“She’s gone to her room and locked herself in. She says you’re not to come near her any more ever.”
A long silence.
“But I dare say it’ll blow over, Matt. This is not the first time she’s been taken like that, though you’ve not been here to bear it.”
A longer silence.
Billy cudgelled his brain to rouse his brother.
“I saw Ruth Hailey a month ago,” he said at last. This time he succeeded in evoking an indifferent monosyllable.
“Yes?”
“Yes. She called here to see us—she was in London. She had got our address from Abner Preep before leaving America. I gave her the address of your studio, but she said she was uncertain whether she would have time to look you up. She seems to be secretary to Mrs. Verder, the Woman’s Rights woman, goes about with her everywhere. Linda Verder’s lectures—you remember them at the St. James’s Hall in July. She’s in Scotland now, and later on, Ruth writes to me (for I asked her to correspond with me a little) they’re going to Paris for a course, under the patronage of the American Embassy. They’ll stay in Paris some time, as Linda Verder wants a rest badly, and has a lot of American friends there. Then they go to Australia and New Zealand. Curious, isn’t it?”
“How did she look?”
“Ruth? Oh, she’s gone off a good deal, to my thinking. She must be getting pretty old now—about as old as you, which is young for a man, but old for a woman. But her eyes are fine, and there’s a sweetness—I can’t describe it. She says she used to teach Sunday-school in the States, and, though she enjoys travelling about, regrets having had to give up her class. Fancy! She used to be such a smart girl, too, and I should have thought the deacon had disgusted her with religion. You know she won’t have anything to do with him.”