Kirk blinked. He closed his eyes and opened them again. The automobilewas still there, and he was still in it. Ruth was still gazing at himwith the triumphant look in her eyes. The chauffeur, silent emblem of asubstantial bank-balance, still sat stiffly at the steering-wheel.

　　"Rich?" Kirk repeated.

　　"Rich," Ruth assured him.

　　"I don't understand."Ruth's smile faded.

　　"Poor father----""Your father?""He died just after you sailed. Just before Bill got ill." She gave alittle sigh. "Kirk, how odd life is!""But-----""It was terrible. It was some kind of a stroke. He had been working toohard and taking no exercise. You know when he sent Steve away that timehe didn't engage anybody else in his place. He went back to his old wayof living, which the doctor had warned him against. He worked andworked, until one day, Bailey says, he fainted at the office. Theybrought him home, and he just went out like a burned-out candle. I--Iwent to him, but for a long time he wouldn't see me.

　　"Oh, Kirk, the hours I spent in the library hoping that he would let mecome to him! But he never did till right at the end. Then I went up,and he was dying. He couldn't speak. I don't know now how he felttoward me at the last. I kissed him. He was all shrunk to nothing. Ihad a horrible feeling that I had never been a real daughter to him.

　　But--but--you know, he made it difficult, awfully difficult. And thenhe died; Bailey was on one side of the bed and I was on the other, andthe nurse and the doctor were whispering outside the door. I could hearthem through the transom."She slipped her hand into Kirk's and sat silent while the car slid intothe traffic of Fifth Avenue. For the second time the shadow of theGreat Mystery had fallen on the brightness of the perfect morning.

　　The car had stopped at Thirty-Fourth Street to allow the hurryingcrowds to cross the avenue. Kirk looked at them with a feeling ofsadness. It was not caused by John Bannister's death. He was too honestto be able to plunge himself into false emotion at will. His feelingwas more a vague uneasiness, almost a presentiment. Things changed soquickly in this world. Old landmarks shifted as the crowd of strangerswas shifting before him now, hurrying into his life and hurrying out ofit.

　　He, too, had changed. Ruth, though he had detected no signs of it,must be different from the Ruth he had left a year ago. The old lifewas dead. What had the new life in store for him? Wealth for onething--other standards of living--new experiences.

　　An odd sensation of regret that this stream of gold had descended uponhim deepened his momentary depression. They had been so happy, he andRuth and the kid, in the old days of the hermit's cell. Something thatwas almost a superstitious fear of this unexpected legacy came uponhim.

　　It was unlucky money, grudgingly given at the eleventh hour. He seemedto feel John Bannister watching him with a sneer, and he was afraid ofhim. His nerves were still a little unstrung from the horror of hiswanderings, and the fever had left him weak. It seemed to him thatthere was a curse on the old man's wealth, that somehow it was destinedto bring him unhappiness.

　　The policeman waved his hand. The car jerked forward. The suddenmovement brought him to himself. He smiled, a little ashamed of havingbeen so fanciful; the sky was blue; the sun shone; a cool breeze putthe joy of life into him; and at his side Ruth sat, smiling now. Fromher, too, the cloud had been lifted.

　　"It seems like a fairy-story," said Kirk, breaking the silence that hadfallen between them.

　　"I think it must have been the thought of Bill that made him do it,"said Ruth. "He left half his money to Bailey and half to me during mylifetime. Bailey's married now, by the way." She paused. "I'm afraidfather never forgave you, dear," she added. "He made Bailey the trusteefor the money, and it goes to Bill in trust after my death."She looked at him rather nervously it seemed to Kirk. The terms of thewill had been the cause of some trouble to her. Especially had shespeculated on his reception of the news that Bailey was to play soimportant a part in the administration of the money. Kirk had nevertold her what had passed between him and Bailey that afternoon in thestudio, but her quick intelligence had enabled her to guess at thetruth; and she was aware that the minds of the two men, theirtemperaments, were naturally antagonistic.

　　Kirk's reception of the news relieved her.

　　"Of course," he said. "He couldn't do anything else. He knew nothing ofme except that I was a kind of man with whom he was quite out ofsympathy. He mistrusted all artists, I expect, in a bunch. And, anyway,an artist is pretty sure to be a bad man of business. He would knowthat. And--and, well, what I mean is, it strikes me as a very sensiblearrangement. Why are we stopping here?"The car had drawn up before a large house on the upper avenue, one ofthose houses which advertise affluence with as little reticence as afat diamond solitaire.

　　"We live here," said Ruth, laughing.

　　Kirk drew a long breath.

　　"Do we? By George!" he exclaimed. "I see it's going to take me quite awhile to get used to this state of things."A thought struck him.

　　"How about the studio? Have you got rid of it?""Of course not. The idea! After the perfect times we had there! We'regoing to keep it on as an annex. Every now and then, when we are tiredof being rich, we'll creep off there and boil eggs over the gas-stoveand pretend we are just ordinary persons again.""And oftener than every now and then this particular plutocrat is goingto creep off there and try to teach himself to paint pictures."Ruth nodded.

　　"Yes, I think you ought to have a hobby. It's good for you."Kirk said nothing. But it was not as a hobby that he was regarding hispainting. He had come to a knowledge of realities in the wilderness andto an appreciation of the fact that he had a soul which could not bekept alive except by honest work.

　　He had the decent man's distaste for living on his wife's money. Hesupposed it was inevitable that a certain portion of it must go to hissupport, but he was resolved that there should be in the sight of thegods who look down on human affairs at least a reasonable excuse forhis existence. If work could make him anything approaching a realartist, he would become one.

