The next day dawned, and Barty had a wash and changed his clothes, and we walked all over Hampstead Heath, and saw London lying in a dun mist, with the dome and gilded cross of St. Paul's rising into the pale blue dawn; and I thought what a beastly place London would be without Barty—‑but that Leah was there still, safe and sound asleep in Tavistock Square!
Then back to the inn for breakfast. Barty, as usual, fresh as paint. Happy Barty, off to Paris!
And then we all drove down to London Bridge to see him safe into the Boulogne steamer. All his luggage was on board. His late soldier‑servant was there—a splendid fellow, chosen for his length and breadth as well as his fidelity; also the Snowdrop, who was lachrymose and in great grief. It was a most affectionate farewell all round.
"Good‑bye, Bob. I won that toss—didn't I?"
Oddly enough, I was thinking of that, and didn't like it.
"What rot! it's only a joke, old fellow!" said Barty.
All this about an innocent little girl just fifteen, the daughter of a low‑comedy John Gilpin: a still somewhat gaunt little girl, whose budding charms of color, shape, and surface were already such that it didn't matter whether she were good or bad, gentle or simple, rich or poor, sensible or an utter fool.
C'est toujours comme ça!
We watched the steamer pick its sunny way down the Thames, with Barty waving his hat by the man at the wheel; and I walked westward with the little Hebrew artist, who was so affected at parting with his hero that he had tears in his lovely voice. It was not till I had complimented him on his wonderful B‑flat that he got consoled; and he talked about himself, and his B‑flat, and his middle G, and his physical strength, and his eye for color, all the way from the Mansion House to the Foundling Hospital; when we parted, and he went straight to his drawing‑board at the British Museum—an anticlimax!
I found my mother and sister at their late breakfast, and was scolded; and I told them Barty had got off, and wouldn't come back for long—it might not be for years!