CHAPTER XXV
IF you want to know what became of Ruth I'll tell you—I'll tell you right off. She fell in love with Bob Jennings. She fell awfully in love with him—absorbingly, overwhelmingly in love. Ruth, the lofty, the high, the pedestalled! Ruth who prided herself on her coolness and her circumspection, Ruth who boasted that fate had foreordained a brilliant marriage, lost her head over a young college instructor who taught English composition to freshmen and sophomores, at a salary something less than three thousand a year. It simply proves that the eternal feminine will crop out, however much it has been choked and blighted, just like a dry bulb that's been kept in a damp dark cellar all winter. Once you put it in the sun and warmth, and give it a little water, it just can't help but grow up bright and green—brilliant rank green, full of juicy stalks and buds. Why, Ruth got to be such a normal sort of girl that she blushed every time Bob's name was mentioned. Ruth the invulnerable! She even lost her appetite—of all ordinary things—and great circles appeared under her eyes. The most astounding feature to me was that Ruth fell in love before she was asked to. Imagine that if you can. Ruth the haughty! The bulb began to send out shoots like a common onion or potato, before invited by the sun. Things came to such a pass that Will finally touched on the delicate subject with Bob. We thought the man must be
344
