Part 36 (1/2)

Mr. Beeton had no special reason to believe in the loftiness of human nature. Therefore he dissolved himself like a mist and returned to his gas-plugs without a word of apology. Bessie watched the flight with a certain uneasiness; but so long as d.i.c.k appeared to be ignorant of the harm that had been done to him...

'It's hard work pulling the beer-handles,' she went on, 'and they've got one of them penny-in-the-slot cash-machines, so if you get wrong by a penny at the end of the day--but then I don't believe the machinery is right. Do you?'

'I've only seen it work. Mr. Beeton.'

'He's gone.

'I'm afraid I must ask you to help me home, then. I'll make it worth your while. You see.' The sightless eyes turned towards her and Bessie saw.

'It isn't taking you out of your way?' he said hesitatingly. 'I can ask a policeman if it is.'

'Not at all. I come on at seven and I'm off at four. That's easy hours.'

'Good G.o.d!--but I'm on all the time. I wish I had some work to do too.

Let's go home, Bess.'

He turned and cannoned into a man on the sidewalk, recoiling with an oath. Bessie took his arm and said nothing--as she had said nothing when he had ordered her to turn her face a little more to the light. They walked for some time in silence, the girl steering him deftly through the crowd.

'And where's--where's Mr. Torpenhow?' she inquired at last.

'He has gone away to the desert.'

'Where's that?'

d.i.c.k pointed to the right. 'East--out of the mouth of the river,' said he.

'Then west, then south, and then east again, all along the under-side of Europe. Then south again, G.o.d knows how far.' The explanation did not enlighten Bessie in the least, but she held her tongue and looked to d.i.c.k's patch till they came to the chambers.

'We'll have tea and m.u.f.fins,' he said joyously. 'I can't tell you, Bessie, how glad I am to find you again. What made you go away so suddenly?'

'I didn't think you'd want me any more,' she said, emboldened by his ignorance.

'I didn't, as a matter of fact--but afterwards--At any rate I'm glad you've come. You know the stairs.'

So Bessie led him home to his own place--there was no one to hinder--and shut the door of the studio.

'What a mess!' was her first word. 'All these things haven't been looked after for months and months.'

'No, only weeks, Bess. You can't expect them to care.'

'I don't know what you expect them to do. They ought to know what you've paid them for. The dust's just awful. It's all over the easel.'

'I don't use it much now.'

'All over the pictures and the floor, and all over your coat. I'd like to speak to them housemaids.'

'Ring for tea, then.' d.i.c.k felt his way to the one chair he used by custom.

Bessie saw the action and, as far as in her lay, was touched. But there remained always a keen sense of new-found superiority, and it was in her voice when she spoke.

'How long have you been like this?' she said wrathfully, as though the blindness were some fault of the housemaids.