P. G. Wodehouse

“ Ruth put her arm in Kirk's and led him off to the smoking-room.
"You may smoke a cigar while I tell you all about Bill," she said.
Kirk lit a cigar, bewildered. It is always unpleasant to be the person to whom things have to be explained.
"Poor old boy," Ruth went on, "you certainly are thin. But about Bill. I am afraid you are going to be a little upset about Bill, Kirk. Aunt Lora has no tact, and she will make a speech on every possible occasion; but she was right just now. It really was rather dangerous, picking Bill up like that and kissing him." ”

“ Kirk had never told her what had passed between him and Bailey that afternoon in the studio, but her quick intelligence had enabled her to guess at the truth; and she was aware that the minds of the two men, their temperaments, were naturally antagonistic.
Kirk's reception of the news relieved her.
"Of course," he said. "He couldn't do anything else. He knew nothing of me except that I was a kind of man with whom he was quite out of sympathy. He mistrusted all artists, I expect, in a bunch. And, anyway, an artist is pretty sure to be a bad man of business. ”

“ Have you any idea, Kirk, of the number of germs there are on the surface of the human body? It runs into billions. You"—she fixed him with her steely eye—"you are at the present moment one mass of microbes."
"I sneaked through quarantine all right."
"To the adult there is not so much danger in these microbes, provided he or she maintains a reasonable degree of personal cleanliness. That is why adults may be permitted to mix with other adults without preliminary sterilization. But in the case of a growing child it is entirely different. No precaution is excessive. ”

“ Kirk started.
"Literally, do you mean? Is this her home?"
Ruth smiled at him over her shoulder.
"She won't interfere with you," she said. "Surely this great house is large enough for the three of us. Besides, she's so devoted to Bill. She looks after him all the time; of course, nowadays I don't get quite so much time to be with him myself. One has an awful lot of calls on one. I feel Bill is so safe with Aunt Lora on the premises."
She stopped at a door on the first floor.
"This is Bill's nursery. He's out just now. Mamie takes him for a drive every morning when it's fine." ”

“ But it was not as a hobby that he was regarding his painting. He had come to a knowledge of realities in the wilderness and to an appreciation of the fact that he had a soul which could not be kept alive except by honest work. ”