The lark will make her hymn to God,The partridge call her brood,While I forget the heath I trod,The fields wherein I stood.'Tis dule to know not night from morn,But deeper dule to knowI can but hear the hunter's hornThat once I used to blow.—The Only Son
IT WAS the third day after Torpenhow's return, and his heart was heavy.
“Do you mean to tell me that you can't see to work without whiskey? It's generally the other way about.”
“Can a drunkard swear on his honour?” said Dick.
“Yes, if he has been as good a man as you.”
“Then I give you my word of honour,” said Dick, speaking hurriedly through parched lips. “Old man, I can hardly see your face now. You've kept me sober for two days,—if I ever was drunk,—and I've done no work. Don't keep me back any more. I don't know when my eyes may give out. The spots and dots and the pains and things are crowding worse than ever. I swear I can see all right when I'm—when I'm moderately screwed, as you say. Give me three more sittings from Bessie and all—the stuff I want, and the picture will be done. I can't kill myself in three days. It only means a touch of D. T. at the worst.”
“If I give you three days more will you promise me to stop work and—the other thing, whether the picture's finished or not?”
“I can't. You don't know what that picture means to me. But surely you could get the Nilghai to help you, and knock me down and tie me up. I shouldn't fight for the whiskey, but I should for the work.”
“Go on, then. I give you three days; but you're nearly breaking my heart.”
Dick returned to his work, toiling as one possessed; and the yellow devil of whiskey stood by him and chased away the spots in his eyes. The Melancolia was nearly finished, and was all or nearly all that he had hoped she would be. Dick jested with Bessie, who reminded him that he was “a drunken beast”; but the reproof did not move him.
“You can't understand, Bess. We are in sight of land now, and soon we shall lie back and think about what we've done. I'll give you three months' pay when the picture's finished, and next time I have any more work in hand—but that doesn't matter. Won't three months' pay make you hate me less?”
“No, it won't! I hate you, and I'll go on hating you. Mr. Torpenhow won't speak to me any more. He's always looking at maps.”
Bessie did not say that she had again laid siege to Torpenhow, or that at the end of our passionate pleading he had picked her up, given her a kiss, and put her outside the door with the recommendation not to be a little fool. He spent most of his time in the company of the Nilghai, and their talk was of war in the near future, the hiring of transports, and secret preparations among the dockyards. He did not wish to see Dick till the picture was finished.
“He's doing first-class work,” he said to the Nilghai, “and it's quite out of his regular line. But, for the matter of that, so's his infernal soaking.”
“Never mind. Leave him alone. When he has come to his senses again we'll carry him off from this place and let him breathe clean air. Poor Dick! I don't envy you, Torp, when his eyes fail.”
“Yes, it will be a case of 'God help the man who's chained to our Davie.' The worst is that we don't know when it will happen, and I believe the uncertainty and the waiting have sent Dick to the whiskey more than anything else.”
“How the Arab who cut his head open would grin if he knew!”
“He's at perfect liberty to grin if he can. He's dead. That's poor consolation now.”
In the afternoon of the third day Torpenhow heard Dick calling for him.
“All finished!” he shouted. “I've done it! Come in! Isn't she a beauty? Isn't she a darling? I've been down to hell to get her; but isn't she worth it?”
Torpenhow looked at the head of a woman who laughed,—a full-lipped, hollow-eyed woman who laughed from out of the canvas as Dick had intended she would.
“Who taught you how to do it?” said Torpenhow. “The touch and notion have nothing to do with your regular work. What a face it is! What eyes, and what insolence!” Unconsciously he threw back his head and laughed with her. “She's seen the game played out,—I don't think she had a good time of it,—and now she doesn't care. Isn't that the idea?”
“Exactly.”
“Where did you get the mouth and chin from? They don't belong to Bess.”
“They're—some one else's. But isn't it good? Isn't it thundering good? Wasn't it worth the whiskey? I did it. Alone I did it, and it's the best I can do.” He drew his breath sharply, and whispered, “Just God! what could I not do ten years hence, if I can do this now!—By the way, what do you think of it, Bess?”
The girl was biting her lips. She loathed Torpenhow because he had taken no notice of her.
“I think it's just the horridest, beastliest thing I ever saw,” she answered, and turned away.
“More than you will be of that way of thinking, young woman.—Dick, there's a sort of murderous, viperine suggestion in the poise of the head that I don't understand,” said Torpenhow.
“That's trick-work,” said Dick, chuckling with delight at being completely understood. “I couldn't resist one little bit of sheer swagger. It's a French trick, and you wouldn't understand; but it's got at by slewing round the head a trifle, and a tiny, tiny foreshortening of one side of the face from the angle of the chin to the top of the left ear. That, and deepening the shadow under the lobe of the ear. It was flagrant trick-work; but, having the notion fixed, I felt entitled to play with it,—Oh, you beauty!”
“Amen! She is a beauty. I can feel it.”
“So will every man who has any sorrow of his own,” said Dick, slapping his thigh. “He shall see his trouble there, and, by the Lord Harry, just when he's feeling properly sorry for himself he shall throw back his head and laugh,—as she is laughing. I've put the life of my heart and the light of my eyes into her, and I don't care what comes.... I'm tired,—awfully tired. I think I'll get to sleep. Take away the whiskey, it has served its turn, and give Bessie thirty-six quid, and three over for luck. Cover the picture.”
He dropped asleep in the long chair, hid face white and haggard, almost before he had finished the sentence. Bessie tried to take Torpenhow's hand. “Aren't you never going to speak to me any more?” she said; but Torpenhow was looking at Dick.
“What a stock of vanity the man has! I'll take him in hand tomorrow and make much of him. He deserves it.—Eh! what was that, Bess?”
“Nothing. I'll put things tidy here a little, and then I'll go. You couldn't give Me that three months' pay now, could you? He said you were to.”
Torpenhow gave her a check and went to his own rooms. Bessie faithfully tidied up the studio, set the door ajar for flight, emptied half a bottle of turpentine on a duster, and began to scrub the face of the Melancolia viciously. The paint did not smudge quickly enough. She took a palette-knife and scraped, following each stroke with the wet duster. In five minutes the picture was a formless, scarred muddle of colours. She threw the paint-stained duster into the studio stove, stuck out her tongue at the sleeper, and whispered, “Bilked!” as she turned to run down the staircase. She would never see Torpenhow any more, but she had at least done harm to the man who had come between her and her desire and who used to make fun of her. Cashing the check was the very cream of the jest to Bessie. Then the little privateer sailed across the Thames, to be swallowed up in the gray wilderness of South-the-Water.
