When he had gone away, Morrison said:—
“I am going away soon.”
“Going away? But you mustn’t go away.”
“I have to go next week. My mother has fits of anxiety about my being in London every now and then, and she drags me off home. She has got one of them now. She can’t see that if any harm were going to happen to me it would have happened during my first year, when I didn’t know anything and was very lonely. I don’t think I’m very real to her, somehow.”
She gave a little shiver of distaste at the thought of going home.
“But you mustn’t go away,” said Mendel. “I want you, always.”
“And I want to be with you, but if I refused to go home now, I should have to go for always, for I should have no money.”
He was plunged into a dejected silence, and with hardly a word more he took her home.
They had a whole week of this warm happiness. He abandoned every other thought, every other pursuit, every other friend. He put aside his work to paint her portrait, and she came every day to his studio. At night he hardly slept at all for his longing for the next day to come and bring her to his studio, that now seemed immense, airy, ample even for such a giant as he felt. . . . He adored her even when she laughed, even when she teased him. He even learned occasionally to laugh at himself. It was worth it to see the amazing happiness he gave her.