Part 114 (2/2)

”But you said on the beach----” persisted Maisie, with a certain fear.

d.i.c.k groaned aloud: ”Yes, I know what I said. My work is everything I have, or am, or hope to be, to me, and I believe I've learnt the law that governs it; but I've some lingering sense of fun left,--though you've nearly knocked it out of me. I can just see that it isn't everything to all the world. Do what I say, and not what I do.”

Maisie was careful not to reopen debatable matters, and they returned to London joyously. The terminus stopped d.i.c.k in the midst of an eloquent harangue on the beauties of exercise. He would buy Maisie a horse,--such a horse as never yet bowed head to bit,--would stable it, with a companion, some twenty miles from London, and Maisie, solely for her health's sake should ride with him twice or thrice a week.

”That's absurd,” said she. ”It wouldn't be proper.”

”Now, who in all London tonight would have sufficient interest or audacity to call us two to account for anything we chose to do?”

Maisie looked at the lamps, the fog, and the hideous turmoil. d.i.c.k was right; but horseflesh did not make for Art as she understood it.

”You're very nice sometimes, but you're very foolish more times. I'm not going to let you give me horses, or take you out of your way tonight.

I'll go home by myself. Only I want you to promise me something. You won't think any more about that extra threepence, will you? Remember, you've been paid; and I won't allow you to be spiteful and do bad work for a little thing like that. You can be so big that you mustn't be tiny.”

This was turning the tables with a vengeance. There remained only to put Maisie into her hansom.

”Goodbye,” she said simply. ”You'll come on Sunday. It has been a beautiful day, d.i.c.k. Why can't it be like this always?”

”Because love's like line-work: you must go forward or backward; you can't stand still. By the way, go on with your line-work. Good night, and, for my--for my sake, take care of yourself.”

He turned to walk home, meditating. The day had brought him nothing that he hoped for, but--surely this was worth many days--it had brought him nearer to Maisie. The end was only a question of time now, and the prize well worth the waiting. By instinct, once more, he turned to the river.

”And she understood at once,” he said, looking at the water. ”She found out my pet besetting sin on the spot, and paid it off. My G.o.d, how she understood! And she said I was better than she was! Better than she was!” He laughed at the absurdity of the notion. ”I wonder if girls guess at one-half a man's life. They can't, or--they wouldn't marry us.”

He took her gift out of his pocket, and considered it in the light of a miracle and a pledge of the comprehension that, one day, would lead to perfect happiness. Meantime, Maisie was alone in London, with none to save her from danger. And the packed wilderness was very full of danger.

d.i.c.k made his prayer to Fate disjointedly after the manner of the heathen as he threw the piece of silver into the river. If any evil were to befal, let him bear the burden and let Maisie go unscathed, since the threepenny piece was dearest to him of all his possessions. It was a small coin in itself, but Maisie had given it, and the Thames held it, and surely the Fates would be bribed for this once.

The drowning of the coin seemed to cut him free from thought of Maisie for the moment. He took himself off the bridge and went whistling to his chambers with a strong yearning for some man-talk and tobacco after his first experience of an entire day spent in the society of a woman.

There was a stronger desire at his heart when there rose before him an unsolicited vision of the Barralong dipping deep and sailing free for the Southern Cross.

CHAPTER VIII

And these two, as I have told you, Were the friends of Hiawatha, Chibiabos, the musician, And the very strong man, Kwasind.

--Hiawatha

Torpenhow was paging the last sheets of some ma.n.u.script, while the Nilghai, who had come for chess and remained to talk tactics, was reading through the first part, commenting scornfully the while.

”It's picturesque enough and it's sketchy,” said he; ”but as a serious consideration of affairs in Eastern Europe, it's not worth much.”

”It's off my hands at any rate.... Thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine slips altogether, aren't there? That should make between eleven and twelve pages of valuable misinformation. Heigh-ho!” Torpenhow shuffled the writing together and hummed--

'Young lambs to sell, young lambs to sell, If I'd as much money as I could tell, I never would cry, Young lambs to sell!'”

d.i.c.k entered, self-conscious and a little defiant, but in the best of tempers with all the world.

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