"I hope you have not been much annoyed," Livingstone said, kindly. "Where were you going to? I shall be too happy to escort you, if you will allow me."
She named the street, only a few hundred yards off, and tried to thank him gratefully, but her voice was broken and scarcely audible, and the blinding tears would rush into her eyes. Poor child! it was very long since she had heard gentle, courteous words in her mother-tongue. She recovered herself, however, during their short walk, and they had nearly reached her destination when Livingstone said, "Forgive me for being impertinent; I have no right to advise you; but I think you would find it better not to walk alone, often, at this hour. There is always a chance of something disagreeable."
He could see her blush painfully as she answered, "I have no one to accompany me. I work hard at drawing and painting as long as there is light, and I had gone out to see if I could sell what I have done. But I fear I am a very poor artist; no one would offer me as much as they had cost me. And I tried at so many places!"
It was piteous to hear the heavy, heart-broken sigh.
"Perhaps I have better taste," replied Livingstone. "Those print-sellers are absurdly ignorant of what is good and anonymous. At all events, they will interest me, as a memorial of to-night. Will you give them to me? I will promise not to be too critical."
He drew the roll out of her hand as he spoke, replacing it by his note-case; and before she could open it or make any objection, he followed Mohun (for they had reached the artist's door by this time), first raising his hat to her in adieu as courteously as he would have done to a reigning archduchess.
How much did the case contain? Guy himself could hardly have told you. But be sure the Recorder of his many misdeeds knew, and reckoned it to the uttermost farthing when he wrote down that one kind action on the credit side.
"Philanthropic, for a change!" Mohun remarked, when his companion joined him. "Well, it's not worse than many of your vagaries. We shall have you founding an asylum next, I suppose."
In his heart the savage old cynic approved, but, for the life of him, he could not check the sneer.
Livingstone made no reply. It was a habit of his very often not to answer Ralph, and the latter did not mind it in the least. In a few moments they reached Guy's apartments, where they found about a dozen men—French and English—awaiting their arrival to begin an unbridled lansquenet. It was a favorite rendezvous for this purpose. The thoroughbred gamblers preferred it to the brilliant entertainments of the Quartier Brèda. They liked to court or fight Fortune by themselves, without being congratulated in success or compassionated in defeat by the fair Phrynes and Aspasias, whose sympathy was somewhat expansive, inasmuch as they always would borrow from the heap whenever any one won, repaying the loan in kind by smiles and caresses, which cost the happy recipient about fifteen Napoleons apiece. Here was an Eden from which Eves were excluded; and on the nights of the Mercurialia, the brightest Peri that ever wore camellias might have knocked at the gate disconsolately, but in vain.