Ruth and her family were home again, and Martin, returned to
Oakland, saw much of her. Having gained her degree, she was doing
no more studying; and he, having worked all vitality out of his
mind and body, was doing no writing. This gave them time for each
other that they had never had before, and their intimacy ripened
fast.

At first, Martin had done nothing but rest. He had slept a great
deal, and spent long hours musing and thinking and doing nothing.
He was like one recovering from some terrible bout if hardship.
The first signs of reawakening came when he discovered more than
languid interest in the daily paper. Then he began to read again -
light novels, and poetry; and after several days more he was head
over heels in his long-neglected Fiske. His splendid body and
health made new vitality, and he possessed all the resiliency and
rebound of youth.

Ruth showed her disappointment plainly when he announced that he
was going to sea for another voyage as soon as he was well rested.

"Why do you want to do that?" she asked.

"Money," was the answer. "I'll have to lay in a supply for my next
attack on the editors. Money is the sinews of war, in my case -
money and patience."

"But if all you wanted was money, why didn't you stay in the
laundry?"

"Because the laundry was making a beast of me. Too much work of
that sort drives to drink."

She stared at him with horror in her eyes.

"Do you mean - ?" she quavered.

It would have been easy for him to get out of it; but his natural
impulse was for frankness, and he remembered his old resolve to be
frank, no matter what happened.

"Yes," he answered. "Just that. Several times."

She shivered and drew away from him.

"No man that I have ever known did that - ever did that."

"Then they never worked in the laundry at Shelly Hot Springs," he
laughed bitterly. "Toil is a good thing. It is necessary for
human health, so all the preachers say, and Heaven knows I've never
been afraid of it. But there is such a thing as too much of a good
thing, and the laundry up there is one of them. And that's why I'm
going to sea one more voyage. It will be my last, I think, for
when I come back, I shall break into the magazines. I am certain
of it."

She was silent, unsympathetic, and he watched her moodily,
realizing how impossible it was for her to understand what he had
been through.

"Some day I shall write it up - 'The Degradation of Toil' or the
'Psychology of Drink in the Working-class,' or something like that
for a title."

Never, since the first meeting, had they seemed so far apart as
that day. His confession, told in frankness, with the spirit of
revolt behind, had repelled her. But she was more shocked by the
repulsion itself than by the cause of it. It pointed out to her
how near she had drawn to him, and once accepted, it paved the way
for greater intimacy. Pity, too, was aroused, and innocent,
idealistic thoughts of reform. She would save this raw young man
who had come so far. She would save him from the curse of his
early environment, and she would save him from himself in spite of
himself. And all this affected her as a very noble state of
consciousness; nor did she dream that behind it and underlying it
were the jealousy and desire of love.

They rode on their wheels much in the delightful fall weather, and
out in the hills they read poetry aloud, now one and now the other,
noble, uplifting poetry that turned one's thoughts to higher
things. Renunciation, sacrifice, patience, industry, and high
endeavor were the principles she thus indirectly preached - such
abstractions being objectified in her mind by her father, and Mr.
Butler, and by Andrew Carnegie, who, from a poor immigrant boy had
arisen to be the book-giver of the world. All of which was
appreciated and enjoyed by Martin. He followed her mental
processes more clearly now, and her soul was no longer the sealed
wonder it had been. He was on terms of intellectual equality with
her. But the points of disagreement did not affect his love. His
love was more ardent than ever, for he loved her for what she was,
and even her physical frailty was an added charm in his eyes. He
read of sickly Elizabeth Barrett, who for years had not placed her
feet upon the ground, until that day of flame when she eloped with
Browning and stood upright, upon the earth, under the open sky; and
what Browning had done for her, Martin decided he could do for
Ruth. But first, she must love him. The rest would be easy. He
would give her strength and health. And he caught glimpses of
their life, in the years to come, wherein, against a background of
work and comfort and general well-being, he saw himself and Ruth
reading and discussing poetry, she propped amid a multitude of
cushions on the ground while she read aloud to him. This was the
key to the life they would live. And always he saw that particular
picture. Sometimes it was she who leaned against him while he
read, one arm about her, her head upon his shoulder. Sometimes
they pored together over the printed pages of beauty. Then, too,
she loved nature, and with generous imagination he changed the
scene of their reading - sometimes they read in closed-in valleys
with precipitous walls, or in high mountain meadows, and, again,
down by the gray sand-dunes with a wreath of billows at their feet,
or afar on some volcanic tropic isle where waterfalls descended and
became mist, reaching the sea in vapor veils that swayed and
shivered to every vagrant wisp of wind. But always, in the
foreground, lords of beauty and eternally reading and sharing, lay
he and Ruth, and always in the background that was beyond the
background of nature, dim and hazy, were work and success and money
earned that made them free of the world and all its treasures.

