very firm. The determined chin gave no hope that she might yield to
importunity. The eyes that backed up the message of the chin were
pleasant, but inflexible.
Generally it was with a feeling akin to relief that the rejected, when
time had begun to heal the wound, contemplated their position. There
was something about this girl, they decided, which no fellow could
understand: she frightened them; she made them feel that their hands
were large and red and their minds weak and empty. She was waiting for
something. What it was they did not know, but it was plain that they
were not it, and off they went to live happily ever after with girls
who ate candy and read best-sellers. And Ruth went on her way, cool and
watchful and mysterious, waiting.
The room which Ruth had taken for her own gave, like all rooms when
intelligently considered, a clue to the character of its owner. It was
the only room in the house furnished with any taste or simplicity. The
furniture was exceedingly expensive, but did not look so. The key-note
of the colour-scheme was green and white. All round the walls were
books. Except for a few prints, there were no pictures; and the only
photograph visible stood in a silver frame on a little table.
It was the portrait of a woman of about fifty, square-jawed,
tight-lipped, who stared almost threateningly out of the frame;
exceedingly handsome, but, to the ordinary male, too formidable
to be attractive. On this was written in a bold hand, bristling
with emphatic down-strokes and wholly free from feminine flourish:
"To my dear Ruth from her Aunt Lora." And below the signature, in
what printers call "quotes," a line that was evidently an extract
from somebody's published works: "Bear the torch and do not falter."
Bailey inspected this photograph with disfavour. It always irritated
him. The information, conveyed to him by amused friends, that his Aunt
Lora had once described Ruth as a jewel in a dust-bin, seemed to him to
carry an offensive innuendo directed at himself and the rest of the
dwellers in the Bannister home. Also, she had called him a worm. Also,
again, his actual encounters with the lady, though few, had been
memorably unpleasant. Furthermore, he considered that she had far too
great an influence on Ruth. And, lastly, that infernal sentence about
the torch, which he found perfectly meaningless, had a habit of running
in his head like a catch-phrase, causing him the keenest annoyance.
He pursed his lips disapprovingly and averted his eyes.
"Don't sniff at Aunt Lora, Bailey," said Ruth. "I've had to speak to
you about that before. What's the matter? What has sent you flying up
here?"
"I have had a shock," said Bailey. "I have been very greatly disturbed.
I have just been speaking to Clarence Grayling."
He eyed her accusingly through his gold-rimmed glasses. She remained
tranquil.
"And what had Clarence to say?"
"A great many things."
"I gather he told you I had refused him."
"If it were only that!"
Ruth rapped the piano sharply.
"Bailey," she said, "wake up. Either get to the point or go or read a
book or do some tatting or talk about something else. You know
perfectly well that I absolutely refuse to endure your impressive
manner. I believe when people ask you the time you look pained and
important and make a mystery of it. What's troubling you? I should have
thought Clarence would have kept quiet about insulting me. But
apparently he has no sense of shame."
Bailey gaped. Bailey was shocked and alarmed.
"Insulting you! What do you mean? Clarence is a gentleman. He is
incapable of insulting a woman."
"Is he? He told me I was a suitable wife for a wretched dwarf with the
miserably inadequate intelligence which nature gave him reduced to
practically a minus quantity by alcohol! At least, he implied it. He
asked me to marry him."
"I have just left him at the club. He is very upset."
"I should imagine so." A soft smile played over Ruth's face. "I spoke
to Clarence. I explained things to him. I lit up Clarence's little mind
like a searchlight."
Bailey rose, tremulous with just wrath.
"You spoke to him in a way that I can only call outrageous and
improper, and, er, outrageous."
He paced the room with agitated strides. Ruth watched him calmly.
"If the overflowing emotion of a giant soul in torment makes you knock
over a table or smash a chair," she said, "I shall send the bill for
repairs to you. You had far better sit down and talk quietly. What
is worrying you, Bailey?"
"Is it nothing," demanded her brother, "that my sister should have
spoken to a man as you spoke to Clarence Grayling?"
With an impassioned gesture he sent a flower-vase crashing to the
floor.
"I told you so," said Ruth. "Pick up the bits, and don't let the water
spoil the carpet. Use your handkerchief. I should say that that would
cost you about six dollars, dear. Why will you let yourself be so
temperamental? Now let me try and think what it was I said to Clarence.
As far as I can remember it was the mere A B C of eugenics."
Bailey, on his knees, picking up broken glass, raised a flushed and
accusing face.
"Ah! Eugenics! You admit it!"
"I think," went on Ruth placidly, "I asked him what sort of children he
thought we were likely to have if we married."
"A nice girl ought not to think about such things."
"I don't think about anything else much. A woman can't do a great deal,
even nowadays, but she can have a conscience and feel that she owes
something to the future of the race. She can feel that it is her duty
to bring fine children into the world. As Aunt Lora says, she can carry
the torch and not falter."
Bailey shied like a startled horse at the hated phrase. He pointed
furiously at the photograph of the great thinker.
"You're talking like that, that damned woman!"
"Bailey precious! You mustn't use such wicked, wicked words."
Bailey rose, pink and wrathful.
"If you're going to break another vase," said Ruth, "you will really
have to go."
"Ever since that...that......" cried Bailey. "Ever since Aunt Lora......"
Ruth smiled indulgently.
"That's more like my little man," she said. "He knows as well as I do
how wrong it is to swear."
"Be quiet! Ever since Aunt Lora got hold of you, I say, you have become
a sort of gramophone, spouting her opinions."
"But what sensible opinions!"
"It's got to stop. Aunt Lora! My God! Who is she? Just look at her
record. She disgraces the family by marrying a grubby newspaper fellow
called Porter. He has the sense to die. I will say that for him. She
thrusts herself into public notice by a series of books and speeches on
subjects of which a decent woman ought to know nothing. And now she
gets hold of you, fills you up with her disgusting nonsense, makes a
sort of disciple of you, gives you absurd ideas, poisons your mind,
and, er...er......-"
"Bailey! This is positive eloquence!"
"It's got to stop. It's bad enough in her; but every one knows she is
crazy, and makes allowances. But in a young girl like you."
He choked.
"In a young girl like me," prompted Ruth in a low, tragic voice.
"It, it's not right. It, it's not proper." He drew a long breath. "It's
all wrong. It's got to stop."
"He's perfectly wonderful!" murmured Ruth. "He just opens his mouth and
the words come out. But I knew he was somebody, directly I saw him, by
his forehead. Like a dome!" Bailey mopped the dome.