"Who was the pop-eyed second-story man with the bald head and the
convex waistcoat who glued himself to me to-night?"
"If you mean the fine old gentleman with the slightly prominent eyes
and rather thin hair, that was Brock Mason, the vice-president of
consolidated groceries. You mustn't even think disrespectfully of a man
as 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 should
save up and hire Mr. Mason for an afternoon and make him keep quiet all
the time; for Ruth was generally ready to join him in ridiculing their
new acquaintances. She had none of that reverence for the great and the
near-great which, running to seed, becomes snobbery.
It was this trait in her which kept alive, long after it might have
died, the hope that her present state of mind was only a phase, and
that, when she had tired of the new game, she would become the old Ruth
of the studio. But, when he was honest with himself, he was forced to
admit that she showed no signs of ever tiring of it.
They had drifted apart. They were out of touch with each other. It was
not an uncommon state of things in the circle in which Kirk now found
himself.
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