　　Meanwhile he was quite willing that Ruth should look upon his life-workas a pleasant pastime to save him from ennui. Even to his wife a man isnot always eager to exhibit his soul in its nakedness.

　　"By the way," said Ruth, "you won't find George Pennicut at the studio.

　　He has gone back to England.""I'm sorry. I liked George.""He liked you. He left all sorts of messages. He nearly wept when hesaid good-bye. But he wouldn't stop. In a burst of confidence he toldme what the trouble was. Our blue sky had got on his nerves. He wanteda London drizzle again. He said the thought of it made him homesick."Kirk entered the house thoughtfully. Somehow this last piece of newshad put the coping-stone on the edifice of his--his what? Depression? Itwas hardly that. No, it was rather a kind of vague regret for the lifewhich had so definitely ended, the feeling which the Romans called_desiderium_ and the Greeks _pathos_. The defection of GeorgePennicut was a small thing in itself, but it meant the removal ofanother landmark.

　　"We had some bully good times in that studio," he said.

　　The words were a requiem.

　　The first person whom he met in this great house, in the kingdom ofwhich he was to be king-consort, was a butler of incrediblestateliness. This was none other than Steve's friend Keggs. But roundthe outlying portions of this official he had perceived, as the dooropened, a section of a woman in a brown dress.

　　The butler moving to one side, he found himself confronting Mrs. LoraDelane Porter.

　　If other things in Kirk's world had changed, time had wrought in vainupon the great authoress. She looked as masterful, as unyielding, andas efficient as she had looked at the time of his departure. She tookhis hand without emotion and inspected him keenly.

　　"You are thinner," she remarked.

　　"I said that, Aunt Lora," said Ruth. "Poor boy, he's a skeleton.""You are not so robust.""I have been ill."Ruth interposed.

　　"He's had fever, Aunt Lora, and you are not to tease him.""I should be the last person to tease any man. What sort of fever?""I think it was a blend of all sorts," replied Kirk. "A kind of Irishstew of a fever.""You are not infectious?""Certainly not."Mrs. Porter checked Ruth as she was about to speak.

　　"We owe it to William to be careful," she explained. "After all thetrouble we have taken to exclude him from germs it is only reasonableto make these inquiries.""Come along, dear," said Ruth, "and I'll show you the house. Don't mindAunt Lora," she whispered; "she means well, and she really is splendidwith Bill."Kirk followed her. He was feeling chilled again. His old mistrust ofMrs. Porter revived. If their brief interview was to be taken asevidence, she seemed to have regained entirely her old ascendancy overRuth. He felt vaguely uneasy, as a man might who walks in a powdermagazine.

　　"Aunt Lora lives here now," observed Ruth casually, as they wentupstairs.

　　Kirk started.

　　"Literally, do you mean? Is this her home?"Ruth smiled at him over her shoulder.

　　"She won't interfere with you," she said. "Surely this great house islarge enough for the three of us. Besides, she's so devoted to Bill.

　　She looks after him all the time; of course, nowadays I don't get quiteso much time to be with him myself. One has an awful lot of calls onone. I feel Bill is so safe with Aunt Lora on the premises."She stopped at a door on the first floor.

　　"This is Bill's nursery. He's out just now. Mamie takes him for a driveevery morning when it's fine."Something impelled Kirk to speak.

　　"Don't you ever take him for walks in the morning now?" he asked. "Heused to love it.""Silly! Of course I do, when I can manage it. For drives, rather. AuntLora is rather against his walking much in the city. He might so easilycatch something, you know."She opened the door.

　　"There!" she said. "What do you think of that for a nursery?"If Kirk had spoken his mind he would have said that of all the ghastlynurseries the human brain could have conceived this was the ghastliest.

　　It was a large, square room, and to Kirk's startled eyes had much theappearance of an operating theatre at a hospital.

　　There was no carpet on the tiled floor. The walls, likewise tiled, wereso bare that the eye ached contemplating them. In the corner by thewindow stood the little white cot. Beside it on the wall hung a largethermometer. Various knobs of brass decorated the opposite wall. At thefarther end of the room was a bath, complete with shower and all theother apparatus of a modern tub.

　　It was probably the most horrible room in all New York.

　　"Well, what do you think of it?" demanded Ruth proudly.

　　Kirk gazed at her, speechless. This, he said to himself, was Ruth, hiswife, who had housed his son in the spare bedroom of the studio andallowed a shaggy Irish terrier to sleep on his bed; who had permittedhim to play by the hour in the dust of the studio floor, who had evenassisted him to do so by descending into the dust herself in the roleof a bear or a snake.

　　What had happened to this world from which he had been absent but oneshort year? Was everybody mad, or was he hopelessly behind the times?

　　"Well?" Ruth reminded him.

　　Kirk eyed the dreadful room.

　　"It looks clean," he said at last.

　　"It is clean," said the voice of Lora Delane Porter proudly behind him.

　　She had followed them up the stairs to do the honours of the nursery,the centre of her world. "It is essentially clean. There is not anobject in that room which is not carefully sterilized night and morningwith a weak solution of boric acid!""Even Mamie?" inquired Kirk.

　　It had been his intention to be mildly jocular, but Mrs. Porter's replyshowed him that in jest he had spoken the truth.

　　"Certainly. Have you any idea, Kirk, of the number of germs there areon the surface of the human body? ............