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