Dick slept till late in the evening, when Torpenhow dragged him off to bed. His eyes were as bright as his voice was hoarse. “Let's have another look at the picture,” he said, insistently as a child.
“You—go—to—bed,” said Torpenhow. “You aren't at all well, though you mayn't know it. You're as jumpy as a cat.”
“I reform tomorrow. Good night.”
As he repassed through the studio, Torpenhow lifted the cloth above the picture, and almost betrayed himself by outcries: “Wiped out!—scraped out and turped out! He's on the verge of jumps as it is. That's Bess,—the little fiend! Only a woman could have done that!—with the ink not dry on the check, too! Dick will be raving mad tomorrow. It was all my fault for trying to help gutter-devils. Oh, my poor Dick, the Lord is hitting you very hard!”
Dick could not sleep that night, partly for pure joy, and partly because the well-known Catherine-wheels inside his eyes had given place to crackling volcanoes of many-coloured fire. “Spout away,” he said aloud.
“I've done my work, and now you can do what you please.” He lay still, staring at the ceiling, the long-pent-up delirium of drink in his veins, his brain on fire with racing thoughts that would not stay to be considered, and his hands crisped and dry. He had just discovered that he was painting the face of the Melancolia on a revolving dome ribbed with millions of lights, and that all his wondrous thoughts stood embodied hundreds of feet below his tiny swinging plank, shouting together in his honour, when something cracked inside his temples like an overstrained bowstring, the glittering dome broke inward, and he was alone in the thick night.
“I'll go to sleep. The room's very dark. Let's light a lamp and see how the Melancolia looks. There ought to have been a moon.”
It was then that Torpenhow heard his name called by a voice that he did not know,—in the rattling accents of deadly fear.
“He's looked at the picture,” was his first thought, as he hurried into the bedroom and found Dick sitting up and beating the air with his hands.
“Torp! Torp! where are you? For pity's sake, come to me!”
“What's the matter?”
Dick clutched at his shoulder. “Matter! I've been lying here for hours in the dark, and you never heard me. Torp, old man, don't go away. I'm all in the dark. In the dark, I tell you!”
Torpenhow held the candle within a foot of Dick's eyes, but there was no light in those eyes. He lit the gas, and Dick heard the flame catch. The grip of his fingers on Torpenhow's shoulder made Torpenhow wince.
“Don't leave me. You wouldn't leave me alone now, would you? I can't see. D'you understand? It's black,—quite black,—and I feel as if I was falling through it all.”
“Steady does it.” Torpenhow put his arm round Dick and began to rock him gently to and fro.
“That's good. Now don't talk. If I keep very quiet for a while, this darkness will lift. It seems just on the point of breaking. H'sh!” Dick knit his brows and stared desperately in front of him. The night air was chilling Torpenhow's toes.
“Can you stay like that a minute?” he said. “I'll get my dressing-gown and some slippers.”
Dick clutched the bed-head with both hands and waited for the darkness to clear away. “What a time you've been!” he cried, when Torpenhow returned. “It's as black as ever. What are you banging about in the door-way?”
“Long chair,—horse-blanket,—pillow. Going to sleep by you. Lie down now; you'll be better in the morning.”
“I shan't!” The voice rose to a wail. “My God! I'm blind! I'm blind, and the darkness will never go away.” He made as if to leap from the bed, but Torpenhow's arms were round him, and Torpenhow's chin was on his shoulder, and his breath was squeezed out of him. He could only gasp, “Blind!” and wriggle feebly.
“Steady, Dickie, steady!” said the deep voice in his ear, and the grip tightened. “Bite on the bullet, old man, and don't let them think you're afraid.” The grip could draw no closer. Both men were breathing heavily.
Dick threw his head from side to side and groaned.
“Let me go,” he panted. “You're cracking my ribs. We—we mustn't let them think we're afraid, must we,—all the powers of darkness and that lot?”
“Lie down. It's all over now.”
“Yes,” said Dick, obediently. “But would you mind letting me hold your hand? I feel as if I wanted something to hold on to. One drops through the dark so.”
Torpenhow thrust out a large and hairy paw from the long chair. Dick clutched it tightly, and in half an hour had fallen asleep. Torpenhow withdrew his hand, and, stooping over Dick, kissed him lightly on the forehead, as men do sometimes kiss a wounded comrade in the hour of death, to ease his departure.
In the gray dawn Torpenhow heard Dick talking to himself. He was adrift on the shoreless tides of delirium, speaking very quickly—“It's a pity,—a great pity; but it's helped, and it must be eaten, Master George. Sufficient unto the day is the blindness thereof, and, further, putting aside all Melancolias and false humours, it is of obvious notoriety—such as mine was—that the queen can do no wrong. Torp doesn't know that. I'll tell him when we're a little farther into the desert.
“What a bungle those boatmen are making of the steamer-ropes! They'll have that four-inch hawser chafed through in a minute. I told you so—there she goes! White foam on green water, and the steamer slewing round. How good that looks! I'll sketch it. No, I can't. I'm afflicted with ophthalmia. That was one of the ten plagues of Egypt, and it extends up the Nile in the shape of cataract. Ha! that's a joke, Torp. Laugh, you graven image, and stand clear of the hawser.... It'll knock you into the water and make your dress all dirty, Maisie dear.”
“Oh!” said Torpenhow. “This happened before. That night on the river.”
“She'll be sure to say it's my fault if you get muddy, and you're quite near enough to the breakwater. Maisie, that's not fair. Ah! I knew you'd miss. Low and to the left, dear. But you've no conviction. Don't be angry, darling. I'd cut my hand off if it would give you anything more than obstinacy. My right hand, if it would serve.”
“Now we mustn't listen. Here's an island shouting across seas of misunderstanding with a vengeance. But it's shouting truth, I fancy,” said Torpenhow.
The babble continued. It all bore upon Maisie. Sometimes Dick lectured at length on his craft, then he cursed himself for his folly in being enslaved. He pleaded to Maisie for a kiss—only one kiss—before she went away, and called to her to come back from Vitry-sur-Marne, if she would; but through all his ravings he bade heaven and earth witness that the queen could do no wrong.
Torpenhow listened attentively, and learned every detail of Dick's life that had been hidden from him. For three days Dick raved through the past, and then a natural sleep. “What a strain he has been running under, poor chap!” said Torpenhow. “Dick, of all men, handing himself over like a dog! And I was lecturing him on arrogance! I ought to have known that it was no use to judge a man. But I did it. What a demon that girl must be! Dick's given her his life,—confound him!—and she's given him one kiss apparently.”