"I should recommend my little girl to be careful," her mother
warned her one day.

"I know what you mean. But it is impossible. He if; not - "

Ruth was blushing, but it was the blush of maidenhood called upon
for the first time to discuss the sacred things of life with a
mother held equally sacred.

"Your kind." Her mother finished the sentence for her.

Ruth nodded.

"I did not want to say it, but he is not. He is rough, brutal,
strong - too strong. He has not - "

She hesitated and could not go on. It was a new experience,
talking over such matters with her mother. And again her mother
completed her thought for her.

"He has not lived a clean life, is what you wanted to say."

Again Ruth nodded, and again a blush mantled her face.

"It is just that," she said. "It has not been his fault, but he
has played much with - "

"With pitch?"

"Yes, with pitch. And he frightens me. Sometimes I am positively
in terror of him, when he talks in that free and easy way of the
things he has done - as if they did not matter. They do matter,
don't they?"

They sat with their arms twined around each other, and in the pause
her mother patted her hand and waited for her to go on.

"But I am interested in him dreadfully," she continued. "In a way
he is my protege. Then, too, he is my first boy friend - but not
exactly friend; rather protege and friend combined. Sometimes,
too, when he frightens me, it seems that he is a bulldog I have
taken for a plaything, like some of the 'frat' girls, and he is
tugging hard, and showing his teeth, and threatening to break
loose."

Again her mother waited.

"He interests me, I suppose, like the bulldog. And there is much
good in him, too; but there is much in him that I would not like in
- in the other way. You see, I have been thinking. He swears, he
smokes, he drinks, he has fought with his fists (he has told me so,
and he likes it; he says so). He is all that a man should not be -
a man I would want for my - " her voice sank very low - "husband.
Then he is too strong. My prince must be tall, and slender, and
dark - a graceful, bewitching prince. No, there is no danger of my
failing in love with Martin Eden. It would be the worst fate that
could befall me."

"But it is not that that I spoke about," her mother equivocated.
"Have you thought about him? He is so ineligible in every way, you
know, and suppose he should come to love you?"

"But he does - already," she cried.

"It was to be expected," Mrs. Morse said gently. "How could it be
otherwise with any one who knew you?"

"Olney hates me!" she exclaimed passionately. "And I hate Olney.
I feel always like a cat when he is around. I feel that I must be
nasty to him, and even when I don't happen to feel that way, why,
he's nasty to me, anyway. But I am happy with Martin Eden. No one
ever loved me before - no man, I mean, in that way. And it is
sweet to be loved - that way. You know what I mean, mother dear.
It is sweet to feel that you are really and truly a woman." She
buried her face in her mother's lap, sobbing. "You think I am
dreadful, I know, but I am honest, and I tell you just how I feel."

Mrs. Morse was strangely sad and happy. Her child-daughter, who
was a bachelor of arts, was gone; but in her place was a woman-
daughter. The experiment had succeeded. The strange void in
Ruth's nature had been filled, and filled without danger or
penalty. This rough sailor-fellow had been the instrument, and,
though Ruth did not love him, he had made her conscious of her
womanhood.

