Think what Aunt Lora would say!"
"Aunt Lora be----Bother Aunt Lora!"
"Well, I won't give you away. If she heard, she would write a book
about it. And she was just starting to come up when I was downstairs.
We came in together. You had better fly while there's time."
It was sound advice, and Kirk took it.
It was not till some time later, going over the incident again in his
mind, he realized how very lightly Ruth had treated what, if she really
adhered to Mrs. Porter's views on hygiene, should have been to her a
dreadful discovery. The reflection was pleasant to him for a moment; it
seemed to draw Ruth and himself closer together; then he saw the
reverse side of it.
If Ruth did not really believe in this absurd hygienic nonsense, why
had she permitted it to be practised upon the boy? There was only one
answer, and it was the one which Kirk had already guessed at. She did
it because it gave her more freedom, because it bored her to look after
the child herself, because she was not the same Ruth he had left at the
studio when he started with Hank Jardine for Colombia.
Chapter VI
The Outcasts
Three months of his new life had gone by before Kirk awoke from the
stupor which had gripped him as the result of the general upheaval of
his world. Ever since his return from Colombia he had honestly been
intending to resume his painting, and, attacking it this time in a
business-like way, to try to mould himself into the semblance of an
efficient artist.
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