“Torp,” said Dick, from the bed, “go out for a walk. You've been here too long. I'll get up. Hi! This is annoying. I can't dress myself. Oh, it's too absurd!”
Torpenhow helped him into his clothes and led him to the big chair in the studio. He sat quietly waiting under strained nerves for the darkness to lift. It did not lift that day, nor the next. Dick adventured on a voyage round the walls. He hit his shins against the stove, and this suggested to him that it would be better to crawl on all fours, one hand in front of him. Torpenhow found him on the floor.
“I'm trying to get the geography of my new possessions,” said he. “D'you remember that nigger you gouged in the square? Pity you didn't keep the odd eye. It would have been useful. Any letters for me? Give me all the ones in fat gray envelopes with a sort of crown thing outside. They're of no importance.”
Torpenhow gave him a letter with a black M. on the envelope flap. Dick put it into his pocket. There was nothing in it that Torpenhow might not have read, but it belonged to himself and to Maisie, who would never belong to him.
“When she finds that I don't write, she'll stop writing. It's better so. I couldn't be any use to her now,” Dick argued, and the tempter suggested that he should make known his condition. Every nerve in him revolted. “I have fallen low enough already. I'm not going to beg for pity. Besides, it would be cruel to her.” He strove to put Maisie out of his thoughts; but the blind have many opportunities for thinking, and as the tides of his strength came back to him in the long employless days of dead darkness, Dick's soul was troubled to the core. Another letter, and another, came from Maisie. Then there was silence, and Dick sat by the window, the pulse of summer in the air, and pictured her being won by another man, stronger than himself. His imagination, the keener for the dark background it worked against, spared him no single detail that might send him raging up and down the studio, to stumble over the stove that seemed to be in four places at once. Worst of all, tobacco would not taste in the darkness. The arrogance of the man had disappeared, and in its place were settled despair that Torpenhow knew, and blind passion that Dick confided to his pillow at night. The intervals between the paroxysms were filled with intolerable waiting and the weight of intolerable darkness.
“Come out into the Park,” said Torpenhow. “You haven't stirred out since the beginning of things.”
“What's the use? There's no movement in the dark; and, besides,”—he paused irresolutely at the head of the stairs,—“something will run over me.”
“Not if I'm with you. Proceed gingerly.”
The roar of the streets filled Dick with nervous terror, and he clung to Torpenhow's arm. “Fancy having to feel for a gutter with your foot!” he said petulantly, as he turned into the Park. “Let's curse God and die.”
“Sentries are forbidden to pay unauthorised compliments. By Jove, there are the Guards!”
Dick's figure straightened. “Let's get near 'em. Let's go in and look. Let's get on the grass and run. I can smell the trees.”
“Mind the low railing. That's all right!” Torpenhow kicked out a tuft of grass with his heel. “Smell that,” he said. “Isn't it good?” Dick sniffed luxuriously. “Now pick up your feet and run.” They approached as near to the regiment as was possible. The clank of bayonets being unfixed made Dick's nostrils quiver.
“Let's get nearer. They're in column, aren't they?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“Felt it. Oh, my men!—my beautiful men!” He edged forward as though he could see. “I could draw those chaps once. Who'll draw 'em now?”
“They'll move off in a minute. Don't jump when the band begins.”
“Huh! I'm not a new charger. It's the silences that hurt. Nearer, Torp!—nearer! Oh, my God, what wouldn't I give to see 'em for a minute!—one half-minute!”
He could hear the armed life almost within reach of him, could hear the slings tighten across the bandsman's chest as he heaved the big drum from the ground.
“Sticks crossed above his head,” whispered Torpenhow.
“I know. I know! Who should know if I don't? H'sh!”
The drum-sticks fell with a boom, and the men swung forward to the crash of the band. Dick felt the wind of the massed movement in his face, heard the maddening tramp of feet and the friction of the pouches on the belts. The big drum pounded out the tune. It was a music-hall refrain that made a perfect quickstep—
“He must be a man of decent height,He must be a man of weight,He must come home on a Saturday nightIn a thoroughly sober state;He must know how to love me,And he must know how to kiss;And if he's enough to keep us bothI can't refuse him bliss.”
“What's the matter?” said Torpenhow, as he saw Dick's head fall when the last of the regiment had departed.
“Nothing. I feel a little bit out of the running,—that's all. Torp, take me back. Why did you bring me out?”
There were three friends that buried the fourth,The mould in his mouth and the dust in his eyesAnd they went south and east, and north,—The strong man fights, but the sick man dies.There were three friends that spoke of the dead,—The strong man fights, but the sick man dies.—“And would he were with us now,” they said,“The sun in our face and the wind in our eyes.”—Ballad.
The Nilghai was angry with Torpenhow. Dick had been sent to bed,—blind men are ever under the orders of those who can see,—and since he had returned from the Park had fluently sworn at Torpenhow because he was alive, and all the world because it was alive and could see, while he, Dick, was dead in the death of the blind, who, at the best, are only burdens upon their associates. Torpenhow had said something about a Mrs. Gummidge, and Dick had retired in a black fury to handle and re-handle three unopened letters from Maisie.
The Nilghai, fat, burly, and aggressive, was in Torpenhow's rooms.
Behind him sat the Keneu, the Great War Eagle, and between them lay a large map embellished with black-and-white-headed pins.
“I was wrong about the Balkans,” said the Nilghai. “But I'm not wrong about this business. The whole of our work in the Southern Soudan must be done over again. The public doesn't care, of course, but the government does, and they are making their arrangements quietly. You know that as well as I do.”
“I remember how the people cursed us when our troops withdrew from Omdurman. It was bound to crop up sooner or later. But I can't go,” said Torpenhow. He pointed through the open door; it was a hot night. “Can you blame me?”
The Keneu purred above his pipe like a large and very happy cat—“Don't blame you in the least. It's uncommonly good of you, and all the rest of it, but every man—even you, Torp—must consider his work. I know it sounds brutal, but Dick's out of the race,—down,—gastados expended, finished, done for. He has a little money of his own. He won't starve, and you can't pull out of your slide for his sake. Think of your own reputation.”
“Dick's was five times bigger than mine and yours put together.”
“That was because he signed his name to everything he did. It's all ended now. You must hold yourself in readiness to move out. You can command your own prices, and you do better work than any three of us.”
“Don't tell me how tempting it is. I'll stay here to look after Dick for a while. He's as cheerful as a bear with a sore head, but I think he likes to have me near him.”
