"I say, Kiddie," he cried aloud, "you needn't go off in a huff just because I was talking through my hat. Wait till I light a cigarette."
Though he was not sure that the bantering protest had deceived her, she pretended that it had; so the object aimed at was achieved. But Tollemache was of the tough fiber that regards no sacrifice as worth while unless it is complete.
"If you knew the facts, Yvonne, you'd never get mad with me when I talk about marrying anybody," he went on. "Why do I live in Pont Aven all the year round? Because it's cheap. Last year I earned three hundred and twenty francs for three pictures. At that rate of progress any girl who married me would jolly soon starve."
Yvonne remembered the famous three. Two were portraits of the oleograph order, in which Tollemache had shamelessly flattered his sitters. For these he received the three hundred francs. The twenty were paid for a sketch of a new villa which the builder wished to send to his mother-in-law! Still, she allowed herself to be surprised.
"Of course I knew you were only joking, Lorry," she said. "And while we are on the subject, I may as well tell you that I shall never leave my father. What you say about your means is rather astonishing, for all that. How can you possibly hire autos and live as you do?"
"Oh, I don't," he explained, with a sudden grimness of tone that she had never heard before. "My father pays all my bills,—living expenses, tailors, and that sort of thing, you know. The moment I marry without his approval I revert to my pocket-money allowance."
The girl knew they were trenching again on a dangerous topic. She was so exquisitely sensitive that she felt the imminence of some avowal that it would be better, perhaps, not to hear.
"What does money matter if we are happy?" she cried cheerfully. "And our small community in Pont Aven is a very united and pleasant one, don't you think?"
"Top notch," said he. "There's Ingersoll, coming down from the front. Bet you fifty centimes he has washed in a little gem—something I couldn't touch if I tried every day for ten years!"
"Dad is really very clever," agreed Yvonne, momentarily deaf to the irony of the words. "I often wonder why he has remained in our village eighteen years. People say he would soon find a place in Paris or New York. Sometimes I fancy that my mother's death must have distressed him beyond measure. He never speaks of her, even to me. Perhaps he can't bear to revive sad memories."