CHAPTER XV.
Previous to his illness, Spurlock's mind had been tortured by an appalling worry, so that now, in the process of convalescence, it might be compared to a pool which had been violently stirred: there were indications of subsidence, but there were still strange forms swirling on the surface--whims and fancies which in normal times would never have risen above sub-consciousness.
Little by little the pool cleared, the whims vanished: so that both Ruth and the doctor, by the middle of the third week, began to accept Spurlock's actions as normal, whereas there was still a mote or two which declined to settle, still a kink in the gray matter that refused to straighten out.
Spurlock began to watch for Ruth's coming in the morning; first, with negligent interest, then with positive eagerness.

His literary instincts were reviving.

Ruth was something to study for future copy; she was almost unbelievable.

She was not a reversion to type, which intimates the primordial; she suggested rather the incarnation of some goddess of the South Seas.

He was not able to recognize, as the doctor did, that she was only a natural woman.
His attitude toward her was purely intellectual, free of any sentimentality, utterly selfish.