The Nilghai said something uncomplimentary about soft-headed fools who throw away their careers for other fools. Torpenhow flushed angrily. The constant strain of attendance on Dick had worn his nerves thin.
“There remains a third fate,” said the Keneu, thoughtfully. “Consider this, and be not larger fools than necessary. Dick is—or rather was—an able-bodied man of moderate attractions and a certain amount of audacity.”
“Oho!” said the Nilghai, who remembered an affair at Cairo. “I begin to see,—Torp, I'm sorry.”
Torpenhow nodded forgiveness: “You were more sorry when he cut you out, though.—Go on, Keneu.”
“I've often thought, when I've seen men die out in the desert, that if the news could be sent through the world, and the means of transport were quick enough, there would be one woman at least at each man's bedside.”
“There would be some mighty quaint revelations. Let us be grateful things are as they are,” said the Nilghai.
“Let us rather reverently consider whether Torp's three-cornered ministrations are exactly what Dick needs just now.—What do you think yourself, Torp?”
“I know they aren't. But what can I do?”
“Lay the matter before the board. We are all Dick's friends here. You've been most in his life.”
“But I picked it up when he was off his head.”
“The greater chance of its being true. I thought we should arrive. Who is she?”
Then Torpenhow told a tale in plain words, as a special correspondent who knows how to make a verbal precis should tell it. The men listened without interruption.
“Is it possible that a man can come back across the years to his calf-love?”
said the Keneu. “Is it possible?”
“I give the facts. He says nothing about it now, but he sits fumbling three letters from her when he thinks I'm not looking. What am I to do?”
“Speak to him,” said the Nilghai.
“Oh yes! Write to her,—I don't know her full name, remember,—and ask her to accept him out of pity. I believe you once told Dick you were sorry for him, Nilghai. You remember what happened, eh? Go into the bedroom and suggest full confession and an appeal to this Maisie girl, whoever she is. I honestly believe he'd try to kill you; and the blindness has made him rather muscular.”
“Torpenhow's course is perfectly clear,” said the Keneu. “He will go to Vitry-sur-Marne, which is on the Bezieres-Landes Railway,—single track from Tourgas. The Prussians shelled it out in '70 because there was a poplar on the top of a hill eighteen hundred yards from the church spire. There's a squadron of cavalry quartered there,—or ought to be. Where this studio Torp spoke about may be I cannot tell. That is Torp's business. I have given him his route. He will dispassionately explain the situation to the girl, and she will come back to Dick,—the more especially because, to use Dick's words, 'there is nothing but her damned obstinacy to keep them apart.'”
“And they have four hundred and twenty pounds a year between 'em.”
Dick never lost his head for figures, even in his delirium. “You haven't the shadow of an excuse for not going,” said the Nilghai.
Torpenhow looked very uncomfortable. “But it's absurd and impossible. I can't drag her back by the hair.”
“Our business—the business for which we draw our money—is to do absurd and impossible things,—generally with no reason whatever except to amuse the public. Here we have a reason. The rest doesn't matter. I shall share these rooms with the Nilghai till Torpenhow returns. There will be a batch of unbridled 'specials' coming to town in a little while, and these will serve as their headquarters. Another reason for sending Torpenhow away. Thus Providence helps those who help others, and”—here the Keneu dropped his measured speech—“we can't have you tied by the leg to Dick when the trouble begins. It's your only chance of getting away; and Dick will be grateful.”
“He will,—worse luck! I can but go and try. I can't conceive a woman in her senses refusing Dick.”
“Talk that out with the girl. I have seen you wheedle an angry Mahdieh woman into giving you dates. This won't be a tithe as difficult. You had better not be here tomorrow afternoon, because the Nilghai and I will be in possession. It is an order. Obey.”
“Dick,” said Torpenhow, next morning, “can I do anything for you?”
“No! Leave me alone. How often must I remind you that I'm blind?”
“Nothing I could go for to fetch for to carry for to bring?”
“No. Take those infernal creaking boots of yours away.”
“Poor chap!” said Torpenhow to himself. “I must have been sitting on his nerves lately. He wants a lighter step.” Then, aloud, “Very well. Since you're so independent, I'm going off for four or five days. Say goodbye at least. The housekeeper will look after you, and Keneu has my rooms.”
Dick's face fell. “You won't be longer than a week at the outside? I know I'm touched in the temper, but I can't get on without you.”
“Can't you? You'll have to do without me in a little time, and you'll be glad I'm gone.”
Dick felt his way back to the big chair, and wondered what these things might mean. He did not wish to be tended by the housekeeper, and yet Torpenhow's constant tenderness jarred on him. He did not exactly know what he wanted. The darkness would not lift, and Maisie's unopened letters felt worn and old from much handling. He could never read them for himself as long as life endured; but Maisie might have sent him some fresh ones to play with. The Nilghai entered with a gift,—a piece of red modelling-wax. He fancied that Dick might find interest in using his hands. Dick poked and patted the stuff for a few minutes, and, “Is it like anything in the world?” he said drearily. “Take it away. I may get the touch of the blind in fifty years. Do you know where Torpenhow has gone?”
The Nilghai knew nothing. “We're staying in his rooms till he comes back. Can we do anything for you?”
“I'd like to be left alone, please. Don't think I'm ungrateful; but I'm best alone.”
The Nilghai chuckled, and Dick resumed his drowsy brooding and sullen rebellion against fate. He had long since ceased to think about the work he had done in the old days, and the desire to do more work had departed from him. He was exceedingly sorry for himself, and the completeness of his tender grief soothed him. But his soul and his body cried for Maisie—Maisie who would understand. His mind pointed out that Maisie, having her own work to do, would not care. His experience had taught him that when money was exhausted women went away, and that when a man was knocked out of the race the others trampled on him. “Then at the least,” said Dick, in reply, “she could use me as I used Binat,—for some sort of a study. I wouldn't ask more than to be near her again, even though I knew that another man was making love to her. Ugh! what a dog I am!”
A voice on the staircase began to sing joyfully—
“When we go—go—go away from here, Our creditors will weep and they will wail, Our absence much regretting when they find that we've been getting Out of England by next Tuesday's Indian mail.”
Following the trampling of feet, slamming of Torpenhow's door, and the sound of voices in strenuous debate, some one squeaked, “And see, you good fellows, I have found a new water-bottle—firs'-class patent—eh, how you say? Open himself inside out.”
Dick sprang to his feet. He knew the voice well. “That's Cassavetti, come back from the Continent. Now I know why Torp went away. There's a row somewhere, and—I'm out of it!”
