“I think one has.”
“You’re sure they needn’t tell the benefactor?”
“I wouldn’t. If you want to give a man a hand-up why rake up his past?”
I got it at last. My bad temper vanished. I was wreathed in smiles—
“Oh, Roger,” I cried joyously, “that’s just what I wanted you to say. It’s such a relief that we’ve worked it out at last,” and I heaved a sigh and put the other foot on the fender.
I sat for a moment, absently looking down, then I became conscious of my feet, side by side on the brass rail—two small patent leather points. I looked along the rail and there on the other side were Roger’s—two large patent leather points. They looked like four small black animals, perched in couples, sociably warming themselves by the blaze.
“What are you smiling at?” said Roger.
“How near we came to quarreling over an imaginary man stealing an imaginary mirror,” said I.
XII
Lizzie is coming to life, hesitatingly and as if with reluctance. I suppose it’s natural for her to be extraordinarily weak, but I never would have believed she could be conscious enough to talk and so utterly indifferent to everything that should concern her. When I told her about the money, saying it came from a friend, she murmured, “That’s all right,” and never asked who the friend was. She seemed to have no interest in the subject, or in any subject, for that matter. She makes me think of a brilliant, highly colored plant that a large stone has fallen on.