THE AMATEUR LOVER
strolling smokily into her room one evening, jumped back in tragic dismay at the astonishing sight that met his eyes. There, like some fierce young sacri- ficial priestess, with a very modern smutty nose and scorched cheeks, Ruth knelt on the hearth-rug, slam- ming every conceivable object that she could reach into the blazing fire. The soft green walls of the room were utterly stripped and ravished. The floor in every direction lay cluttered deep with books and pictures and clothes and innumerable small bits of bric-a-brac. Already the brimming fireplace leaked forth across the carpet in little gray, gusty flakes of ash and cinder.
The Big Brother hooted right out loud."Why, Ruthy Dudley," he gasped. "What are you doing? You look like the devil"
Blissfully unconscious of smoke or smut, the girl pushed back the straggling blond hair from her eyes and grinned, with her white teeth shot like a bolt through her under lip to keep the grin in place.
"I m not a 'devil,' she explained." I m a god ! And what am I doing? I'm creating a new heaven and a new earth."
"You won't have much left to create it with," scoffed the Big Brother, kicking the tortured wreck of a straw hat farther back into the flames.
The girl reached up impatiently and smutted her
other hand across her eyes. "Nothing left to cre-
196