The Nilghai commanded silence in vain. “That's for my sake,” Dick said bitterly. “The birds are getting ready to fly, and they wouldn't tell me. I can hear Morten-Sutherland and Mackaye. Half the War Correspondents in London are there;—and I'm out of it.”
He stumbled across the landing and plunged into Torpenhow's room. He could feel that it was full of men. “Where's the trouble?” said he. “In the Balkans at last? Why didn't some one tell me?”
“We thought you wouldn't be interested,” said the Nilghai, shamefacedly.
“It's in the Soudan, as usual.”
“You lucky dogs! Let me sit here while you talk. I shan't be a skeleton at the feast.—Cassavetti, where are you? Your English is as bad as ever.”
Dick was led into a chair. He heard the rustle of the maps, and the talk swept forward, carrying him with it. Everybody spoke at once, discussing press censorships, railway-routes, transport, water-supply, the capacities of generals,—these in language that would have horrified a trusting public,—ranting, asserting, denouncing, and laughing at the top of their voices. There was the glorious certainty of war in the Soudan at any moment. The Nilghai said so, and it was well to be in readiness. The Keneu had telegraphed to Cairo for horses; Cassavetti had stolen a perfectly inaccurate list of troops that would be ordered forward, and was reading it out amid profane interruptions, and the Keneu introduced to Dick some man unknown who would be employed as war artist by the Central Southern Syndicate. “It's his first outing,” said the Keneu. “Give him some tips—about riding camels.”
“Oh, those camels!” groaned Cassavetti. “I shall learn to ride him again, and now I am so much all soft! Listen, you good fellows. I know your military arrangement very well. There will go the Royal Argalshire Sutherlanders. So it was read to me upon best authority.”
A roar of laughter interrupted him.
“Sit down,” said the Nilghai. “The lists aren't even made out in the War Office.”
“Will there be any force at Suakin?” said a voice.
Then the outcries redoubled, and grew mixed, thus: “How many Egyptian troops will they use?—God help the Fellaheen!—There's a railway in Plumstead marshes doing duty as a fives-court.—We shall have the Suakin-Berber line built at last.—Canadian voyageurs are too careful. Give me a half-drunk Krooman in a whale-boat.—Who commands the Desert column?—No, they never blew up the big rock in the Ghineh bend. We shall have to be hauled up, as usual.—Somebody tell me if there's an Indian contingent, or I'll break everybody's head.—Don't tear the map in two.—It's a war of occupation, I tell you, to connect with the African companies in the South.—There's Guinea-worm in most of the wells on that route.” Then the Nilghai, despairing of peace, bellowed like a fog-horn and beat upon the table with both hands.
“But what becomes of Torpenhow?” said Dick, in the silence that followed.
“Torp's in abeyance just now. He's off love-making somewhere, I suppose,” said the Nilghai.
“He said he was going to stay at home,” said the Keneu.
“Is he?” said Dick, with an oath. “He won't. I'm not much good now, but if you and the Nilghai hold him down I'll engage to trample on him till he sees reason. He'll stay behind, indeed! He's the best of you all. There'll be some tough work by Omdurman. We shall come there to stay, this time.
“But I forgot. I wish I were going with you.”
“So do we all, Dickie,” said the Keneu.
“And I most of all,” said the new artist of the Central Southern Syndicate.
“Could you tell me——”
“I'll give you one piece of advice,” Dick answered, moving towards the door. “If you happen to be cut over the head in a scrimmage, don't guard. Tell the man to go on cutting. You'll find it cheapest in the end. Thanks for letting me look in.”
“There's grit in Dick,” said the Nilghai, an hour later, when the room was emptied of all save the Keneu.
“It was the sacred call of the war-trumpet. Did you notice how he answered to it? Poor fellow! Let's look at him,” said the Keneu.
The excitement of the talk had died away. Dick was sitting by the studio table, with his head on his arms, when the men came in. He did not change his position.
“It hurts,” he moaned. “God forgive me, but it hurts cruelly; and yet, y'know, the world has a knack of spinning round all by itself. Shall I see Torp before he goes?”
“Oh, yes. You'll see him,” said the Nilghai.
The sun went down an hour ago,I wonder if I face towards home;If I lost my way in the light of dayHow shall I find it now night is come?—Old Song
“Maisie, come to bed.”
“It's so hot I can't sleep. Don't worry.”
Maisie put her elbows on the window-sill and looked at the moonlight on the straight, poplar-flanked road. Summer had come upon Vitry-sur-Marne and parched it to the bone. The grass was dry-burnt in the meadows, the clay by the bank of the river was caked to brick, the roadside flowers were long since dead, and the roses in the garden hung withered on their stalks. The heat in the little low bedroom under the eaves was almost intolerable. The very moonlight on the wall of Kami's studio across the road seemed to make the night hotter, and the shadow of the big bell-handle by the closed gate cast a bar of inky black that caught Maisie's eye and annoyed her.
“Horrid thing! It should be all white,” she murmured. “And the gate isn't in the middle of the wall, either. I never noticed that before.”
Maisie was hard to please at that hour. First, the heat of the past few weeks had worn her down; secondly, her work, and particularly the study of a female head intended to represent the Melancolia and not finished in time for the Salon, was unsatisfactory; thirdly, Kami had said as much two days before; fourthly,—but so completely fourthly that it was hardly worth thinking about,—Dick, her property, had not written to her for more than six weeks. She was angry with the heat, with Kami, and with her work, but she was exceedingly angry with Dick.
She had written to him three times,—each time proposing a fresh treatment of her Melancolia. Dick had taken no notice of these communications. She had resolved to write no more. When she returned to England in the autumn—for her pride's sake she could not return earlier—she would speak to him. She missed the Sunday afternoon conferences more than she cared to admit. All that Kami said was, “Continuez, mademoiselle, continuez toujours,” and he had been repeating the wearisome counsel through the hot summer, exactly like a cicada,—an old gray cicada in a black alpaca coat, white trousers, and a huge felt hat.
But Dick had tramped masterfully up and down her little studio north of the cool green London park, and had said things ten times worse than continuez, before he snatched the brush out of her hand and showed her where the error lay. His last letter, Maisie remembered, contained some trivial advice about not sketching in the sun or drinking water at wayside farmhouses; and he had said that not once, but three times,—as if he did not know that Maisie could take care of herself.
