'Look you,' she continued, 'an artist pays his model at least a shilling an hour, and it is only her body he paints: but you use body and soul, and offer her nothing. Your blues and reds are the colours you have stolen from her eyes and her heart—stolen, I say, for the painter pays so much a tube for his colours, so much an hour for his model, but you—'
'I give you immortality. Poor fly, I give you amber,' modestly suggested the poet.
But Annette repeated the word 'Immortality!' with a scorn that almost shook the poet's conceit, and thereupon produced an account, which ran as follows:—
| 'Mr. Hyacinth Rondel | |
| Dr. to Miss Annette Jones, | |
| For moiety of the following royalties:— | |
| Moonshine and Meadowsweet, | 500 copies. |
| Coral and Bells, | 750 copies. |
| Liber Amoris, 3 editions, | 3,000 copies. |
| Forbidden Fruit, 5 editions, | 5,000 copies. |
| ——— | |
| 9,250 copies at 1s. | |
| = £462, 10s. | |
| Moiety of same due to Miss Jones, £231, 5s.' |
'I don't mind receipting it for two hundred and thirty,' she said, as she handed it to him.
Hyacinth was completely awakened by this: the joke was growing serious. So he at once roused up the bully in him, and ordered her out of his rooms. But she smiled at his threats, and still held out her account. At last he tried coaxing: he even had the insolence to beg her, by the memory of the past they had shared together, to spare him. He assured her that she had vastly overrated his profits, that fame meant far more cry than wool: that, in short, he was up to the neck in difficulties as it was, and really had nothing like that sum in his possession.
'Very well, then,' she replied at last, 'you must marry me instead. Either the money or the marriage. Personally, I prefer the money'—Rondel's egoism twinged like a hollow tooth—'and if you think you can escape me and do neither, look at this!' and she drew a revolver from her pocket.
'They are all loaded,' she added. 'Now, which is it to be?'
Rondel made a movement as if to snatch the weapon from her, but she sprang back and pointed it at his head.
'If you move, I fire.'