The Coming of Bill | Page 8

spoke to him in a way that I can only call outrageous and improper, and--er--outrageous."
He paced the room with agitated strides. Ruth watched him calmly.
"If the overflowing emotion of a giant soul in torment makes you knock over a table or smash a chair," she said, "I shall send the bill for repairs to you. You had far better sit down and talk quietly. What is worrying you, Bailey?"
"Is it nothing," demanded her brother, "that my sister should have spoken to a man as you spoke to Clarence Grayling?"
With an impassioned gesture he sent a flower-vase crashing to the floor.
"I told you so," said Ruth. "Pick up the bits, and don't let the water spoil the carpet. Use your handkerchief. I should say that that would cost you about six dollars, dear. Why will you let yourself be so temperamental? Now let me try and think what it was I said to Clarence. As far as I can remember it was the mere A B C of eugenics."
Bailey, on his knees, picking up broken glass, raised a flushed and accusing face.
"Ah! Eugenics! You admit it!"
"I think," went on Ruth placidly, "I asked him what sort of children he thought we were likely to have if we married."
"A nice girl ought not to think about such things."
"I don't think about anything else much. A woman can't do a great deal, even nowadays, but she can have a conscience and feel that she owes something to the future of the race. She can feel that it is her duty to bring fine children into the world. As Aunt Lora says, she can carry the torch and not falter."
Bailey shied like a startled horse at the hated phrase. He pointed furiously at the photograph of the great thinker.
"You're talking like that--that damned woman!"
"Bailey _precious_! You mustn't use such wicked, wicked words."
Bailey rose, pink and wrathful.
"If you're going to break another vase," said Ruth, "you will really have to go."
"Ever since that--that----" cried Bailey. "Ever since Aunt Lora----"
Ruth smiled indulgently.
"That's more like my little man," she said. "He knows as well as I do how wrong it is to swear."
"Be quiet! Ever since Aunt Lora got hold of you, I say, you have become a sort of gramophone, spouting her opinions."
"But what sensible opinions!"
"It's got to stop. Aunt Lora! My God! Who is she? Just look at her record. She disgraces the family by marrying a grubby newspaper fellow called Porter. He has the sense to die. I will say that for him. She thrusts herself into public notice by a series of books and speeches on subjects of which a decent woman ought to know nothing. And now she gets hold of you, fills you up with her disgusting nonsense, makes a sort of disciple of you, gives you absurd ideas, poisons your mind, and--er--er-----"
"Bailey! This is positive eloquence!"
"It's got to stop. It's bad enough in her; but every one knows she is crazy, and makes allowances. But in a young girl like you."
He choked.
"In a young girl like me," prompted Ruth in a low, tragic voice.
"It--it's not right. It--it's not proper." He drew a long breath. "It's all wrong. It's got to stop."
"He's perfectly wonderful!" murmured Ruth. "He just opens his mouth and the words come out. But I knew he was somebody, directly I saw him, by his forehead. Like a dome!" Bailey mopped the dome.
"Perhaps you don't know it," he said, "but you're getting yourself talked about. You go about saying perfectly impossible things to people. You won't marry. You have refused nearly every friend I have."
Ruth shuddered.
"Your friends are awful, Bailey. They are all turned out on a pattern, like a flock of sheep. They bleat. They have all got little, narrow faces without chins or big, fat faces without foreheads. Ugh!"
"None of them good enough for you, is that it?"
"Not nearly."
Emotion rendered Bailey--for him--almost vulgar.
"I guess you hate yourself!" he snapped.
"No _sir_" beamed Ruth. "I think I'm perfectly beautiful."
Bailey grunted. Ruth came to him and gave him a sisterly kiss. She was very fond of Bailey, though she declined to reverence him.
"Cheer up, Bailey boy," she said. "Don't you worry yourself. There's a method in my madness. I'll find him sooner or later, and then you'll be glad I waited."
"Him? what do you mean?"
"Why, _him_, of course. The ideal young man. That's who--or is it whom?--I'm waiting for. Bailey, shall I tell you something? You're so scarlet already--poor boy, you ought not to rush around in this hot weather--that it won't make you blush. It's this. I'm ambitious. I mean to marry the finest man in the world and have the greatest little old baby you ever dreamed of. By the way, now I remember, I told Clarence that."
Bailey uttered a strangled exclamation.
"It has made you blush! You