She leant forward suddenly and looked hard at him. He saw her breath come more quickly.
Airey pulled his beard and continued, smiling still: 'That was the position. Then a girl came to him, a very dangerous girl in my opinion, one who goes about sowing love all over the place in an indiscriminate and hazardous fashion—she carries it about her everywhere, from her shoes to the waves of her hair. She came to him and said, "Well, you're a pretty fellow, aren't you? I've got twopence that I'm going to give. We want tenpence. Out with eightpence, please," said she. "Why so?" he asked, with his hand tight on the eightpence. "She's got ruined just on purpose to give you the chance," said she. That was rather a new point of view to him—but she said it no less.'
'Tell it me plainly,' Trix implored.
'I'm telling it quite plainly,' Airey insisted. 'At last he forked out the tenpence—and sat down and groaned and cried. Lord, how he cried over that tenpence! Till one day the girl came back again and——'
'I thought she only asked for eightpence?' put in Trix, with a swift glance.
'Did I say that? Oh, well, that's not material. She came back, and laid twopence on the table, and said eightpence had been enough. He was just going to grab the twopence and put it back in his pocket again, when she said, "Wouldn't it be nice to spend it?" "Spend it? What on?" he cried. "A new soul," said she, in that wholesale reckless way of hers. "If you get a new soul, she may like you. You can't suppose she'd like you with the one you've got?" She could be candid at times, that girl—oh, all in a very delicate way! So they went out together in a hansom cab, and drove to the soul shop and bought one. There's a ready-made soul shop, if you know where to find it. It's dearer than the others, but they don't keep you waiting, and you can leave the worn-out article behind you.'
'Well?'
'He liked the feel of the new soul, and began to thank the girl for it. And she said, "Don't thank me. I didn't do it." So he thanked her just a little—but the rest of his thanks he kept.'
There was a long silence. Trix gazed before her with wide-open eyes. Airey tilted his chair gently to and fro.
'You paid the money for me?' she asked at last in a dull voice.