“I knew it! I said she had been putting these ghastly ideas into your head. I’d like to strangle that woman.” 

 “Don’t you try! Have you ever felt Aunt Lora’s biceps? It’s like a man’s. She does dumb-bells every morning.” 

 “I’ve a good mind to speak to father. Somebody’s got to make you stop this insanity.” 

 “Just as you please. But you know how father hates to be worried about things that don’t concern business.” 

 Bailey did. His father, of whom he stood in the greatest awe, was very little interested in any subject except the financial affairs of the firm of Bannister & Son. It required greater courage than Bailey possessed to place this matter before him. He had an uneasy feeling that Ruth knew it. 

 “I would, if it were necessary,” he said. “But I don’t believe you’re serious.” 

 “Stick to that idea as long as ever you can, Bailey dear,” said Ruth. “It will comfort you.” 

 

Chapter III. The Mates Meet

 Kirk Winfield was an amiable, if rather weak, young man with whom life, for twenty-five years, had dealt kindly. He had perfect health, an income more than sufficient for his needs, a profession which interested without monopolizing him, a thoroughly contented disposition, and the happy knack of surrounding himself with friends. 

 That he had to contribute to the support of the majority of these friends might have seemed a drawback to some men. Kirk did not object to it in the least. He had enough money to meet their needs, and, being a sociable person who enjoyed mixing with all sorts and conditions of men, he found the Liberty Hall regime pleasant. 

 He liked to be a magnet, attracting New York’s Bohemian population. If he had his preferences among the impecunious crowd who used the studio as a chapel of ease, strolling in when it pleased them, drinking his whisky, smoking his cigarettes, borrowing his money, and, on occasion, his spare bedrooms and his pyjamas, he never showed it. He was fully as pleasant to Percy Shanklyn, the elegant, perpetually resting English actor, whom he disliked as far as he was capable of disliking any one, as he was to Hank Jardine, the prospector, and Hank’s prize-fighter friend, Steve Dingle, both of whom he liked enormously. 

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