“Anyway you were always glad enough to see Millie Dixon; you didn’t do it out of pure self-sacrifice.”
“The National Gallery,” I continued, not heeding the interruption, “is one of the great storehouses of the world’s art. It is the pride of a great nation. I went there for purposes of study; but how did you profit by it? You used it for rubbing shoulders and squeezing hands.”
“I know how you profited by it,” said Mrs. Loring, laughing. “You used to study the water-colours down-stairs, and you got locked in one day. Millie Dixon, by the way, got locked in too.”
“Millie Dixon always had foresight,” I said musingly.
“But you never painted, and Millie Dixon did.”
“In spite of your insinuation, Mrs. Loring, I never ascertained that. Her complexion——”
“Then you ought to have done. Here are you two still hanging on in the same position as ten years ago. I gave Millicent a month if she knew her business. Loring and I didn’t take so long. I am disappointed in you. I’m sure it’s not Millie’s fault.”
That was hardly fair. Millie had never thrown herself at me.
“If you’d made love to Millicent,” she went on, “you’d not have been a lonely fat old bachelor, living in a horrid flat, and wasting your time at clubs and race meetings.”
“Mrs. Loring Chatterton,” I replied, “if I’d made love to Millicent I should have been just as—mature of outline, and should still have been a bachelor. It is my gift. I was born a bachelor. I should have said, 'Miss Dixon, if you love me, let me remain a bachelor.’ She would have said, 'As a bachelor you first loved me; be always my own bachelor.’ It is, alas! my single talent. I was made for singleness.”