But what was he doing, that he could not trouble to write? A murmur of voices in the road made her lean from the window. A cavalryman of the little garrison in the town was talking to Kami's cook. The moonlight glittered on the scabbard of his sabre, which he was holding in his hand lest it should clank inopportunely. The cook's cap cast deep shadows on her face, which was close to the conscript's. He slid his arm round her waist, and there followed the sound of a kiss.
“Faugh!” said Maisie, stepping back.
“What's that?” said the red-haired girl, who was tossing uneasily outside her bed.
“Only a conscript kissing the cook,” said Maisie.
“They've gone away now.” She leaned out of the window again, and put a shawl over her nightgown to guard against chills. There was a very small night-breeze abroad, and a sun-baked rose below nodded its head as one who knew unutterable secrets. Was it possible that Dick should turn his thoughts from her work and his own and descend to the degradation of Suzanne and the conscript? He could not! The rose nodded its head and one leaf therewith. It looked like a naughty little devil scratching its ear.
Dick could not, “because,” thought Maisie, “he is mine,—mine,—mine. He said he was. I'm sure I don't care what he does. It will only spoil his work if he does; and it will spoil mine too.”
The rose continued to nod in the futile way peculiar to flowers. There was no earthly reason why Dick should not disport himself as he chose, except that he was called by Providence, which was Maisie, to assist Maisie in her work. And her work was the preparation of pictures that went sometimes to English provincial exhibitions, as the notices in the scrap-book proved, and that were invariably rejected by the Salon when Kami was plagued into allowing her to send them up. Her work in the future, it seemed, would be the preparation of pictures on exactly similar lines which would be rejected in exactly the same way——The red-haired girl threshed distressfully across the sheets. “It's too hot to sleep,” she moaned; and the interruption jarred.
Exactly the same way. Then she would divide her years between the little studio in England and Kami's big studio at Vitry-sur-Marne. No, she would go to another master, who should force her into the success that was her right, if patient toil and desperate endeavour gave one a right to anything. Dick had told her that he had worked ten years to understand his craft. She had worked ten years, and ten years were nothing. Dick had said that ten years were nothing,—but that was in regard to herself only. He had said—this very man who could not find time to write—that he would wait ten years for her, and that she was bound to come back to him sooner or later. He had said this in the absurd letter about sunstroke and diphtheria; and then he had stopped writing. He was wandering up and down moonlit streets, kissing cooks. She would like to lecture him now,—not in her nightgown, of course, but properly dressed, severely and from a height. Yet if he was kissing other girls he certainly would not care whether she lecture him or not. He would laugh at her. Very good.
She would go back to her studio and prepare pictures that went, etc., etc.
The mill-wheel of thought swung round slowly, that no section of it might be slurred over, and the red-haired girl tossed and turned behind her.
Maisie put her chin in her hands and decided that there could be no doubt whatever of the villainy of Dick. To justify herself, she began, unwomanly, to weigh the evidence. There was a boy, and he had said he loved her. And he kissed her,—kissed her on the cheek,—by a yellow sea-poppy that nodded its head exactly like the maddening dry rose in the garden. Then there was an interval, and men had told her that they loved her—just when she was busiest with her work. Then the boy came back, and at their very second meeting had told her that he loved her. Then he had——But there was no end to the things he had done. He had given her his time and his powers. He had spoken to her of Art, housekeeping, technique, teacups, the abuse of pickles as a stimulant,—that was rude,—sable hair-brushes,—he had given her the best in her stock,—she used them daily; he had given her advice that she profited by, and now and again—a look. Such a look! The look of a beaten hound waiting for the word to crawl to his mistress's feet. In return she had given him nothing whatever, except—here she brushed her mouth against the open-work sleeve of her nightgown—the privilege of kissing her once. And on the mouth, too. Disgraceful! Was that not enough, and more than enough? and if it was not, had he not cancelled the debt by not writing and—probably kissing other girls? “Maisie, you'll catch a chill. Do go and lie down,” said the wearied voice of her companion. “I can't sleep a wink with you at the window.”
Maisie shrugged her shoulders and did not answer. She was reflecting on the meannesses of Dick, and on other meannesses with which he had nothing to do. The moonlight would not let her sleep. It lay on the skylight of the studio across the road in cold silver; she stared at it intently and her thoughts began to slide one into the other. The shadow of the big bell-handle in the wall grew short, lengthened again, and faded out as the moon went down behind the pasture and a hare came limping home across the road. Then the dawn-wind washed through the upland grasses, and brought coolness with it, and the cattle lowed by the drought-shrunk river. Maisie's head fell forward on the window-sill, and the tangle of black hair covered her arms.
“Maisie, wake up. You'll catch a chill.”
“Yes, dear; yes, dear.” She staggered to her bed like a wearied child, and as she buried her face in the pillows she muttered, “I think—I think—But he ought to have written.”
Day brought the routine of the studio, the smell of paint and turpentine, and the monotone wisdom of Kami, who was a leaden artist, but a golden teacher if the pupil were only in sympathy with him. Maisie was not in sympathy that day, and she waited impatiently for the end of the work.
She knew when it was coming; for Kami would gather his black alpaca coat into a bunch behind him, and, with faded flue eyes that saw neither pupils nor canvas, look back into the past to recall the history of one Binat. “You have all done not so badly,” he would say. “But you shall remember that it is not enough to have the method, and the art, and the power, nor even that which is touch, but you shall have also the conviction that nails the work to the wall. Of the so many I taught,”—here the students would begin to unfix drawing-pins or get their tubes together,—“the very so many that I have taught, the best was Binat. All that comes of the study and the work and the knowledge was to him even when he came. After he left me he should have done all that could be done with the colour, the form, and the knowledge. Only, he had not the conviction. So today I hear no more of Binat,—the best of my pupils,—and that is long ago. So today, too, you will be glad to hear no more of me. Continuez, mesdemoiselles, and, above all, with conviction.”
He went into the garden to smoke and mourn over the lost Binat as the pupils dispersed to their several cottages or loitered in the studio to make plans for the cool of the afternoon.
Maisie looked at her very unhappy Melancolia, restrained a desire to grimace before it, and was hurrying across the road to write a letter to Dick, when she was aware of a large man on a white troop-horse. How Torpenhow had managed in the course of twenty hours to find his way to the hearts of the cavalry officers in quarters at Vitry-sur-Marne, to discuss with them the certainty of a glorious revenge for France, to reduce the colonel to tears of pure affability, and to borrow the best horse in the squadron for the journey to Kami's studio, is a mystery that only special correspondents can unravel.
“I beg your pardon,” said he. “It seems an absurd question to ask, but the fact is that I don't know her by any other name: Is there any young lady here that is called Maisie?”
