'I buy things to wear, and wear 'em till they go to pieces. I don't know what Torpenhow does.'

Bessie made diligent inquiry in the latter's room, and unearthed a bale of disreputable socks. 'Some of these I'll mend now,' she said, 'and some I'll take home. D'you know, I sit all day long at home doing nothing, just like a lady, and no more noticing them other girls in the house than if they was so many flies. I don't have any unnecessary words, but I put 'em down quick, I can tell you, when they talk to me.

No; it's quite nice these days. I lock my door, and they can only call me names through the keyhole, and I sit inside, just like a lady, mending socks. Mr. Torpenhow wears his socks out both ends at once.'

'Three quid a week from me, and the delights of my society. No socks mended. Nothing from Torp except a nod on the landing now and again, and all his socks mended. Bessie is very much a woman,' thought d.i.c.k; and he looked at her between half-shut eyes. Food and rest had transformed the girl, as d.i.c.k knew they would.

'What are you looking at me like that for?' she said quickly. 'Don't.

You look reg'lar bad when you look that way. You don't think much o' me, do you?'

'That depends on how you behave.'

Bessie behaved beautifully. Only it was difficult at the end of a sitting to bid her go out into the gray streets. She very much preferred the studio and a big chair by the stove, with some socks in her lap as an excuse for delay. Then Torpenhow would come in, and Bessie would be moved to tell strange and wonderful stories of her past, and still stranger ones of her present improved circ.u.mstances. She would make them tea as though she had a right to make it; and once or twice on these occasions d.i.c.k caught Torpenhow's eyes fixed on the trim little figure, and because Bessie's flittings about the room made d.i.c.k ardently long for Maisie, he realised whither Torpenhow's thoughts were tending. And Bessie was exceedingly careful of the condition of Torpenhow's linen.

She spoke very little to him, but sometimes they talked together on the landing.

'I was a great fool,' d.i.c.k said to himself. 'I know what red firelight looks like when a man's tramping through a strange town; and ours is a lonely, selfish sort of life at the best. I wonder Maisie doesn't feel that sometimes. But I can't order Bessie away. That's the worst of beginning things. One never knows where they stop.'

One evening, after a sitting prolonged to the last limit of the light, d.i.c.k was roused from a nap by a broken voice in Torpenhow's room. He jumped to his feet. 'Now what ought I to do? It looks foolish to go in.--Oh, bless you, Binkie!' The little terrier thrust Torpenhow's door open with his nose and came out to take possession of d.i.c.k's chair. The door swung wide unheeded, and d.i.c.k across the landing could see Bessie in the half-light making her little supplication to Torpenhow. She was kneeling by his side, and her hands were clasped across his knee.

'I know,--I know,' she said thickly. ''Tisn't right o' me to do this, but I can't help it; and you were so kind,--so kind; and you never took any notice o' me. And I've mended all your things so carefully,--I did.

Oh, please, 'tisn't as if I was asking you to marry me. I wouldn't think of it.

But you--couldn't you take and live with me till Miss Right 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!'

d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k, 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 d.i.c.k, 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 d.i.c.k. '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 d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k, some days later. 'Torp's away; Bessie hates me; I can't get at the notion of the Melancolia; Maisie's letters are sc.r.a.ppy; 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?'

d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k, 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?'

d.i.c.k 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 pract.i.tioner with white hair, and he said nothing till d.i.c.k 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.'

d.i.c.k sought an oculist,--the best in London. He was certain that the local pract.i.tioner 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. d.i.c.k saw the face as it hurried out into the street.