LITMIR.BIZ

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comes along? I’m only Miss Wrong, I know, but I’d work my hands to the bare bone for you. And I’m not ugly to look at. Say you will!’

      Dick hardly recognised Torpenhow’s voice in reply—

      ‘But look here. It’s no use. I’m liable to be ordered off anywhere at a minute’s notice if a war breaks out. At a minute’s notice—dear.’

      ‘What does that matter? Until you go, then. Until you go. ‘Tisn’t much I’m asking, and—you don’t know how good I can cook.’ She had put an arm round his neck and was drawing his head down.

      ‘Until—I—go, then.’

      ‘Torp,’ said Dick, across the landing. He could hardly steady his voice. ‘Come here a minute, old man. I’m in trouble’—‘Heaven send he’ll listen to me!’ There was something very like an oath from Bessie’s lips. She was afraid of Dick, and disappeared down the staircase in panic, but it seemed an age before Torpenhow entered the studio. He went to the mantelpiece, buried his head on his arms, and groaned like a wounded bull.

      ‘What the devil right have you to interfere?’ he said, at last.

      ‘Who’s interfering with which? Your own sense told you long ago you couldn’t be such a fool. It was a tough rack, St. Anthony, but you’re all right now.’

      ‘I oughtn’t to have seen her moving about these rooms as if they belonged to her. That’s what upset me. It gives a lonely man a sort of hankering, doesn’t it?’ said Torpenhow, piteously.

      ‘Now you talk sense. It does. But, since you aren’t in a condition to discuss the disadvantages of double housekeeping, do you know what you’re going to do?’

      ‘I don’t. I wish I did.’

      ‘You’re going away for a season on a brilliant tour to regain tone. You’re going to Brighton, or Scarborough, or Prawle Point, to see the ships go by. And you’re going at once. Isn’t it odd? I’ll take care of Binkie, but out you go immediately. Never resist the devil. He holds the bank. Fly from him. Pack your things and go.’

      ‘I believe you’re right. Where shall I go?’

      ‘And you call yourself a special correspondent! Pack first and inquire afterwards.’

      An hour later Torpenhow was despatched into the night for a hansom. ‘You’ll probably think of some place to go to while you’re moving,’ said Dick. ‘On to Euston, to begin with, and—oh yes—get drunk to-night.’

      He returned to the studio, and lighted more candles, for he found the room very dark.

      ‘Oh, you Jezebel! you futile little Jezebel! Won’t you hate me to-morrow!—Binkie, come here.’

      Binkie turned over on his back on the hearth-rug, and Dick stirred him with a meditative foot.

      ‘I said she was not immoral. I was wrong. She said she could cook. That showed premeditated sin. Oh, Binkie, if you are a man you will go to perdition; but if you are a woman, and say that you can cook, you will go to a much worse place.’

      ▲▲▲

Chapter X

      What’s you that follows at my side?—

      The foe that ye must fight, my lord.—

      That hirples swift as I can ride?—

      The shadow of the night, my lord.—

      Then wheel my horse against the foe!—

      He’s down and overpast, my lord.

      Ye war against the sunset glow;

      The darkness gathers fast, my lord.

      —The Fight of Heriot’s Ford.

      ‘This is a cheerful life,’ said Dick, some days later. ‘Torp’s away; Bessie hates me; I can’t get at the notion of the Melancolia; Maisie’s letters are scrappy; and I believe I have indigestion. What give a man pains across the head and spots before his eyes, Binkie? Shall us take some liver pills?’

      Dick had just gone through a lively scene with Bessie. She had for the fiftieth time reproached him for sending Torpenhow away. She explained her enduring hatred for Dick, and made it clear to him that she only sat for the sake of his money. ‘And Mr. Torpenhow’s ten times a better man than you,’ she concluded.

      ‘He is. That’s why he went away. I should have stayed and made love to you.’

      The girl sat with her chin on her hand, scowling. ‘To me! I’d like to catch you! If I wasn’t afraid o’ being hung I’d kill you. That’s what I’d do. D’you believe me?’

      Dick smiled wearily. It is not pleasant to live in the company of a notion that will not work out, a fox-terrier that cannot talk, and a woman who talks too much. He would have answered, but at that moment there unrolled itself from one corner of the studio a veil, as it were, of the flimsiest gauze. He rubbed his eyes, but the gray haze would not go.

      ‘This is disgraceful indigestion. Binkie, we will go to a medicine-man. We can’t have our eyes interfered with, for by these we get our bread; also mutton-chop bones for little dogs.’

      The doctor was an affable local practitioner with white hair, and he said nothing till Dick began to describe the gray film in the studio.

      ‘We all want a little patching and repairing from time to time,’ he chirped. ‘Like a ship, my dear sir,—exactly like a ship. Sometimes the hull is out of order, and we consult the surgeon; sometimes the rigging, and then I advise; sometimes the engines, and we go to the brain-specialist; sometimes the look-out on the bridge is tired, and then we see an oculist. I should recommend you to see an oculist. A little patching and repairing from time to time is all we want. An oculist, by all means.’

      Dick sought an oculist,—the best in London. He was certain that the local practitioner did not know anything about his trade, and more certain that Maisie would laugh at him if he were forced to wear spectacles.

      ‘I’ve neglected the warnings of my lord the stomach too long. Hence these spots before the eyes, Binkie. I can see as well as I ever could.’

      As he entered the dark hall that led to the consulting-room a man cannoned against him. Dick saw the face as it hurried out into the street.

      ‘That’s the writer-type. He has the same modelling of the forehead as Torp. He looks very sick. Probably heard something he didn’t like.’

      Even as he thought, a great fear came upon Dick, a fear that made him hold his breath as he walked into the oculist’s waiting room, with the heavy carved furniture, the dark-green paper, and the sober-hued prints on the wall. He recognised a reproduction of one of his own sketches.

      Many people were waiting their turn before him. His eye was caught by a flaming red-and-gold Christmas-carol book. Little children came to that eye-doctor, and they needed large-type amusement.

      ‘That’s idolatrous bad Art,’ he said, drawing the book towards himself. ‘From the anatomy of the angels, it has been made in Germany.’ He opened in mechanically, and there leaped to his eyes a verse printed in red ink—

      The next good joy that Mary had,

      It was the joy of three,

      To see her good Son Jesus Christ

      Making the blind to see;

      Making the blind to see, good Lord,

      And happy we may be.

      Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost

      To all eternity!

      Dick read and re-read the verse till his turn came, and the doctor was bending above him seated in an arm-chair. The blaze

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