LITMIR.BIZ

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look after me she shall be bought. Nobody else in the world would take the trouble, and I can make it worth her while. She's a child of the gutter holding brevet rank as a barmaid; so she shall have everything she wants if she'll only come and talk and look after me." He rubbed his newly shorn chin and began to perplex himself with the thought of her not coming. "I suppose I did look rather a sweep," he went on. "I had no reason to look otherwise. I knew things dropped on my clothes, but it didn't matter. It would be cruel if she didn't come. She must. Maisie came once, and that was enough for her. She was quite right. She had something to work for. This creature has only beer-handles to pull, unless she has deluded some young man into keeping company with her. Fancy being cheated for the sake of a counter-jumper! We're falling pretty low."

      Something cried aloud within him:—This will hurt more than anything that has gone before. It will recall and remind and suggest and tantalise, and in the end drive you mad.

      "I know it, I know it!" Dick cried, clenching his hands despairingly; "but, good heavens! is a poor blind beggar never to get anything out of his life except three meals a day and a greasy waistcoat? I wish she'd come."

      Early in the afternoon time she came, because there was no young man in her life just then, and she thought of material advantages which would allow her to be idle for the rest of her days.

      "I shouldn't have known you," she said approvingly. "You look as you used to look—a gentleman that was proud of himself."

      "Don't you think I deserve another kiss, then?" said Dick, flushing a little.

      "Maybe—but you won't get it yet. Sit down and let's see what I can do for you. I'm certain sure Mr. Beeton cheats you, now that you can't go through the housekeeping books every month. Isn't that true?"

      "You'd better come and housekeep for me then, Bessie."

      "Couldn't do it in these chambers—you know that as well as I do."

      "I know, but we might go somewhere else, if you thought it worth your while."

      "I'd try to look after you, anyhow; but I shouldn't care to have to work for both of us." This was tentative.

      Dick laughed.

      "Do you remember where I used to keep my bank-book?" said he. "Torp took it to be balanced just before he went away. Look and see."

      "It was generally under the tobacco-jar. Ah!"

      "Well?"

      "Oh! Four thousand two hundred and ten pounds nine shillings and a penny! Oh my!"

      "You can have the penny. That's not bad for one year's work. Is that and a hundred and twenty pounds a year good enough?"

      The idleness and the pretty clothes were almost within her reach now, but she must, by being housewifely, show that she deserved them.

      "Yes; but you'd have to move, and if we took an inventory, I think we'd find that Mr. Beeton has been prigging little things out of the rooms here and there. They don't look as full as they used."

      "Never mind, we'll let him have them. The only thing I'm particularly anxious to take away is that picture I used you for—when you used to swear at me. We'll pull out of this place, Bess, and get away as far as ever we can."

      "Oh yes," she said uneasily.

      "I don't know where I can go to get away from myself, but I'll try, and you shall have all the pretty frocks that you care for. You'll like that. Give me that kiss now, Bess. Ye gods! it's good to put one's arm round a woman's waist again."

      Then came the fulfilment of the prophecy within the brain. If his arm were thus round Maisie's waist and a kiss had just been given and taken between them,—why then... He pressed the girl more closely to himself because the pain whipped him. She was wondering how to explain a little accident to the Melancolia. At any rate, if this man really desired the solace of her company—and certainly he would relapse into his original slough if she withdrew it—he would not be more than just a little vexed.

      It would be delightful at least to see what would happen, and by her teachings it was good for a man to stand in certain awe of his companion.

      She laughed nervously, and slipped out of his reach.

      "I shouldn't worrit about that picture if I was you," she began, in the hope of turning his attention.

      "It's at the back of all my canvases somewhere. Find it, Bess; you know it as well as I do."

      "I know—but—"

      "But what? You've wit enough to manage the sale of it to a dealer. Women haggle much better than men. It might be a matter of eight or nine hundred pounds to—to us. I simply didn't like to think about it for a long time. It was mixed up with my life so.—But we'll cover up our tracks and get rid of everything, eh? Make a fresh start from the beginning, Bess."

      Then she began to repent very much indeed, because she knew the value of money. Still, it was probable that the blind man was overestimating the value of his work. Gentlemen, she knew, were absurdly particular about their things. She giggled as a nervous housemaid giggles when she tries to explain the breakage of a pipe.

      "I'm very sorry, but you remember I was—I was angry with you before Mr. Torpenhow went away?"

      "You were very angry, child; and on my word I think you had some right to be."

      "Then I—but aren't you sure Mr. Torpenhow didn't tell you?"

      "Tell me what? Good gracious, what are you making such a fuss about when you might just as well be giving me another kiss?"

      He was beginning to learn, not for the first time in his experience, that kissing is a cumulative poison. The more you get of it, the more you want.

      Bessie gave the kiss promptly, whispering, as she did so, "I was so angry I rubbed out that picture with the turpentine. You aren't angry, are you?"

      "What? Say that again." The man's hand had closed on her wrist.

      "I rubbed it out with turps and the knife," faltered Bessie. "I thought you'd only have to do it over again. You did do it over again, didn't you? Oh, let go of my wrist; you're hurting me."

      "Isn't there anything left of the thing?"

      "N'nothing that looks like anything. I'm sorry—I didn't know you'd take on about it; I only meant to do it in fun. You aren't going to hit me?"

      "Hit you! No! Let's think."

      He did not relax his hold upon her wrist but stood staring at the carpet.

      Then he shook his head as a young steer shakes it when the lash of the stock-whip cross his nose warns him back to the path on to the shambles that he would escape. For weeks he had forced himself not to think of the Melancolia, because she was a part of his dead life. With Bessie's return and certain new prospects that had developed themselves, the Melancolia—lovelier in his imagination than she had ever been on canvas—reappeared. By her aid he might have procured more money wherewith to amuse Bess and to forget Maisie, as well as another taste of an almost forgotten success. Now, thanks to a vicious little housemaid's folly, there was nothing to look for—not even the hope that he might some day take an abiding interest in the housemaid. Worst of all, he had been made to appear ridiculous in Maisie's eyes. A woman will forgive the man who has ruined her life's work so long as he gives her love; a man may forgive those who ruin the love of his life, but he will never forgive the destruction of his work.

      "Tck—tck—tck," said Dick between his teeth, and then laughed softly. "It's an omen, Bessie, and—a good many things considered, it serves me right for doing what I have done. By Jove! that accounts for Maisie's running away. She must have thought me perfectly mad—small blame to her! The whole picture ruined, isn't it so? What made you do it?"

      "Because I was that angry. I'm not angry now—I'm awful sorry."

      "I wonder.—It doesn't matter, anyhow. I'm to blame for making the mistake."

      "What mistake?"

      "Something

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