“You know, my dear girl, this is most annoying,” said he, with self-pitying drawl—“your taunts are in such bad taste—and it is so absolutely embarrassing. And—I so positively detest being embarrassed.”
She rose to her feet wearily:
“Ponsonby, all my things are packed, ready to go—Heaven knows there was not so much to pack—it is not that. I do not want to encumber you—to embarrass you. I am going. This place is not such a bewitching Paradise, nor its memories so sweet, that I should stay. I know your time at these rooms is up. But you—even you—must surely realize that I cannot go home where a harsh and bitterly religious step-father sits at the table.” She drooped her head: “I could not disguise my state for a day. And they are so religious.”
She fidgeted her fingers pathetically:
“No,” she moaned—“I cannot go home—there’s no smallest mercy in them.”
The Honourable Ponsonby broke into her mood:
“But—I say, my dear gal——”
How she had grown to hate the dreadful drawl!
“Ponsonby”—she grasped his arm feverishly, trying to rouse some honour in him—“I have no money—none. I shall soon be a mother. You have made it impossible for me to make money in the studios. At home,” she laughed sadly, “they think I am studying art.” She got a-brooding. “The child will require care.... Where, in God’s name, am I to go?”
“Well—er—I don’t really know. You see I’m so bad at arranging things.... Almost an ass in some things——”