THE STARS INCLINE BY JEANNE JUDSON AUTHOR OF “BECKONING ROADS” [Illustration] McCLELLAND & STEWART PUBLISHERS TORONTO 1920 COPYRIGHT, 1919 BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC. PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. The Quinn & Boden Company BOOK MANUFACTURERS RAHWAY NEW JERSEY ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE STARS INCLINE CHAPTER I One can be nineteen and still know a great deal of the world. Ruth Mayfield felt that she knew a great deal of the world. She could judge character, and taking care of Mother’s business affairs had helped a lot, and like most young women of nineteen she knew that if marriage offered no more to her than it had offered to her parents, she did not want to marry. Of course they hadn’t quarrelled or anything, but they lived such dull lives, and there were always money worries—and everything. Ruth had never told her mother any of these things, especially after her father died and her mother had cried so much and had seemed to feel even worse than Ruth did, for Ruth _had_ felt badly. She had been awfully fond of her father, really fonder of him than of her mother. He understood her better and it was he who had encouraged her to study art. That was one of the things that set her apart from other girls in Indianapolis. She was an art student. One day she would do great things, she knew.