“I am Maisie,” was the answer from the depths of a great sun-hat.
“I ought to introduce myself,” he said, as the horse capered in the blinding white dust. “My name is Torpenhow. Dick Heldar is my best friend, and—and—the fact is that he has gone blind.”
“Blind!” said Maisie, stupidly. “He can't be blind.”
“He has been stone-blind for nearly two months.”
Maisie lifted up her face, and it was pearly white. “No! No! Not blind! I won't have him blind!”
“Would you care to see for yourself?” said Torpenhow.
“Now,—at once?”
“Oh, no! The Paris train doesn't go through this place till tonight. There will be ample time.”
“Did Mr. Heldar send you to me?”
“Certainly not. Dick wouldn't do that sort of thing. He's sitting in his studio, turning over some letters that he can't read because he's blind.”
There was a sound of choking from the sun-hat. Maisie bowed her head and went into the cottage, where the red-haired girl was on a sofa, complaining of a headache.
“Dick's blind!” said Maisie, taking her breath quickly as she steadied herself against a chair-back. “My Dick's blind!”
“What?” The girl was on the sofa no longer.
“A man has come from England to tell me. He hasn't written to me for six weeks.”
“Are you going to him?”
“I must think.”
“Think! I should go back to London and see him and I should kiss his eyes and kiss them and kiss them until they got well again! If you don't go I shall. Oh, what am I talking about? You wicked little idiot! Go to him at once. Go!”
Torpenhow's neck was blistering, but he preserved a smile of infinite patience as Maisie's appeared bareheaded in the sunshine.
“I am coming,” said she, her eyes on the ground.
“You will be at Vitry Station, then, at seven this evening.” This was an order delivered by one who was used to being obeyed. Maisie said nothing, but she felt grateful that there was no chance of disputing with this big man who took everything for granted and managed a squealing horse with one hand. She returned to the red-haired girl, who was weeping bitterly, and between tears, kisses,—very few of those,—menthol, packing, and an interview with Kami, the sultry afternoon wore away.
Thought might come afterwards. Her present duty was to go to Dick,—Dick who owned the wondrous friend and sat in the dark playing with her unopened letters.
“But what will you do,” she said to her companion.
“I? Oh, I shall stay here and—finish your Melancolia,” she said, smiling pitifully. “Write to me afterwards.”
That night there ran a legend through Vitry-sur-Marne of a mad Englishman, doubtless suffering from sunstroke, who had drunk all the officers of the garrison under the table, had borrowed a horse from the lines, and had then and there eloped, after the English custom, with one of those more mad English girls who drew pictures down there under the care of that good Monsieur Kami.
“They are very droll,” said Suzanne to the conscript in the moonlight by the studio wall. “She walked always with those big eyes that saw nothing, and yet she kisses me on both cheeks as though she were my sister, and gives me—see—ten francs!”
The conscript levied a contribution on both gifts; for he prided himself on being a good soldier.
Torpenhow spoke very little to Maisie during the journey to Calais; but he was careful to attend to all her wants, to get her a compartment entirely to herself, and to leave her alone. He was amazed of the ease with which the matter had been accomplished.
“The safest thing would be to let her think things out. By Dick's showing,—when he was off his head,—she must have ordered him about very thoroughly. Wonder how she likes being under orders.”
Maisie never told. She sat in the empty compartment often with her eyes shut, that she might realise the sensation of blindness. It was an order that she should return to London swiftly, and she found herself at last almost beginning to enjoy the situation. This was better than looking after luggage and a red-haired friend who never took any interest in her surroundings. But there appeared to be a feeling in the air that she, Maisie,—of all people,—was in disgrace. Therefore she justified her conduct to herself with great success, till Torpenhow came up to her on the steamer and without preface began to tell the story of Dick's blindness, suppressing a few details, but dwelling at length on the miseries of delirium. He stopped before he reached the end, as though he had lost interest in the subject, and went forward to smoke. Maisie was furious with him and with herself.
She was hurried on from Dover to London almost before she could ask for breakfast, and—she was past any feeling of indignation now—was bidden curtly to wait in a hall at the foot of some lead-covered stairs while Torpenhow went up to make inquiries. Again the knowledge that she was being treated like a naughty little girl made her pale cheeks flame. It was all Dick's fault for being so stupid as to go blind.
Torpenhow led her up to a shut door, which he opened very softly. Dick was sitting by the window, with his chin on his chest. There were three envelopes in his hand, and he turned them over and over. The big man who gave orders was no longer by her side, and the studio door snapped behind her.
Dick thrust the letters into his pocket as he heard the sound. “Hullo, Torp! Is that you? I've been so lonely.”
His voice had taken the peculiar flatness of the blind. Maisie pressed herself up into a corner of the room. Her heart was beating furiously, and she put one hand on her breast to keep it quiet. Dick was staring directly at her, and she realised for the first time that he was blind.
Shutting her eyes in a rail-way carriage to open them when she pleased was child's play. This man was blind though his eyes were wide open.
“Torp, is that you? They said you were coming.” Dick looked puzzled and a little irritated at the silence.
“No; it's only me,” was the answer, in a strained little whisper. Maisie could hardly move her lips.
“H'm!” said Dick, composedly, without moving. “This is a new phenomenon. Darkness I'm getting used to; but I object to hearing voices.”
Was he mad, then, as well as blind, that he talked to himself? Maisie's heart beat more wildly, and she breathed in gasps. Dick rose and began to feel his way across the room, touching each table and chair as he passed. Once he caught his foot on a rug, and swore, dropping on his knees to feel what the obstruction might be. Maisie remembered him walking in the Park as though all the earth belonged to him, tramping up and down her studio two months ago, and flying up the gangway of the Channel steamer. The beating of her heart was making her sick, and Dick was coming nearer, guided by the sound of her breathing. She put out a hand mechanically to ward him off or to draw him to herself, she did not know which. It touched his chest, and he stepped back as though he had been shot.
“It's Maisie!” said he, with a dry sob. “What are you doing here?”
“I came—I came—to see you, please.”
Dick's lips closed firmly.
“Won't you sit down, then? You see, I've had some bother with my eyes, and——”
“I know. I know. Why didn't you tell me?”
“I couldn't write.”
“You might have told Mr. Torpenhow.”
“What has he to do with my affairs?”
“He—he brought me from Vitry-sur-Marne. He thought I ought to see you.”
“Why, what has happened? Can I do anything for you? No, I can't. I forgot.”
