As he reached the door an idea came to him

　　As he reached the door an idea came to him, so simple that he wonderedthat it had not occurred to him before. It was, perhaps, an echo of hisconversation with Steve.
　　He would get Ruth to come away with him to the shack in the Connecticutwoods. As he dwelt on the idea the heat of the day seemed to becomeless oppressive and his heart leaped. How cool and pleasant it would beout there! They would take Bill with them and live the simple lifeagain, in the country this time instead of in town. Perhaps out there,far away from the over-crowded city, he and Ruth would be able to cometo an understanding and bridge over that ghastly gulf.
　　As for his work, he could do that as well in the woods as in New York.
　　And, anyhow, he had earned a vacation. For days Mr. Penway had beenhinting that the time had arrived for a folding of the hands.
　　Mr. Penway's views on New York and its record humidity were strong andcrisply expressed. His idea, he told Kirk, was that some sport with aheart should loan him a couple of hundred bucks and let him beat it tothe seashore before he melted.
　　In the drawing-room Ruth was playing the piano softly, as she had doneso often at the studio. Kirk went to her and kissed her. A markedcoolness in her reception of the kiss increased the feeling ofnervousness which he had felt at the sight of her. It came back to himthat they had parted that afternoon, for the first time, on definitelyhostile terms.
　　He decided to ignore the fact. Something told him that Ruth had notforgotten, but it might be that cheerfulness now would blot out theresentment of past irritability.
　　But in his embarrassment he was more than cheerful. As Steve had beenon the occasion of his visit to old John Bannister, he was breezy,breezy with an effort that was as painful to Ruth as it was to himself,breezy with a horrible musical comedy breeziness.
　　He could have adopted no more fatal tone with Ruth at that moment. Allthe afternoon she had been a complicated tangle of fretted nerves. Herquarrel with Kirk, Bailey's visit, a conscience that would not lie downand go to sleep at her orders, but insisted on running riot--all thesethings had unfitted her to bear up amiably under sudden, self-consciousbreeziness.
　　And the heat of the day, charged now with the oppressiveness oflong-overdue thunder, completed her mood. When Kirk came in and beganto speak, the softest notes of the human voice would have jarred uponher. And Kirk, in his nervousness, was almost shouting.
　　His voice rang through the room, and Ruth winced away from it like astricken thing. From out of the hell of nerves and heat and interferingbrothers there materialized itself, as she sat there, a very vividhatred of Kirk.
　　Kirk, meanwhile, uneasy, but a little guessing at the fury behindRuth's calm face, was expounding his great scheme, his panacea for allthe ills of domestic misunderstandings and parted lives.
　　"Ruth, old girl."Ruth shuddered.
　　"Ruth, old girl, I've had a bully good idea. It's getting too warm foranything in New York. Did you ever feel anything like it is to-day? Whyshouldn't you and I pop down to the shack and camp out there for a weekor so? And we would take Bill with us. Just we three, with somebody todo the cooking. It would be great. What do you say?"What Ruth said languidly was: "It's quite impossible."It was damping; but Kirk felt that at all costs he must refuse to bedamped. He clutched at his cheerfulness and held it.