It did me a good turn once, and now it's in my way.
I'll go home and do some Art."
Half-way to the studio, Dick was smitten with a terrible thought. The figure of
a solitary woman in the fog suggested it.
"She's all alone in London, with a red-haired impressionist girl, who probably
has the digestion of an ostrich. Most red-haired people have. Maisie's a
bilious little body. They'll eat like lone women,--meals at all hours, and tea
with all meals. I remember how the students in Paris used to pig along. She may
fall ill at any minute, and I shan't be able to help. Whew! this is ten times
worse than owning a wife."
Torpenhow entered the studio at dusk, and looked at Dick with eyes full of the
austere love that springs up between men who have tugged at the same oar
together and are yoked by custom and use and the intimacies of toil. This is a
good love, and, since it allows, and even encourages, strife, recrimination,
and brutal sincerity, does not die, but grows, and is proof against any absence
and evil conduct.
Dick was silent after he handed Torpenhow the filled pipe of council. He
thought of Maisie and her possible needs. It was a new thing to think of
anybody but Torpenhow, who could think for himself.
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