The Coming of Bill Part 37

Mrs. Porter was obviously pleased with this approval. Her companion was a woman doctor of great repute among the advanced apostles of hygiene; and praise from her was praise indeed. She advanced into the room with an air of suppressed pride.

"These tiles are thoroughly cleaned twice each day with an antiseptic solution."

"Just so," said the spectacled lady.

"You notice the thermometer."

"Exactly."

"Those k.n.o.bs you see on the wall have various uses."

"Quite."

They examined the k.n.o.bs with an air of profound seriousness, Mrs.

Porter erect and complacent, the other leaning forward and peering through her spectacles. Mamie took advantage of their backs and turned to cast a hurried glance at the water-proof curtain. It was certainly an admirable screen; no sign of Steve was visible; but nevertheless she did not cease to quake.

"This," said Mrs. Porter, "controls the heat. This, this, and this are for the ventilation."

"Just so, just so, just so," said the doctor. "And this, of course, is for the shower-bath? I understand!"

And, extending a firm finger, she gave the k.n.o.b a forceful push.

Mrs. Porter nodded.

"That is the cold shower," she said. "This is the hot. It is a very ingenious arrangement, one of Malcolmson's patents. There is a regulator at the side of the bath which enables the nurse to get just the correct temperature. I will turn on both, and then----"

It was as Mrs. Porter's hand was extended toward the k.n.o.b that the paralysis which terror had put upon Mamie relaxed its grip. She had stood by without a movement while the cold water splashed down upon the hidden Steve. Her heart had ached for him, but she had not stirred. But now, with the prospect of allowing him to be boiled alive before her, she acted.

It is generally only on the stage that a little child comes to the rescue of adults at critical moments; but William Bannister was accorded the opportunity of doing so off it. It happened that at the moment of Mrs. Porter's entry Mamie had been standing near his cot, and she had not moved since. The consequence was that she was within easy reach of him; and, despair giving her what in the circ.u.mstances amounted to a flash of inspiration, she leaned quickly forward, even as Mrs. Porter's finger touched the k.n.o.b, and gave the round head on the pillow a rapid push.

William Bannister sat up with a grunt, rubbed his eyes, and, seeing strangers, began to cry.

It was so obvious to Mrs. Porter and her companion, both from the evidence of their guilty consciences and the look of respectful reproach on Mamie's face, that the sound of their voices had disturbed the child, that they were routed from the start.

"Oh, dear me! He is awake," said the lady doctor.

"I am afraid we did not lower our voices," added Mrs. Porter. "And yet William is usually such a sound sleeper. Perhaps we had better----"

"Just so," said the doctor.

"----go downstairs while the nurse gets him off to sleep again."

"Quite."

The door closed behind them.

"Oh, Steve!" said Mamie.

The White Hope had gone to sleep again with the amazing speed of childhood, and Mamie was looking pityingly at the bedraggled object which had emerged cautiously from behind the waterproof.

"I got mine," muttered Steve ruefully. "You ain't got a towel anywhere, have you, Mame?"

Mamie produced a towel and watched him apologetically as he attempted to dry himself.

"I'm so sorry, Steve."

"Cut it out. It was my fault. I oughtn't to have been there. Say, it was a bit of luck the kid waking just then."

"Yes," said Mamie.

Observe the tricks that conscience plays us. If Mamie had told Steve what had caused William to wake he would certainly have been so charmed by her presence of mind, exerted on his behalf to save him from the warm fate which Mrs. Porter's unconscious hand had been about to bring down upon him, that he would have forgotten his diffidence then and there and, as the poet has it, have eased his bosom of much perilous stuff.

But conscience would not allow Mamie to reveal the secret. Already she was suffering the pangs of remorse for having, in however good a cause, broken her idol's rest with a push that might have given the poor lamb a headache. She could not confess the crime even to Steve.

And if Steve had had the pluck to tell Mamie that he loved her, as he stood before her dripping with the water which he had suffered in silence rather than betray her, she would have fallen into his arms. For Steve at that moment had all the glamour for her of the self-sacrificing hero of a moving-picture film. He had not actually risked death for her, perhaps, but he had taken a sudden cold shower-bath without a murmur--all for her.

Mamie was thrilled. She looked at him with the gleaming eyes of devotion.

But Steve, just because he knew that he was wet and fancied that he must look ridiculous, held his peace.

And presently, his secret still locked in his bosom, and his collar sticking limply to his neck, he crept downstairs, avoiding the society of his fellow man, and slunk out into the night where, if there was no Mamie, there were, at any rate, dry clothes.

Chapter IV

The Widening Gap

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

He should have been prepared for it, but he was not. He should have divined from the first that the money was bound to produce changes other than a mere shifting of headquarters from Sixty-First Street to Fifth Avenue. But he had deluded himself at first with the idea that Ruth was different from other women, that she was superior to the artificial pleasures of the Society which is distinguished by the big S.

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

He was quickly undeceived. Within two days he was made aware of the fact that Ruth was in the very centre of the social whirlpool and that she took it for granted that he would join her there. There was nothing of the hermit about Ruth now. She was amazingly undomestic.

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

At first he tried to get at her point of view, to discover what she found to enjoy in this lunatic existence of aimlessness and futility.

One night, as they were driving home from a dinner which had bored him unspeakably, he asked the question point-blank. It seemed to him incredible that she could take pleasure in an entertainment which had filled him with such depression.

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

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