“It’s a very bad copy!” Stephen pronounced. Then he looked down at the girl, and the transforming smile lit up his face. “All the same—would I do instead of ‘Esmeralda’? I’ll buy it at once, if you wish it!”
The grey eyes brightened, beamed, then clouded with uncertainty.
“Really? Ought you? Are you sure? It may cost—”
“That’s my affair! Leave that to me. Would you like me to buy it?”
“I would!” came back at once in the deepest tone of the eloquent Irish voice, and at that Stephen strode forward, his limp hardly observable on the wide, smooth floor, and came to a halt by the grey girl’s side.
Then followed what was to one spectator at least, a delightful scene. The surprise on the grey girl’s face, the incredulity, the illimitable content, as the tall stranger made known his request, took out his pocket-book and handed her a card. Emotional Pixie had the softness of tears in her own eyes as Stephen rejoined her, and they walked away together down the long room.
“Well,” he said smiling, “on your head be it! Now she’ll go on painting atrocities, and wasting good time, when she might be sweeping a floor! It’s against my principles to encourage the desecration of art.”
“Why did you do it then?” Pixie demanded heartlessly, but next moment she smiled a beautiful smile. “I know! Thank you! Never mind about desecration. Art can look after itself, and she can’t! And even if that particular picture isn’t beautiful, you have given me another that is, the picture of her happy face! I think,” she concluded slowly, “it’s going to help me.—It will be a contrast to turn, to, when I see—that other!” She sighed, as she invariably did, when referring to those moments on the Liverpool landing-stage, but she shook off the depression with a characteristic gesture, a defiant little shake not only of the head, but of the whole body, and cried briskly: “Now let’s imagine what she does when she goes home with that cheque!”
At home in the little flat, music made part of every day’s programme. Pixie, seated on the hearthrug, would sing Irish ballads in a voice of crooning sweetness, she and Pat would join in duets, occasionally Stephen was persuaded to join in a trio, and presently, as the performers became “worked up” to their task, they would recall one by one performances of bygone days, and perform them afresh for the delectation of their visitor. Pixie whistled a bird-like accompaniment to Pat’s deep drone; Pat, retiring bashfully beneath a sheet, whistled in his turn not only an air, but actually at the same time an accompaniment thereto, a soprano and contralto combination of sounds, so marvellous to hear that he was compelled to repeat the performance unmasked, before Stephen would believe in its authenticity. Fired by the success of their efforts, combs were then produced, and, swathed in paper, turned into wind instruments of wondrous amenability. Surprising effect of a duet upon combs! Again, when towards the end of the week the repertoire gave out, and “What shall we sing next?” to fail of an answer, Pixie revived another old “Knock” accomplishment, which was neither more nor less than impromptu recitatives and choruses. A bass recitative by Pat, on the theme—“And she went—to find some mat-ches. And there—were—none... Tum-Tum!” led the way to the liveliest of choruses, in which, goaded by outstretched fingers and flashing eyes, Stephen was forced to take his part. “There were none!—there were none!” piped Pixie in the treble. “And she went—and she went!” rumbled Pat in the bass. “Matches! Matches!” fell from Stephen’s lips, on a repeated high tenor note. Through ever-increasing intricacies and elaborations ran the chorus, until at last at a signal from the soprano it approached its close, the three singers proclaimed in unison that “there—were—none!” and promptly fell back in their seats in paroxysms of laughter. In the course of the last twenty years, had he laughed as much as he had done within the last wonderful week? Stephen asked himself the question as he walked home the night after the singing of the “Matches” chorus, and there was little hesitation about the answer.
A week, ten days of unshadowed happiness and companionship, and then a cloud arose. Pat was not well; he grew worse; he grew seriously ill. The knee itself had done all that was expected of it, but the first attempt at walking, to which the poor fellow had looked forward as to a festival, proved in reality a painful and depressing experience. Back in his bed, limp with pain and exhaustion, poor Pat realised his own weakness with a poignancy of disappointment. He had expected to be able to walk at once, though not perhaps for any length of time, and these few stumbling steps had been a bitter revelation. All these weeks of confinement and suffering, and now a long and dragging convalescence! Pat’s heart swelled with bitterness and rebellion. Despite the presence of Pixie and the constant visits of his friend, he was sick, sick to death of the one small room, and the monotonous indoor life, and as a young man successfully started in a young business, he longed with ardour to get back to his work.