The Coming of Bill Part 33

"Come along, dear," said Ruth, "and I'll show you the house. Don't mind Aunt Lora," she whispered; "she means well, and she really is splendid with Bill."

Kirk followed her. He was feeling chilled again. His old mistrust of Mrs. Porter revived. If their brief interview was to be taken as evidence, she seemed to have regained entirely her old ascendancy over Ruth. He felt vaguely uneasy, as a man might who walks in a powder magazine.

"Aunt Lora lives here now," observed Ruth casually, as they went upstairs.

Kirk started.

"Literally, do you mean? Is this her home?"

Ruth smiled at him over her shoulder.

"She won't interfere with you," she said. "Surely this great house is large enough for the three of us. Besides, she's so devoted to Bill.

She looks after him all the time; of course, nowadays I don't get quite so much time to be with him myself. One has an awful lot of calls on one. I feel Bill is so safe with Aunt Lora on the premises."

She stopped at a door on the first floor.

"This is Bill's nursery. He's out just now. Mamie takes him for a drive every morning when it's fine."

Something impelled Kirk to speak.

"Don't you ever take him for walks in the morning now?" he asked. "He used to love it."

"Silly! Of course I do, when I can manage it. For drives, rather. Aunt Lora is rather against his walking much in the city. He might so easily catch something, you know."

She opened the door.

"There!" she said. "What do you think of that for a nursery?"

If Kirk had spoken his mind he would have said that of all the ghastly nurseries the human brain could have conceived this was the ghastliest.

It was a large, square room, and to Kirk's startled eyes had much the appearance of an operating theatre at a hospital.

There was no carpet on the tiled floor. The walls, likewise tiled, were so bare that the eye ached contemplating them. In the corner by the window stood the little white cot. Beside it on the wall hung a large thermometer. Various k.n.o.bs of bra.s.s decorated the opposite wall. At the farther end of the room was a bath, complete with shower and all the other apparatus of a modern tub.

It was probably the most horrible room in all New York.

"Well, what do you think of it?" demanded Ruth proudly.

Kirk gazed at her, speechless. This, he said to himself, was Ruth, his wife, who had housed his son in the spare bedroom of the studio and allowed a s.h.a.ggy Irish terrier to sleep on his bed; who had permitted him to play by the hour in the dust of the studio floor, who had even a.s.sisted him to do so by descending into the dust herself in the role of a bear or a snake.

What had happened to this world from which he had been absent but one short year? Was everybody mad, or was he hopelessly behind the times?

"Well?" Ruth reminded him.

Kirk eyed the dreadful room.

"It looks clean," he said at last.

"It is clean," said the voice of Lora Delane Porter proudly behind him.

She had followed them up the stairs to do the honours of the nursery, the centre of her world. "It is essentially clean. There is not an object in that room which is not carefully sterilized night and morning with a weak solution of boric acid!"

"Even Mamie?" inquired Kirk.

It had been his intention to be mildly jocular, but Mrs. Porter's reply showed him that in jest he had spoken the truth.

"Certainly. Have you any idea, Kirk, of the number of germs there are on the surface of the human body? It runs into billions. You"--she fixed him with her steely eye--"you are at the present moment one ma.s.s of microbes."

"I sneaked through quarantine all right."

"To the adult there is not so much danger in these microbes, provided he or she maintains a reasonable degree of personal cleanliness. That is why adults may be permitted to mix with other adults without preliminary sterilization. But in the case of a growing child it is entirely different. No precaution is excessive. So----"

From below at this point there came the sound of the front-door bell.

Ruth went to the landing and looked over the banisters.

"That ought to be Bill and Mamie back from their drive," she said.

The sound of a child's voice came to Kirk as he stood listening; and as he heard it all the old feeling of paternal pride and excitement, which had left him during his wanderings, swept over him like a wave. He reproached himself that, while the memory of Ruth had been with him during every waking moment of the past year, there had been occasions when that of William Bannister had become a little faded.

He ran down the stairs.

"h.e.l.lo, Mamie!" he said. "How are you? You're looking well."

Mamie greeted him with the shy smile which was wont to cause such havoc in Steve's heart.

"And who's this you've got with you? Mamie, you know you've no business going about with young men like this. Who is he?"

He stood looking at William Bannister, and William Bannister stood looking at him, Kirk smiling, William staring with the intense gravity of childhood and trying to place this bearded stranger among his circle of friends. He seemed to be thinking that the familiarity of the other's manner indicated a certain amount of previous acquaintances.h.i.+p.

"Watch that busy brain working," said Kirk. "He's trying to place me.

It's all right, Bill, old man; it's my fault. I had no right to spring myself on you with eight feet of beard. It isn't giving you a square deal. Never mind, it's coming off in a few minutes, never to return, and then, perhaps, you'll remember that you've a father."

"Fa-a-a-ar!" shrieked William Bannister triumphantly, taking the cue with admirable swiftness.

He leaped at Kirk, and Kirk swung him up in the air. It was quite an effort, for William Bannister had grown astonis.h.i.+ngly in the past year.

"Pop," said he firmly, as if resolved to prevent any possibility of mistake. "Daddy," he added, continuing to play upon the theme. He summed up. "You're my pop."

Then, satisfied that this was final and that there could now be no chance for Kirk to back out of the contract, he reached out a hand and gave a tug at the beard which had led to all the confusion.

"What's this?"

"You may well ask," said Kirk. "I got struck that way because I left you and mummy for a whole year. But now I'm back I'm going to be allowed to take it off and give it away. Whom shall I give it to?

Steve? Do you think Steve would like it? Yes, you can go on pulling it; it won't break. On the other hand, I should just like to mention that it's hurting something fierce, my son. It's fastened on at the other end, you know."

"Why?"

"Don't ask me. That's the way it's built."

William Bannister obligingly disentangled himself from the beard.