"Wait a minute. I said, strictly speaking. Unfortunately, everybody must be either a man or a woman."
"I"m glad you allow that much."
"In your case I don"t. You aren"t a woman. But ordinary people, Maisie, must behave and work as such. That"s what makes me so savage." He hurled a pebble towards the sea as he spoke. "I know that it is outside my business to care what people say; I can see that it spoils my output if I listen to "em; and yet, confound it all,"--another pebble flew seaward,--"I can"t help purring when I"m rubbed the right way. Even when I can see on a man"s forehead that he is lying his way through a clump of pretty speeches, those lies make me happy and play the mischief with my hand."
"And when he doesn"t say pretty things?"
"Then, belovedest,"--d.i.c.k grinned,--"I forget that I am the steward of these gifts, and I want to make that man love and appreciate my work with a thick stick. It"s too humiliating altogether; but I suppose even if one were an angel and painted humans altogether from outside, one would lose in touch what one gained in grip."
Maisie laughed at the idea of d.i.c.k as an angel.
"But you seem to think," she said, "that everything nice spoils your hand."
"I don"t think. It"s the law,--just the same as it was at Mrs.
Jennett"s. Everything that is nice does spoil your hand. I"m glad you see so clearly."
"I don"t like the view."
"Nor I. But--have got orders: what can do? Are you strong enough to face it alone?"
"I suppose I must."
"Let me help, darling. We can hold each other very tight and try to walk straight. We shall blunder horribly, but it will be better than stumbling apart. Maisie, can"t you see reason?"
"I don"t think we should get on together. We should be two of a trade, so we should never agree."
"How I should like to meet the man who made that proverb! He lived in a cave and ate raw bear, I fancy. I"d make him chew his own arrow-heads.
Well?"
"I should be only half married to you. I should worry and fuss about my work, as I do now. Four days out of the seven I"m not fit to speak to."
"You talk as if no one else in the world had ever used a brush.
D"you suppose that I don"t know the feeling of worry and bother and can"t-get-at-ness? You"re lucky if you only have it four days out of the seven. What difference would that make?"
"A great deal--if you had it too."
"Yes, but I could respect it. Another man might not. He might laugh at you. But there"s no use talking about it. If you can think in that way you can"t care for me--yet."
The tide had nearly covered the mud-banks and twenty little ripples broke on the beach before Maisie chose to speak.
"d.i.c.k," she said slowly, "I believe very much that you are better than I am."
"This doesn"t seem to bear on the argument--but in what way?"
"I don"t quite know, but in what you said about work and things; and then you"re so patient. Yes, you"re better than I am."
d.i.c.k considered rapidly the murkiness of an average man"s life. There was nothing in the review to fill him with a sense of virtue. He lifted the hem of the cloak to his lips.
"Why," said Maisie, making as though she had not noticed, "can you see things that I can"t? I don"t believe what you believe; but you"re right, I believe."
"If I"ve seen anything, G.o.d knows I couldn"t have seen it but for you, and I know that I couldn"t have said it except to you. You seemed to make everything clear for a minute; but I don"t practice what I preach.
You would help me... There are only us two in the world for all purposes, and--and you like to have me with you?"
"Of course I do. I wonder if you can realise how utterly lonely I am!"
"Darling, I think I can."
"Two years ago, when I first took the little house, I used to walk up and down the back-garden trying to cry. I never can cry. Can you?"
"It"s some time since I tried. What was the trouble? Overwork?"
"I don"t know; but I used to dream that I had broken down, and had no money, and was starving in London. I thought about it all day, and it frightened me--oh, how it frightened me!"
"I know that fear. It"s the most terrible of all. It wakes me up in the night sometimes. You oughtn"t to know anything about it."
"How do you know?"
"Never mind. Is your three hundred a year safe?"
"It"s in Consols."
"Very well. If any one comes to you and recommends a better investment,--even if I should come to you,--don"t you listen. Never shift the money for a minute, and never lend a penny of it,--even to the red-haired girl."
"Don"t scold me so! I"m not likely to be foolish."
"The earth is full of men who"d sell their souls for three hundred a year; and women come and talk, and borrow a five-pound note here and a ten-pound note there; and a woman has no conscience in a money debt.
Stick to your money, Maisie, for there"s nothing more ghastly in the world than poverty in London. It"s scared me. By Jove, it put the fear into me! And one oughtn"t to be afraid of anything."
To each man is appointed his particular dread,--the terror that, if he does not fight against it, must cow him even to the loss of his manhood.
d.i.c.k"s experience of the sordid misery of want had entered into the deeps of him, and, lest he might find virtue too easy, that memory stood behind him, tempting to shame, when dealers came to buy his wares. As the Nilghai quaked against his will at the still green water of a lake or a mill-dam, as Torpenhow flinched before any white arm that could cut or stab and loathed himself for flinching, d.i.c.k feared the poverty he had once tasted half in jest. His burden was heavier than the burdens of his companions.
Maisie watched the face working in the moonlight.
"You"ve plenty of pennies now," she said soothingly.
"I shall never have enough," he began, with vicious emphasis. Then, laughing, "I shall always be three-pence short in my accounts."
"Why threepence?"
"I carried a man"s bag once from Liverpool Street Station to Blackfriar"s Bridge. It was a sixpenny job,--you needn"t laugh; indeed it was,--and I wanted the money desperately. He only gave me threepence; and he hadn"t even the decency to pay in silver. Whatever money I make, I shall never get that odd threepence out of the world."
This was not language befitting the man who had preached of the sanct.i.ty of work. It jarred on Maisie, who preferred her payment in applause, which, since all men desire it, must be of the right. She hunted for her little purse and gravely took out a threepenny bit.
"There it is," she said. "I"ll pay you, d.i.c.kie; and don"t worry any more; it isn"t worth while. Are you paid?"
"I am," said the very human apostle of fair craft, taking the coin. "I"m paid a thousand times, and we"ll close that account. It shall live on my watch-chain; and you"re an angel, Maisie."
"I"m very cramped, and I"m feeling a little cold. Good gracious! the cloak is all white, and so is your moustache! I never knew it was so chilly."