Bertie was nettled; he revealed a little of what he had begun to learn that he ought to conceal.
"I bet you I earn a sovereign quicker than you earn a shilling," he remarked.
"Daresay you do," murmured Babba, regarding the end of his cigar. Babba was vulgar, but not with this sort of vulgarity.
"And more of 'em," pursued Bertie.
"But you have an infernally slow life of it," Babba assured him. Babba was ignorant of the engrossing charms that sparkle in the eyes of wealth, forbidding weariness in its courtship, making all else dull and void of allurement to its votaries. To each man his own hunger.
Back to his hunger went Ashley Mead, no less ravenous, yet seeing his craving in the new light of desires revealed to him, but still alien from him. All his world seemed now united in crying out to him to mind his steps, in pointing imploringly or mockingly to the abyss before his feet, in weeping, wondering, or laughing at him. That some of the protests were conscious, some unwitting, made no difference; the feeling of standing aloof from all the rest gave him a sense of doom, as though he were set apart for his work, and amidst condemnation, pity, and ridicule must go through with it. For to-morrow he thought that she would come with him, leaving Mr. Fenning desolate, Sidney Hazlewood groaning over agreements misunderstood as to their nature, friends heart-broken, and the world agape.
But the next day she would not come, or, rather, prayed not to be taken.
"You mustn't, you mustn't," she sobbed. "Alice Muddock had made me angry, oh, and hurt me so. I was ready to do anything. But don't, Ashley dear, don't! Do let me be good. That'll be the best way of answering her, won't it? I couldn't answer her then."
"Alice? What's Alice been saying?" he asked, for he had not been told the details of that particular case of cruelty.
"I can't tell you. Oh, it was horrible! Was it true? Say it wasn't true!"