All their lives Ruth and
Bailey had been repressed by their father, and his removal had
unsteadied them.
Bailey, on whom the shadow of the dead man had pressed particularly
severely, had been quite intoxicated by sudden freedom. He had been a
cipher in the firm of Bannister & Son. In the firm of Bannister & Co.
he was an untrammelled despot. He did that which was right in his own
eyes, and there was no one to say him nay.
It was true that veteran members of the firm, looking in the glass,
found white hairs where no white hairs had been and wrinkles on
foreheads which, under the solid rule of old John Bannister, had been
smooth; but it would have taken more than these straws to convince
Bailey that the wind which was blowing was an ill-wind. He had
developed in a day the sublime self-confidence of a young Napoleon. He
was all dash and enterprise--the hurricane fighter of Wall Street.
With these private interests to occupy him, it is surprising that he
should have found time to take the affairs of Ruth and Kirk in hand.
But he did.
For some time he had watched the widening gulf between them with pained
solicitude. He disliked Kirk personally; but that did not influence
him. He conceived it to be his duty to suppress private prejudices.
Duty seemed to call him to go to Kirk's aid and smooth out his domestic
difficulties.
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