"His hand trembles," Ruth was confessing, her face, for shame's
sake, still buried. "It is most amusing and ridiculous, but I feel
sorry for him, too. And when his hands are too trembly, and his
eyes too shiny, why, I lecture him about his life and the wrong way
he is going about it to mend it. But he worships me, I know. His
eyes and his hands do not lie. And it makes me feel grown-up, the
thought of it, the very thought of it; and I feel that I am
possessed of something that is by rights my own - that makes me
like the other girls - and - and young women. And, then, too, I
knew that I was not like them before, and I knew that it worried
you. You thought you did not let me know that dear worry of yours,
but I did, and I wanted to - 'to make good,' as Martin Eden says."

It was a holy hour for mother and daughter, and their eyes were wet
as they talked on in the twilight, Ruth all white innocence and
frankness, her mother sympathetic, receptive, yet calmly explaining
and guiding.

"He is four years younger than you," she said. "He has no place in
the world. He has neither position nor salary. He is impractical.
Loving you, he should, in the name of common sense, be doing
something that would give him the right to marry, instead of
paltering around with those stories of his and with childish
dreams. Martin Eden, I am afraid, will never grow up. He does not
take to responsibility and a man's work in the world like your
father did, or like all our friends, Mr. Butler for one. Martin
Eden, I am afraid, will never be a money-earner. And this world is
so ordered that money is necessary to happiness - oh, no, not these
swollen fortunes, but enough of money to permit of common comfort
and decency. He - he has never spoken?"

"He has not breathed a word. He has not attempted to; but if he
did, I would not let him, because, you see, I do not love him."

"I am glad of that. I should not care to see my daughter, my one
daughter, who is so clean and pure, love a man like him. There are
noble men in the world who are clean and true and manly. Wait for
them. You will find one some day, and you will love him and be
loved by him, and you will be happy with him as your father and I
have been happy with each other. And there is one thing you must
always carry in mind - "

"Yes, mother."

Mrs. Morse's voice was low and sweet as she said, "And that is the
children."

"I - have thought about them," Ruth confessed, remembering the
wanton thoughts that had vexed her in the past, her face again red
with maiden shame that she should be telling such things.

"And it is that, the children, that makes Mr. Eden impossible,"
Mrs. Morse went on incisively. "Their heritage must be clean, and
he is, I am afraid, not clean. Your father has told me of sailors'
lives, and - and you understand."

Ruth pressed her mother's hand in assent, feeling that she really
did understand, though her conception was of something vague,
remote, and terrible that was beyond the scope of imagination.

"You know I do nothing without telling you," she began. " - Only,
sometimes you must ask me, like this time. I wanted to tell you,
but I did not know how. It is false modesty, I know it is that,
but you can make it easy for me. Sometimes, like this time, you
must ask me, you must give me a chance."

"Why, mother, you are a woman, too!" she cried exultantly, as they
stood up, catching her mother's hands and standing erect, facing
her in the twilight, conscious of a strangely sweet equality
between them. "I should never have thought of you in that way if
we had not had this talk. I had to learn that I was a woman to
know that you were one, too."

"We are women together," her mother said, drawing her to her and
kissing her. "We are women together," she repeated, as they went
out of the room, their arms around each other's waists, their
hearts swelling with a new sense of companionship.

"Our little girl has become a woman," Mrs. Morse said proudly to
her husband an hour later.

"That means," he said, after a long look at his wife, "that means
she is in love."

"No, but that she is loved," was the smiling rejoinder. "The
experiment has succeeded. She is awakened at last."

"Then we'll have to get rid of him." Mr. Morse spoke briskly, in
matter-of-fact, businesslike tones.

But his wife shook her head. "It will not be necessary. Ruth says
he is going to sea in a few days. When he comes back, she will not
be here. We will send her to Aunt Clara's. And, besides, a year
in the East, with the change in climate, people, ideas, and
everything, is just the thing she needs."