"
"Honest, squire, if any one had told me then that Miss Ruth had it in
her to take up with all these fool stunts----"
"Well, I can't say I was prepared for it."
Steve coughed again. Kirk was in an expansive mood this afternoon, and
the occasion was ideal for the putting forward of certain views which
he had long wished to impart. But, on the other hand, the subject was a
peculiarly delicate one. It has been well said that it is better for a
third party to quarrel with a buzz-saw than to interfere between
husband and wife; and Steve was constitutionally averse to anything
that savoured of butting in.
Still, Kirk had turned the talk into this channel. He decided to risk
it.
"If I were you," he said, "I'd get busy and start something."
"Such as what?"
Steve decided to abandon caution and speak his mind. Him, almost as
much as Kirk, the existing state of things had driven to desperation.
Though in a sense he was only a spectator, the fact that the altered
conditions of Kirk's life involved his almost complete separation from
Mamie gave him what might be called a stake in the affair. The brief
and rare glimpses which he got of her nowadays made it absolutely
impossible for him to conduct his wooing on a business-like basis. A
diffident man cannot possibly achieve any success in odd moments.
Constant propinquity is his only hope.
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