LITMIR.BIZ

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dissatisfied. The hot blood came up wave upon wave. She laid her head on his shoulder.

      “Come you to my room,” he murmured.

      She looked at him and shook her head, her mouth pouting disconsolately, her eyes heavy with passion. He watched her fixedly.

      “Yes!” he said.

      Again she shook her head.

      “Why not?” he asked.

      She looked at him still heavily, sorrowfully, and again she shook her head. His eyes hardened, and he gave way.

      When, later on, he was back in bed, he wondered why she had refused to come to him openly, so that her mother would know. At any rate, then things would have been definite. And she could have stayed with him the night, without having to go, as she was, to her mother's bed. It was strange, and he could not understand it. And then almost immediately he fell asleep.

      He awoke in the morning with someone speaking to him. Opening his eyes, he saw Mrs. Radford, big and stately, looking down on him. She held a cup of tea in her hand.

      “Do you think you're going to sleep till Doomsday?” she said.

      He laughed at once.

      “It ought only to be about five o'clock,” he said.

      “Well,” she answered, “it's half-past seven, whether or not. Here, I've brought you a cup of tea.”

      He rubbed his face, pushed the tumbled hair off his forehead, and roused himself.

      “What's it so late for!” he grumbled.

      He resented being wakened. It amused her. She saw his neck in the flannel sleeping-jacket, as white and round as a girl's. He rubbed his hair crossly.

      “It's no good your scratching your head,” she said. “It won't make it no earlier. Here, an' how long d'you think I'm going to stand waiting wi' this here cup?”

      “Oh, dash the cup!” he said.

      “You should go to bed earlier,” said the woman.

      He looked up at her, laughing with impudence.

      “I went to bed before YOU did,” he said.

      “Yes, my Guyney, you did!” she exclaimed.

      “Fancy,” he said, stirring his tea, “having tea brought to bed to me! My mother'll think I'm ruined for life.”

      “Don't she never do it?” asked Mrs. Radford.

      “She'd as leave think of flying.”

      “Ah, I always spoilt my lot! That's why they've turned out such bad uns,” said the elderly woman.

      “You'd only Clara,” he said. “And Mr. Radford's in heaven. So I suppose there's only you left to be the bad un.”

      “I'm not bad; I'm only soft,” she said, as she went out of the bedroom. “I'm only a fool, I am!”

      Clara was very quiet at breakfast, but she had a sort of air of proprietorship over him that pleased him infinitely. Mrs. Radford was evidently fond of him. He began to talk of his painting.

      “What's the good,” exclaimed the mother, “of your whittling and worrying and twistin' and too-in' at that painting of yours? What GOOD does it do you, I should like to know? You'd better be enjoyin' yourself.”

      “Oh, but,” exclaimed Paul, “I made over thirty guineas last year.”

      “Did you! Well, that's a consideration, but it's nothing to the time you put in.”

      “And I've got four pounds owing. A man said he'd give me five pounds if I'd paint him and his missis and the dog and the cottage. And I went and put the fowls in instead of the dog, and he was waxy, so I had to knock a quid off. I was sick of it, and I didn't like the dog. I made a picture of it. What shall I do when he pays me the four pounds?”

      “Nay! you know your own uses for your money,” said Mrs. Radford.

      “But I'm going to bust this four pounds. Should we go to the seaside for a day or two?”

      “Who?”

      “You and Clara and me.”

      “What, on your money!” she exclaimed, half-wrathful.

      “Why not?”

      “YOU wouldn't be long in breaking your neck at a hurdle race!” she said.

      “So long as I get a good run for my money! Will you?”

      “Nay; you may settle that atween you.”

      “And you're willing?” he asked, amazed and rejoicing.

      “You'll do as you like,” said Mrs. Radford, “whether I'm willing or not.”

      Chapter XIII

       Baxter Dawes

       Table of Contents

      Soon after Paul had been to the theatre with Clara, he was drinking in the Punch Bowl with some friends of his when Dawes came in. Clara's husband was growing stout; his eyelids were getting slack over his brown eyes; he was losing his healthy firmness of flesh. He was very evidently on the downward track. Having quarrelled with his sister, he had gone into cheap lodgings. His mistress had left him for a man who would marry her. He had been in prison one night for fighting when he was drunk, and there was a shady betting episode in which he was concerned.

      Paul and he were confirmed enemies, and yet there was between them that peculiar feeling of intimacy, as if they were secretly near to each other, which sometimes exists between two people, although they never speak to one another. Paul often thought of Baxter Dawes, often wanted to get at him and be friends with him. He knew that Dawes often thought about him, and that the man was drawn to him by some bond or other. And yet the two never looked at each other save in hostility.

      Since he was a superior employee at Jordan's, it was the thing for Paul to offer Dawes a drink.

      “What'll you have?” he asked of him.

      “Nowt wi' a bleeder like you!” replied the man.

      Paul turned away with a slight disdainful movement of the shoulders, very irritating.

      “The aristocracy,” he continued, “is really a military institution. Take Germany, now. She's got thousands of aristocrats whose only means of existence is the army. They're deadly poor, and life's deadly slow. So they hope for a war. They look for war as a chance of getting on. Till there's a war they are idle good-for-nothings. When there's a war, they are leaders and commanders. There you are, then—they WANT war!”

      He was not a favourite debater in the public-house, being too quick and overbearing. He irritated the older men by his assertive manner, and his cocksureness. They listened in silence, and were not sorry when he finished.

      Dawes interrupted the young man's flow of eloquence by asking, in a loud sneer:

      “Did you learn all that at th' theatre th' other night?”

      Paul looked at him; their eyes met. Then he knew Dawes had seen him coming out of the theatre with Clara.

      “Why, what about th' theatre?” asked one of Paul's associates, glad to get a dig at the young fellow, and sniffing something tasty.

      “Oh, him in a bob-tailed evening suit, on the lardy-da!” sneered Dawes, jerking his head contemptuously at Paul.

      “That's comin' it strong,” said the mutual friend. “Tart an' all?”

      “Tart, begod!” said Dawes.

      “Go on; let's have it!” cried the mutual friend.

      “You've got it,” said

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