She would never
see Torpenhow any more, but she had at least done harm to the man who had come
between her and her desire and who used to make fun of her. Cashing the check
was the very cream of the jest to Bessie. Then the little privateer sailed
across the Thames, to be swallowed up in the gray wilderness of South-the-
Water.
Dick slept till late in the evening, when Torpenhow dragged him off to bed. His
eyes were as bright as his voice was hoarse. "Let's have another look at the
picture," he said, insistently as a child.
"You--go--to--bed," said Torpenhow. "You aren't at all well, though you mayn't
know it. You're as jumpy as a cat."
"I reform tomorrow. Good night."
As he repassed through the studio, Torpenhow lifted the cloth above the
picture, and almost betrayed himself by outcries: "Wiped out!--scraped out and
turped out! He's on the verge of jumps as it is. That's Bess,--the little
fiend! Only a woman could have done that!--with the ink not dry on the check,
too! Dick will be raving mad tomorrow. It was all my fault for trying to help
gutter-devils. Oh, my poor Dick, the Lord is hitting you very hard!"
Dick could not sleep that night, partly for pure joy, and partly because the
well-known Catherine-wheels inside his eyes had given place to crackling
volcanoes of many-coloured fire.
Pages:
1020
1021
1022
1023
1024
1025
1026
1027
1028
1029
1030
1031
1032
1033
1034
1035
1036
1037
1038
1039
1040
1041
1042
1043
1044