“You’ll probably think of some place to go to while you’re moving,” said Dick. “On to Euston, to begin with, and—oh yes—get drunk to-night.”
He returned to the studio, and lighted more candles, for he found the room very dark.
“Oh, you Jezebel! you futile little Jezebel! Won’t you hate me to-morrow!—Binkie, come here.”
Binkie turned over on his back on the hearth-rug, and Dick stirred him with a meditative foot.
“I said she was not immoral. I was wrong. She said she could cook. That showed premeditated sin. Oh, Binkie, if you are a man you will go to perdition; but if you are a woman, and say that you can cook, you will go to a much worse place.”
CHAPTER X
What’s you that follows at my side?—
The foe that ye must fight, my lord.—
That hirples swift as I can ride?—
The shadow of the night, my lord.—
Then wheel my horse against the foe!—
He’s down and overpast, my lord.
Ye war against the sunset glow;
The darkness gathers fast, my lord.
—The Fight of Heriot’s Ford.
“This is a cheerful life,” said Dick, some days later. “Torp’s away; Bessie hates me; I can’t get at the notion of the Melancolia; Maisie’s letters are scrappy; and I believe I have indigestion. What give a man pains across the head and spots before his eyes, Binkie? Shall us take some liver pills?”
Dick had just gone through a lively scene with Bessie. She had for the fiftieth time reproached him for sending Torpenhow away. She explained her enduring hatred for Dick, and made it clear to him that she only sat for the sake of his money. “And Mr. Torpenhow’s ten times a better man than you,” she concluded.
“He is. That’s why he went away. I should have stayed and made love to you.”