Count Mimo Sykypri was a confirmed optimist.
"Meanwhile you are in the one room, in Neville Street, Tottenham Court Road. It is, I fear, a poor neighborhood."
"No worse than Madame Dubois'," Mimo hastened to reassure her, "and London is giving me new ideas."
Mirko coughed harshly with a dry sound. Countess Shulski drew him closer to her and held him tight.
"You got the address from the Grisoldi? He was a kind little old man, in spite of the garlic," she said.
"Yes, he told us of it, as an inexpensive resting place, until our affairs prospered, and we came straight there and wrote to you at once."
"I was greatly surprised to receive the letter. Have you any money at all now, Mimo?"
"Indeed, yes!" And Count Sykypri proudly drew forth eight bits of French gold from his pocket. "We had two hundred francs when we arrived. Our little necessities and a few paints took up two of the twenty-franc pieces, and we have eight of them left! Oh, quite a fortune! It will keep us until I can sell the 'Apache.' I shall take it to a picture dealer's to-morrow."
Countess Shulski's heart sank. She knew so well of old how long eight twenty-franc pieces would be likely to last! In spite of Mirko's care and watching of his father that gentleman was capable of giving one of them to a beggar if the beggar's face and story touched him, and any of the others could go in a present to Mirko or herself—to be pawned later, when necessity called. The case was hopeless as far as money was concerned with Count Sykypri.
Her own meager income, derived from the dead Shulski, was always forestalled for the wants of the family—the little brother whom she had promised her dead and adored mother never to desert.