The dinner that evening was a memorable one for Trilby. After she had washed up the knives and forks and plates and dishes, and put them by, she sat and sewed. She wouldn't even smoke her cigarette, it reminded her so of things and scenes she now hated. No more cigarettes for Trilby O'Ferrall.
They all talked of Little Billee. She heard about the way he had been brought up, about his mother and sister, the people he had always lived among. She also heard (and her heart alternately rose and sank as she listened) what his future was likely to be, and how rare his genius was, and how great—if his friends were to be trusted. Fame and fortune would soon be his—such fame and fortune as fell to the lot of very few—unless anything should happen to spoil his promise and mar his prospects in life, and ruin a splendid career; and the rising of the heart was all for him, the sinking for herself. How could she ever hope to be even the friend of such a man? Might she ever hope to be his servant—his faithful, humble servant?
Little Billee spent a month at Barbizon, and when he came back it was with such a brown face that his friends hardly knew him; and he brought with him such studies as made his friends "sit up."
The crushing sense of their own hopeless inferiority was lost in wonder at his work, in love and enthusiasm for the workman.
Their Little Billee, so young and tender, so weak of body, so strong of purpose, so warm of heart, so light of hand, so keen and quick and piercing of brain and eye, was their master, to be stuck on a pedestal and looked up to and bowed down to, to be watched and warded and worshipped for evermore.
When Trilby came in from her work at six, and he shook hands with her and said "Hullo, Trilby!" her face turned pale to the lips, her under-lip quivered, and she gazed down at him (for she was among the tallest of her sex) with such a moist, hungry, wide-eyed look of humble craving adoration that the Laird felt his worst fears were realized, and the look Little Billee sent up in return filled the manly bosom of Taffy with an equal apprehension.
Then they all four went and dined together at le père Trin's, and Trilby went back to her blanchisserie de fin.
Next day Little Billee took his work to show Carrel, and Carrel invited him to come and finish his picture "The Pitcher Goes to the Well" at his own private studio—an unheard-of favor, which the boy accepted with a thrill of proud gratitude and affectionate reverence.