Part 117 (2/2)
”Will you give me a sovereign?”
”No;--I will give you nothing. I have desired you not to come to me here, and I will not pay for you coming.”
”Then I will not go;” and the woman sat down upon a chair at the foot of the table. ”I will not go till you have given me something to buy food. You may put me out of the room if you can, but I will lie at the door of the stairs. And if you get me out of the house, I will sit upon the door-step.”
”If you play that game, my poor girl, the police will take you.”
”Let them. It has come to that with me, that I care for nothing. Out of this I will not go till you give me money--unless I am put out.”
And for this she had dressed herself with so much care, mending her gloves, and darning her little fragments of finery! He stood looking at her, with his hands thrust deep into his pockets,--looking at her and thinking what he had better do to rid himself of her presence. If he even quite resolved to take that little final journey of which we have spoken, with the pistol in his hand, why should he not go and leave her there? Or, for the matter of that, why should he not make her his heir to all remainder of his wealth? What he still had left was sufficient to place her in a seventh heaven of the earth. He cared but little for her, and was at this moment angry with her; but there was no one for whom he cared more, and no friend with whom he was less angry. But then his mind was not quite made up as to that final journey. Therefore he desired to rid himself and his room of the nuisance of her presence.
”Jane,” he said, looking at her again with that a.s.sumed tranquillity of which I have spoken, ”you talk of starving and of being ruined,--”
”I am starving. I have not a s.h.i.+lling in the world.”
”Perhaps it may be a comfort to you in your troubles to know that I am, at any rate, as badly off as you are? I won't say that I am starving, because I could get food to eat at this moment if I wanted it; but I am utterly ruined. My property,--what should have been mine,--has been left away from me. I have lost the trumpery seat in Parliament for which I have paid so much. All my relations have turned their backs upon me--”
”Are you not going to be married?” she said, rising quickly from her chair and coming close to him.
”Married! No;--but I am going to blow my brains out. Look at that pistol, my girl. Of course you won't think that I am in earnest,--but I am.”
She looked up into his face piteously. ”Oh! George,” she said, ”you won't do that?”
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”Oh! George,” she said, ”you won't do that?”]
”But I shall do that. There is nothing else left for me to do. You talk to me about starving. I tell you that I should have no objection to be starved, and so be put an end to in that way. It's not so bad as some other ways when it comes gradually. You and I, Jane, have not played our cards very well. We have staked all that we had, and we've been beaten. It's no good whimpering after what's lost. We'd better go somewhere else and begin a new game.”
”Go where?” said she.
”Ah!--that's just what I can't tell you.”
”George,” she said, ”I'll go anywhere with you. If what you say is true,--if you're not going to be married, and will let me come to you, I will work for you like a slave. I will indeed. I know I'm poorly looking now--”
”My girl, where I'm going, I shall not want any slave; and as for your looks--when you go there too,--they'll be of no matter, as far as I am able to judge.”
”But, George, where are you going?”
”Wherever people do go when their brains are knocked out of them; or, rather, when they have knocked out their own brains,--if that makes any difference.”
”George,”--she came up to him now, and took hold of him by the front of his coat, and for the moment he allowed her to do so,--”George, you frighten me. Do not do that. Say that you will not do that!”
”But I am just saying that I shall.”
”Are you not afraid of G.o.d's anger? You and I have been very wicked.”
”I have, my poor girl. I don't know much about your wickedness. I've been like Topsy;--indeed I am a kind of second Topsy myself. But what's the good of whimpering when it's over?”
”It isn't over; it isn't over,--at any rate for you.”
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