'Say that kind of thing again,' he said calmly, 'and I walk straight out of that door, and you set eyes on me for the last time. That would be what you want, I dare say. All I wish to point out is, that you would be a great fool. I have not come here to-day to waste words, but to propose something to your advantage—your money-advantage,' he repeated deliberately, looking round the dismal building with its ill-mended gaps and rents, and its complete lack of the properties and appliances to which the humblest modern artist pretends. 'To judge from what I heard in Paris, and what I see, money is scarce here.'
His piteous sudden wish to soften her, to win a kind word from her, from anyone, had passed away. He was beginning to take command of her as in the old days.
'Well, maybe we are hard up,' she admitted slowly. 'People are such brutes and won't wait, and a sculptor has to pay out for a lot of things before he can make anything at all. But that statue will put it all right,' and she pointed behind her to the Maenad. 'It's me—it's the one you tried to put a stopper on.'
She looked at him darkly defiant. She was leaning back on one arm, her foot beating with the trick familiar to her. For reckless and evil splendour the figure was unsurpassable.
'When he sells that,' she went on, seeing that he did not answer, 'and he will sell it in a jiffy—it is the best he's ever done—there'll be heaps of money.'
David smiled.
'For a week perhaps. Then, if I understand this business aright—I have been doing my best, you perceive, to get information, and M. Montjoie seems to be better known than one supposed to half Paris—the game will begin again.'
'Never you mind,' she broke in, breathing quickly. 'Give me my money—the money that belongs to me—and let me alone.'
'On one condition,' he said quietly. 'That money, as you remember, is in my hands and at my disposal.'
'Ah! I supposed you would try to grab it!' she cried.