The face grew more angry and more puzzled. “Yesterday wasn’t a rag,” he said without focusing his eyes. “I was drunk, but naturally meant it.”
“Meant what?”
“To smash you. Bad liquor did what Mrs. Elliot couldn’t. I’ve put myself in the wrong. You’ve got me.”
It was a poor beginning.
“As I have got you,” said Rickie, controlling himself, “I want to have a talk with you. There has been a ghastly mistake.”
But Stephen, with a countryman’s persistency, continued on his own line. He meant to be civil, but Rickie went cold round the mouth. For he had not even been angry with them. Until he was drunk, they had been dirty people—not his sort. Then the trivial injury recurred, and he had reeled to smash them as he passed. “And I will pay for everything,” was his refrain, with which the sighing of raindrops mingled. “You shan’t lose a penny, if only you let me free.”
“You’ll pay for my coffin if you talk like that any longer! Will you, one, forgive my frightful behaviour; two, live with me?” For his only hope was in a cheerful precision.
Stephen grew more agitated. He thought it was some trick.
“I was saying I made an unspeakable mistake. Ansell put me right, but it was too late to find you. Don’t think I got off easily. Ansell doesn’t spare one. And you’ve got to forgive me, to share my life, to share my money.—I’ve brought you this photograph—I want it to be the first thing you accept from me—you have the greater right—I know all the story now. You know who it is?”
“Oh yes; but I don’t want to drag all that in.”