Chapter Twenty Eight.
We Complete the Model.
Matters did not improve at Great Ormond Street as the months rolled on. There was evidently a serious estrangement between Linny and Stephen Hallett; and in my frequent visits I saw that she was as wilful as she was pettish, and that she was setting her brother at defiance. Mrs Hallett was more piteous and complaining than ever, and her son grew haggard and worn with care.
Once or twice, when Linny went out, Hallett had insisted upon going with her, when she had snatched off her hat and jacket, exclaiming:
“It does not matter; I can go when you are away. I am not a child, Stephen, to be treated in such a way as this.”
He stood looking down at her, more in sorrow than in anger, and beckoning me to follow, he went up to his attic and turned to his model, but sat down thinking, with his head upon his hand.
“Can I do anything to help you, Hallett?” I said anxiously; and he roused himself directly, and smiled in my face.
“No, Antony,” he said, “nothing. I could only ask you to follow her, and be a spy upon her actions, and that would degrade us both. Poor child! I cannot win her confidence. It is my misfortune, not my fault. I am no ladies’ man, Antony,” he continued bitterly. “Here, let us try the model. I meant to have finished to-night; let us see how my mistress behaves.”
He often used to speak in a laughing way of the model as his mistress, after Mrs Hallett telling him one day that it was the only thing he loved.