first month she wouldn't show any interest in anything outside her own problem. Ruth has admirers where-ever she goes and under any circumstances; and as soon as it was learned that she was staying with me the telephone began to ring every day—the door-bell every night or so with would-be suitors. But Ruth wouldn't see any of her callers or accept any invitations. She assumed such a blasé and indifferent attitude toward life that it worried me. She used to take long walks alone over the hills and improvise by the hour by firelight in our living-room. Evenings after dinner she spent in her own room reading Marcus Aurelius, Omar Khayyam, Oscar Wilde and Marie Bashkirtseff. I used to find the books missing from the book-shelves, and discover them on the couch in Ruth's room later. A drop-light arranged on a small table by the head of the couch, a soft down quilt wrapped around a china-silk negligee, and Ruth nestled down inside of all that, was the picture to which Will and I always sang out good-night when we closed our door at ten P.M. She used to devote several hours a day to writing, but whether it was a novel or an epic poem that she was so busy about, I didn't know. She kept her papers safely locked away in her trunk and I didn't like to intrude on her intimacy. I think Ruth rather enjoyed herself during these first days after the settlement of her affair with Breck. Her newly-won independence, her freedom, brought about entirely by her own will and volition, filled her with a little self-admiration. She appealed to herself as rather an unique and remarkable young person, bearing the interesting distinction of a broken engagement.
