I realised that Ruth was thinking seriously about Bob Jennings when she began inquiring of Will about the salaries of instructors at the university. Later she asked me how much rents were, in this section of the country. She was perfectly aware from the very beginning that Bob earned just about enough to afford an apartment the size of Oliver's and Madge's, which she had formerly pronounced "cunning" but "impossible." If Ruth, as she boasted, confined matrimonial questions to the region of her head she ought to have sent Bob on his way the very instant that she learned these salient facts about him. But she didn't. She kept right on seeing him, night after night, as if he were a millionaire who could supply her every desire by merely dashing off his signature. She kept on reading her poetry with him, discussing art and literature by the hour, and quoting him to me all the next day as if he were an authority. Ruth simply lost her equilibrium over Bob. I don't believe she had ever seen a man like him before. He certainly is different from Breck Sewall, packed with sentiment, full impressions and delicate sensibilities. I overheard him talking with Ruth about women smoking once. He said you might as well deface a beautiful picture by painting cigarettes in the angels' mouths. I suppose it might have been the fact of being classed with the angels that "took" Ruth so. Anyhow she wanted Bob for her own, salary or no salary; she wanted him so badly that we couldn't even joke on the subject in her presence. By Christmas-time the situation was tragic. The quarrel with Edith, as all quarrels with Edith are sure to be, had been of short duration. The fact that Mrs. Sewall had invited her to assist at a tea before her final departure from Hilton had assuaged her grievances somewhat in that quarter. Moreover a startling piece of news in the New York papers in early December, ten days before the Oliphant-Sewall wedding was to take place, had vindicated Ruth's course of action even in Edith's eyes, beyond a shadow of doubt. It seems that there was already a Mrs. Breckenridge Sewall. Breck had, after all, been more decent than Will thought. He had married the girl whom he had known in college, and it was she who was now bringing suit against the groom-to-be. So as there existed nothing but kindly feelings between Edith and Ruth now, there was no reason why Ruth should not have spent the holidays in Hilton, but she simply wouldn't give up a single hour with Bob Jennings. He always came Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays. Our electric-light bill, dim as Ruth prefers the room to be, was a dollar extra a month, after Bob began to call.