“That I don’t know,” said Tysoe. “Oliver said he would be here. She said it was your fault that they had quarrelled. . . . Poor girl! So pretty too! . . . I thought if you made it up with Logan, then he could make it up with her and we should all be happy again. We might have a nice little dinner of reconciliation at my house.”
“It is no use, no use whatever,” said Mendel. “Logan might go back to her, but he will never come back to me. We have gone different ways, not only in life, but in our work.”
“You won’t make it up?” asked Tysoe plaintively.
“No,” answered Mendel. “I should like to, but it is impossible. It is very good of you to try to intervene. Logan was my friend. He is no longer the same man. He is altered, he is changed, he is done for.”
“Nothing could ruin a man like that. It is disastrous, it is terrible that he should lose his friend and the girl he loves at one stroke. Kühler, I implore you, I entreat you, if he comes to see you, you will not refuse him.”
“If he comes I will see him, certainly,” said Mendel.
“Ah! That is all I want,” said Tysoe, beaming hopefully.
“But he will not come.”
“We shall find a way. We shall find a way. . . . Ah! superb!” he added, catching sight of Mendel’s green-faced Mother. “Ah! The new spirit at work in your art. Colour! What you have always wanted! . . . How—how much?”
“Ten pounds,” said Mendel.