“You had me in and stood me drinks. I can swear to that. My swell toff, I think you’d better knock under!�
Ponsonby had to arrive at that conclusion, thinking of his wedded happiness and the golden-brown hair scattered on the pillow upstairs. He was awed to the pitch of making overtures—of asking the Pantheress how much she would take to go?
The Pantheress sprang high. Twenty pounds.
Ponsonby had not as much in the house. With great difficulty, and much exercise of eloquence, he got her to bate five. It was necessary that she should be brought to forego another five, for all the ready cash he could muster did not amount to much more than ten. How to attain this desirable end? Ponsonby had a dramatic inspiration.
He had read many novels and seen many plays. In most of these the main plot turned upon the ultimate victory of Human Virtue and Truth over Vice and Disintegrity. In these books or dramas Vice was generally personified by an adventuress—a brazen, defiant person, who had made up her mind to ruin somebody or another; and Virtue, by an innocent girl or pure young wife, who pleaded until the hardened heart was melted, the fierce eyes moistened by an unaccustomed tear—until, in short, the naughty woman abandoned her unhallowed purpose and left the nice one mistress of the field. The theory is an admirable one in a book or in a play, but in real life it does not hold good. Ponsonby has since learned this; but at that time he was youngish and inexperienced.
He would weave a net, with those golden-brown tresses upstairs, in which to catch the Pantheress. He begged her to listen, and told his story quite prettily. He explained how, three years before, his regiment having newly returned from India, he had met at a certain South Coast resort, separated by a mile or two of arid common from a great dockyard town, a lovely girl. She was a friendless orphan, the daughter of a clergyman, had been a governess, had broken down in health, and, with the last remnant of her little savings, taken a humble lodging near the sea, in order to benefit by the ozone. How she had found, during her innocent strolls on the beach, not only that health of which she had been in search, but a husband. And, finally, how every fiber of her soul, being naturally bound up in that husband, and her present state of health delicate, the infliction of such a blow as the Pantheress contemplated striking might not only strike at the roots of love, but of life.
With which peroration counsel concluded, not wholly dissatisfied with himself. He wiped his brow, and sent a hopeful glance at the Pantheress. Her features had not softened, nor was her eye dimmed. Her lips twitched, certainly, but the convulsive movement was merely the herald of a yawn.
“You’re a good one to jaw!� she said, when he had finished. “Come, I’ll not be hard on you. How much have you got?�
He named the amount.
“Hand out!� the Pantheress bade him.