“I think I shall live to be very old,” he said, “and you will be just the same to me then as you are now.”
“Oh, Mendel!”
“Say that again!” he said, but she could not speak. Her eyes were brimming with tears and she hung her head. She longed to take him to her arms and to fondle him, to make him young, to charm away the pitiful old weary helplessness that he had. Reacting from this mood in her, which he did not understand and took for the first symptoms of surrender, he became wild and boastful, and clowned like a silly boy to attract her attention.
Her will set against him. She could not endure the sudden swoop from the highest sympathy to the gallantry of the streets, and when he was weary of his tricks she tried to bring him to his senses by asking him suddenly:—
“Is Logan a nice man?”
“He is my best friend. He has wonderful ideas and energy like a steam-engine, and he has suffered too. He is not like the art students who expect painting pictures to be as easy as knitting. He could have been almost anything, but he believes that art is the most important thing of all. He has made a great difference to me, by teaching me to be independent. . . . I will take you to see him one day.”
“I should like to meet him, because he has made a great difference in you.”
“He steals.”
That gave Morrison a shock, for Mendel seemed to be stating the fact as a recommendation.
“Yes. When he has no money he steals. I went with him once and we stole some reproductions.”