“It’s heaven if you’re with the right man.”
Mrs. Bailey sighed.
“Bailey’s the right man, as far as I’m concerned. But I’m wondering how he will bear it, poor dear.”
Ruth was feeling too happy herself to allow any one else to be unhappy if she could help it.
“Why, of course he will be splendid about it,” she said. “You’re letting your imagination run away with you. You have got the idea of Bailey and yourself as two broken creatures begging in the streets. I don’t know how badly Bailey will be off after this smash, but I do know that he will have all his brains and his energy left.”
Ruth was conscious of a momentary feeling of surprise that she should be eulogizing Bailey in this fashion, and—stranger still—that she should be really sincere in what she said. But to-day seemed to have changed everything, and she was regarding her brother with a new-born respect. She could still see Sybil’s face as it had appeared in that memorable moment of self-revelation. It had made a deep impression upon her.
“A man like Bailey is worth a large salary to any one, even if he may not be able to start out for himself again immediately. I’m not worrying about you and Bailey. You will have forgotten all about this crash this time next year.” Sybil brightened up. She was by nature easily moved, and Ruth’s words had stimulated her imagination.
“He is awfully clever,” she said, her eyes shining.
“Why, this sort of thing happens every six months to anybody who has anything to do with Wall Street,” proceeded Ruth, fired by her own optimism. “You read about it in the papers every day. Nobody thinks anything of it.”
Sybil, though anxious to look on the bright side, could not quite rise to these heights of scorn for the earthquake which had shaken her world.