Indeed, it seemed to him that the semi-detached couple was the
rule rather than the exception.
But there was small consolation in this reflection. He was not at all
interested in the domestic troubles of the people he mixed with. His
own hit him very hard.
Ruth had criticized little Mrs. Bailey, but there was no doubt that she
herself had had her head turned quite as completely by the new life.
The first time that Kirk realized this was when he came upon an article
in a Sunday paper, printed around a blurred caricature which professed
to be a photograph of Mrs. Kirk Winfield, in which she was alluded to
with reverence and gusto as one of society's leading hostesses. In the
course of the article reference was made to no fewer than three freak
dinners of varying ingenuity which she had provided for her delighted
friends.
It was this that staggered Kirk. That Mrs. Bailey should indulge in
this particular form of insanity was intelligible. But that Ruth should
have descended to it was another thing altogether.
He did not refer to the article when he met Ruth, but he was more than
ever conscious of the gap between them--the gap which was widening
every day.
The experiences he had undergone during the year of his wandering had
strengthened Kirk considerably, but nature is not easily expelled; and
the constitutional weakness of character which had hampered him through
life prevented him from making any open protests or appeal.
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