Again under the penetrating gaze his host felt himself morbidly guilty, but there was a thrill of gladness in his heart that now welcomed the grim alternative of the boy's simple madness.
"Stay with me!" he cried. "Sleep here, and rest, and then—"
"Let me go to Maurice's!" cried the boy desperately. "You'll regret it if you don't! Oh, for the pity of God, for pity of yourself, let me leave you while I still offer to leave you!"
Mr. Montagu backed himself against the door.
"Why do you want to go there?" he demanded. "What is it you want to look at the women in Maurice's for?"
The boy hung fire under the determined voice.
"The—the women who go to Maurice's are—are—of a—certain kind, aren't they?"
"Some of them—most of them," said Mr. Montagu. "If you've never been there, why do you want so to go? They're not unusual; simply—painted women."
"Painted?" repeated the boy in astonishment. He turned to the portrait. "That's a painted woman, too. Aren't they alive at Maurice's?"
In his marvel at the enormous innocence of it, Mr. Montagu wondered, for the first time, what the young man's age could definitely be, but in a moment he remembered the one pitiful way to account for the pathetic question, and his voice was very gentle as he said: