'I was a great fool,' Dick 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, Dick 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 Dick's chair. The door swung wide unheeded, and Dick 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 Ican'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!'
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.'?
