“Do you good—best thing in the world.”
“I don’t see how I could.” The tone was uneasy. “I must have been beastly to her.”
Uncle William said nothing.
“She didn’t tell you?” The artist was looking at him.
“She? Lord, no! women don’t tell anything you’ve done to ’em—not if it’s anything bad.”
“I might have known. . . . I fairly turned her out. But she kept coming back. She wanted me to marry her, so she could stay and take care of me.” He was not looking at Uncle William.
“And you wouldn’t let her?”
“I couldn’t—There was no money,” he said at last.
Uncle William glanced about him in the clear dusk. “Comf’tabul place,” he said.
The artist flushed. “She pays the rent, I suppose. They would have turned me out long since. I haven’t asked, but I know she pays it. There is no one else.”