“Oh, Dick, I'm so sorry! I've come to tell you, and——Let me take you back to your chair.”
“Don't! I'm not a child. You only do that out of pity. I never meant to tell you anything about it. I'm no good now. I'm down and done for. Let me alone!”
He groped back to his chair, his chest labouring as he sat down.
Maisie watched him, and the fear went out of her heart, to be followed by a very bitter shame. He had spoken a truth that had been hidden from the girl through every step of the impetuous flight to London; for he was, indeed, down and done for—masterful no longer but rather a little abject; neither an artist stronger than she, nor a man to be looked up to—only some blind one that sat in a chair and seemed on the point of crying. She was immensely and unfeignedly sorry for him—more sorry than she had ever been for any one in her life, but not sorry enough to deny his words.
So she stood still and felt ashamed and a little hurt, because she had honestly intended that her journey should end triumphantly; and now she was only filled with pity most startlingly distinct from love.
“Well?” said Dick, his face steadily turned away. “I never meant to worry you any more. What's the matter?”
He was conscious that Maisie was catching her breath, but was as unprepared as herself for the torrent of emotion that followed. She had dropped into a chair and was sobbing with her face hidden in her hands.
“I can't—I can't!” she cried desperately. “Indeed, I can't. It isn't my fault. I'm so sorry. Oh, Dickie, I'm so sorry.”
Dick's shoulders straightened again, for the words lashed like a whip.
Still the sobbing continued. It is not good to realise that you have failed in the hour of trial or flinched before the mere possibility of making sacrifices.
“I do despise myself—indeed I do. But I can't. Oh, Dickie, you wouldn't ask me—would you?” wailed Maisie.
She looked up for a minute, and by chance it happened that Dick's eyes fell on hers. The unshaven face was very white and set, and the lips were trying to force themselves into a smile. But it was the worn-out eyes that Maisie feared. Her Dick had gone blind and left in his place some one that she could hardly recognise till he spoke.
“Who is asking you to do anything, Maisie? I told you how it would be. What's the use of worrying? For pity's sake don't cry like that; it isn't worth it.”
“You don't know how I hate myself. Oh, Dick, help me—help me!” The passion of tears had grown beyond her control and was beginning to alarm the man. He stumbled forward and put his arm round her, and her head fell on his shoulder.
“Hush, dear, hush! Don't cry. You're quite right, and you've nothing to reproach yourself with—you never had. You're only a little upset by the journey, and I don't suppose you've had any breakfast. What a brute Torp was to bring you over.”
“I wanted to come. I did indeed,” she protested.
“Very well. And now you've come and seen, and I'm—immensely grateful. When you're better you shall go away and get something to eat. What sort of a passage did you have coming over?”
Maisie was crying more subduedly, for the first time in her life glad that she had something to lean against. Dick patted her on the shoulder tenderly but clumsily, for he was not quite sure where her shoulder might be.
She drew herself out of his arms at last and waited, trembling and most unhappy. He had felt his way to the window to put the width of the room between them, and to quiet a little the tumult in his heart.
“Are you better now?” he said.
“Yes, but—don't you hate me?”
“I hate you? My God! I?”
“Isn't—isn't there anything I could do for you, then? I'll stay here in England to do it, if you like. Perhaps I could come and see you sometimes.”
“I think not, dear. It would be kindest not to see me any more, please. I don't want to seem rude, but—don't you think—perhaps you had almost better go now.”
He was conscious that he could not bear himself as a man if the strain continued much longer.
“I don't deserve anything else. I'll go, Dick. Oh, I'm so miserable.”
“Nonsense. You've nothing to worry about; I'd tell you if you had. Wait a moment, dear. I've got something to give you first. I meant it for you ever since this little trouble began. It's my Melancolia; she was a beauty when I last saw her. You can keep her for me, and if ever you're poor you can sell her. She's worth a few hundreds at any state of the market.” He groped among his canvases. “She's framed in black. Is this a black frame that I have my hand on? There she is. What do you think of her?”
He turned a scarred formless muddle of paint towards Maisie, and the eyes strained as though they would catch her wonder and surprise. One thing and one thing only could she do for him.
“Well?”
The voice was fuller and more rounded, because the man knew he was speaking of his best work. Maisie looked at the blur, and a lunatic desire to laugh caught her by the throat. But for Dick's sake—whatever this mad blankness might mean—she must make no sign. Her voice choked with hard-held tears as she answered, still gazing at the wreck—“Oh, Dick, it is good!”
He heard the little hysterical gulp and took it for tribute. “Won't you have it, then? I'll send it over to your house if you will.”
“I? Oh yes—thank you. Ha! ha!” If she did not fly at once the laughter that was worse than tears would kill her. She turned and ran, choking and blinded, down the staircases that were empty of life to take refuge in a cab and go to her house across the Parks. There she sat down in the dismantled drawing-room and thought of Dick in his blindness, useless till the end of life, and of herself in her own eyes. Behind the sorrow, the shame, and the humiliation, lay fear of the cold wrath of the red-haired girl when Maisie should return. Maisie had never feared her companion before. Not until she found herself saying, “Well, he never asked me,” did she realise her scorn of herself. And that is the end of Maisie.
For Dick was reserved more searching torment. He could not realise at first that Maisie, whom he had ordered to go had left him without a word of farewell. He was savagely angry against Torpenhow, who had brought upon him this humiliation and troubled his miserable peace. Then his dark hour came and he was alone with himself and his desires to get what help he could from the darkness. The queen could do no wrong, but in following the right, so far as it served her work, she had wounded her one subject more than his own brain would let him know.
“It's all I had and I've lost it,” he said, as soon as the misery permitted clear thinking. “And Torp will think that he has been so infernally clever that I shan't have the heart to tell him. I must think this out quietly.”
“Hullo!” said Torpenhow, entering the studio after Dick had enjoyed two hours of thought. “I'm back. Are you feeling any better?”
“Torp, I don't know what to say. Come here.” Dick coughed huskily, wondering, indeed, what he should say, and how to say it temperately.
“What's the need for saying anything? Get up and tramp.” Torpenhow was perfectly satisfied.
They walked up and down as of custom, Torpenhow's hand on Dick's shoulder, and Dick buried in his own thoughts.
“How in the world did you find it all out?” said Dick, at last.
“You shouldn't go off your head if you want to keep secrets, Dickie. It was absolutely impertinent on my part; but if you'd seen me rocketing about on a half-trained French troop-horse under a blazing sun you'd have laughed. There will be a charivari in my rooms tonight. Seven other devils——”