

  She controlled herself with an effort, and answered indifferently.

  "Oh, Basil? Well, you might say he's everything. He plays polo, leadscotillions, yachts, shoots, plays the piano wonderfully--everything.People usually like him very much." She paused. "Women especially."

  She had tried to put something into her tone which might serve toawaken him, something which might prepare the way for what she wantedto say--and what, if she did not say it now--when the mood was on her,she could never say. But Kirk was deaf.

  "He looks that sort of man," he said.

  And, as he said it, the accumulated boredom of the past three hoursfound vent in a vast yawn.

  Ruth set her teeth. She felt as if she had received a blow.

  When he spoke again it was on the subject of street-paving defects inNew York City.

  * * * * *

  It was true, as Ruth had said, that they did not dine with the Baileysevery night, but that seemed to Kirk, as the days went on, the one andonly bright spot in the new state of affairs. He could not bringhimself to treat life with a philosophical resignation. His was notopen revolt. He was outwardly docile, but inwardly he rebelledfuriously.

  Perhaps the unnaturally secluded life which he had led since hismarriage had unfitted him for mixing in society even more than naturehad done. He had grown out of the habit of mixing. Crowds irritatedhim. He hated doing the same thing at the same time as a hundred otherpeople.

  Like most Bohemians, he was at his best in a small circle. He liked hisfriends as single spies, not in battalions. He was a man who shouldhave had a few intimates and no acquaintances; and his present life wasbounded north, south, east, and west by acquaintances. Most of the mento whom he spoke he did not even know by name.

  He would seek information from Ruth as they drove home.

  "Who was the pop-eyed second-story man with the bald head and theconvex waistcoat who glued himself to me to-night?"

  "If you mean the fine old gentleman with the slightly prominent eyesand rather thin hair, that was Brock Mason, the vice-president ofconsolidated groceries. You mustn't even think disrespectfully of a manas rich as that."

  "He isn't what you would call a sparkling talker."

  "He doesn't have to be. His time is worth a hundred dollars a minute,or a second--I forget which."

  "Put me down for a nickel's worth next time."

  And then they began to laugh over Ruth's suggestion that they shouldsave up and hire Mr. Mason for an afternoon and make him keep quiet allthe time; for Ruth was generally ready to join him in ridiculing theirnew acquaintances. She had none of that reverence for the great and thenear-great which, running to seed, becomes snobbery.

  It was this trait in her which kept alive, long after it might havedied, the hope that her present state of mind was only a phase, andthat, when she had tired of the new game, she would become the old Ruthof the studio. But, when he was honest with himself, he was forced toadmit that she showed no signs of ever tiring of it.

  They had drifted apart. They were out of touch with each other. It wasnot an uncommon state of things in the circle in which Kirk now foundhimself. Indeed, it seemed to him that the semi-detached couple was therule rather than the exception.

  But there was small consolation in this reflection. He was not at allinterested in the domestic troubles of the people he mixed with. Hisown hit him very hard.

  Ruth had criticized little Mrs. Bailey, but there was no doubt that sheherself had had her head turned quite as completely by the new life.

  The first time that Kirk realized this was when he came upon an articlein a Sunday paper, printed around a blurred caricature which professedto be a photograph of Mrs. Kirk Winfield, in which she was alluded towith reverence and gusto as one of society's leading hostesses. In thecourse of the article reference was made to no fewer than three freakdinners of varying ingenuity which she had provided for her delightedfriends.

  It was this that staggered Kirk. That Mrs. Bailey should indulge inthis particular form of insanity was intelligible. But that Ruth shouldhave descended to it was another thing altogether.

  He did not refer to the article when he met Ruth, but he was more thanever conscious of the gap between them--the gap which was wideningevery day.

  The experiences he had undergone during the year of his wandering hadstrengthened Kirk considerably, but nature is not easily expelled; andthe constitutional weakness of character which had hampered him throughlife prevented him from making any open protests or appeal. Moreover,he could understand now her point of view, and that disarmed him.

  He saw how this state of things had come about. In a sense, it was thenatural state of things. Ruth had been brought up in certainsurroundings. Her love for him, new and overwhelming, had enabled herto free herself temporarily from these surroundings and to becomereconciled to a life for which, he told himself, she had never beenintended. Fate had thrown her back into her natural sphere. And now sherevelled in the old environment as an exile revels in the life of thehomeland from which he has been so long absent.

  That was the crux of the tragedy. Ruth was at home. He was not. Ruthwas among her own people. He was a stranger among strangers, a prisonerin a land where men spoke with an alien tongue.

  There was nothing to be done. The gods had played one of theirpractical jokes, and he must join in the laugh against himself and tryto pretend that he was not hurt.