All the vague stories he had ever heard about Basil were surging
in his mind like waves of some corrosive acid. He had become a leading
member of the extreme wing of the anti-Milbank party. He regarded Basil
with the aversion which a dignified pigeon might feel for a circling
hawk; and he was now looking on this yacht party as a deadly peril from
which Ruth must be saved at any cost.
"I shall speak to him very strongly," he added.
Ruth's suppressed anger blazed up in the sudden way which before now
had disconcerted her brother.
"Bailey, what do you mean by coming here and saying this sort of thing?
You're becoming a perfect old woman. You spend your whole time prying
into other people's affairs. I'm sorry for Sybil."
Bailey cast one reproachable look at her and left the room with pained
dignity. Something seemed to tell him that no good could come to him
from a prolongation of the interview. Ruth, in this mood, always had
been too much for him, and always would be. Well, he had done his duty
as far as he was concerned. It now remained to do the same by Kirk.
He hailed a taxi and drove to the studio.
Kirk was busy and not anxious for conversation, least of all with
Bailey. He had not forgotten their last _tete-a-tete_.
Bailey, however, was regarding him with a feeling almost of
friendliness.
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