The Light That Failed Part 9

What's the use of worrying? Come to me instead, darling.'

Maisie poked the gravel with her parasol. They were sitting on a bench.

'I understand,' she said slowly. 'But I've got my work to do, and I must do it.'

'Do it with me, then, dear. I won't interrupt.'

'No, I couldn't. It's my work,--mine,--mine,--mine! I've been alone all my life in myself, and I'm not going to belong to anybody except myself.

I remember things as well as you do, but that doesn't count. We were babies then, and we didn't know what was before us. d.i.c.k, don't be selfish. I think I see my way to a little success next year. Don't take it away from me.'

'I beg your pardon, darling. It's my fault for speaking stupidly. I can't expect you to throw up all your life just because I'm back. I'll go to my own place and wait a little.'

'But, d.i.c.k, I don't want you to--go--out of--my life, now you've just come back.'

'I'm at your orders; forgive me.' d.i.c.k devoured the troubled little face with his eyes. There was triumph in them, because he could not conceive that Maisie should refuse sooner or later to love him, since he loved her.

'It's wrong of me,' said Maisie, more slowly than before; 'it's wrong and selfish; but, oh, I've been so lonely! No, you misunderstand. Now I've seen you again,--it's absurd, but I want to keep you in my life.'

'Naturally. We belong.'

'We don't; but you always understood me, and there is so much in my work that you could help me in. You know things and the ways of doing things.

You must.'

'I do, I fancy, or else I don't know myself. Then you won't care to lose sight of me altogether, and--you want me to help you in your work?'

'Yes; but remember, d.i.c.k, nothing will ever come of it. That's why I feel so selfish. Can't things stay as they are? I do want your help.'

'You shall have it. But let's consider. I must see your pics first, and overhaul your sketches, and find out about your tendencies. You should see what the papers say about my tendencies! Then I'll give you good advice, and you shall paint according. Isn't that it, Maisie?'

Again there was triumph in d.i.c.k's eye.

'It's too good of you,--much too good. Because you are consoling yourself with what will never happen, and I know that, and yet I want to keep you. Don't blame me later, please.'

'I'm going into the matter with my eyes open. Moreover the Queen can do no wrong. It isn't your selfishness that impresses me. It's your audacity in proposing to make use of me.'

'Pooh! You're only d.i.c.k,--and a print-shop.'

'Very good: that's all I am. But, Maisie, you believe, don't you, that I love you? I don't want you to have any false notions about brothers and sisters.'

Maisie looked up for a moment and dropped her eyes.

'It's absurd, but--I believe. I wish I could send you away before you get angry with me. But--but the girl that lives with me is red-haired, and an impressionist, and all our notions clash.'

'So do ours, I think. Never mind. Three months from to-day we shall be laughing at this together.'

Maisie shook her head mournfully. 'I knew you wouldn't understand, and it will only hurt you more when you find out. Look at my face, d.i.c.k, and tell me what you see.'

They stood up and faced each other for a moment. The fog was gathering, and it stifled the roar of the traffic of London beyond the railings.

d.i.c.k brought all his painfully acquired knowledge of faces to bear on the eyes, mouth, and chin underneath the black velvet toque.

'It's the same Maisie, and it's the same me,' he said. 'We've both nice little wills of our own, and one or other of us has to be broken. Now about the future. I must come and see your pictures some day,--I suppose when the red-haired girl is on the premises.'

'Sundays are my best times. You must come on Sundays. There are such heaps of things I want to talk about and ask your advice about. Now I must get back to work.'

'Try to find out before next Sunday what I am,' said d.i.c.k. 'Don't take my word for anything I've told you. Good-bye, darling, and bless you.'

Maisie stole away like a little gray mouse. d.i.c.k watched her till she was out of sight, but he did not hear her say to herself, very soberly, 'I'm a wretch,--a horrid, selfish wretch. But it's d.i.c.k, and d.i.c.k will understand.'

No one has yet explained what actually happens when an irresistible force meets the immovable post, though many have thought deeply, even as d.i.c.k thought. He tried to a.s.sure himself that Maisie would be led in a few weeks by his mere presence and discourse to a better way of thinking. Then he remembered much too distinctly her face and all that was written on it.

'If I know anything of heads,' he said, 'there's everything in that face but love. I shall have to put that in myself; and that chin and mouth won't be won for nothing. But she's right. She knows what she wants, and she's going to get it. What insolence! Me! Of all the people in the wide world, to use me! But then she's Maisie. There's no getting over that fact; and it's good to see her again. This business must have been simmering at the back of my head for years.... She'll use me as I used Binat at Port Said.

She's quite right. It will hurt a little. I shall have to see her every Sunday,--like a young man courting a housemaid. She's sure to come around; and yet--that mouth isn't a yielding mouth. I shall be wanting to kiss her all the time, and I shall have to look at her pictures,--I don't even know what sort of work she does yet,--and I shall have to talk about Art,--Woman's Art! Therefore, particularly and perpetually, d.a.m.n all varieties of Art. It did me a good turn once, and now it's in my way. I'll go home and do some Art.'

Half-way to the studio, d.i.c.k was smitten with a terrible thought. The figure of a solitary woman in the fog suggested it.

'She's all alone in London, with a red-haired impressionist girl, who probably has the digestion of an ostrich. Most red-haired people have.

Maisie's a bilious little body. They'll eat like lone women,--meals at all hours, and tea with all meals. I remember how the students in Paris used to pig along. She may fall ill at any minute, and I shan't be able to help.

Whew! this is ten times worse than owning a wife.'

Torpenhow entered the studio at dusk, and looked at d.i.c.k with eyes full of the austere love that springs up between men who have tugged at the same oar together and are yoked by custom and use and the intimacies of toil. This is a good love, and, since it allows, and even encourages, strife, recrimination, and brutal sincerity, does not die, but grows, and is proof against any absence and evil conduct.

d.i.c.k was silent after he handed Torpenhow the filled pipe of council. He thought of Maisie and her possible needs. It was a new thing to think of anybody but Torpenhow, who could think for himself. Here at last was an outlet for that cash balance. He could adorn Maisie barbarically with jewelry,--a thick gold necklace round that little neck, bracelets upon the rounded arms, and rings of price upon her hands,--the cool, temperate, ringless hands that he had taken between his own. It was an absurd thought, for Maisie would not even allow him to put one ring on one finger, and she would laugh at golden trappings. It would be better to sit with her quietly in the dusk, his arm around her neck and her face on his shoulder, as befitted husband and wife. Torpenhow's boots creaked that night, and his strong voice jarred. d.i.c.k's brows contracted and he murmured an evil word because he had taken all his success as a right and part payment for past discomfort, and now he was checked in his stride by a woman who admitted all the success and did not instantly care for him.

'I say, old man,' said Torpenhow, who had made one or two vain attempts at conversation, 'I haven't put your back up by anything I've said lately, have I?'

'You! No. How could you?'

'Liver out of order?'

'The truly healthy man doesn't know he has a liver. I'm only a bit worried about things in general. I suppose it's my soul.'

'The truly healthy man doesn't know he has a soul. What business have you with luxuries of that kind?'

'It came of itself. Who's the man that says that we're all islands shouting lies to each other across seas of misunderstanding?'

'He's right, whoever he is,--except about the misunderstanding. I don't think we could misunderstand each other.'

The blue smoke curled back from the ceiling in clouds. Then Torpenhow, insinuatingly--'d.i.c.k, is it a woman?'

'Be hanged if it's anything remotely resembling a woman; and if you begin to talk like that, I'll hire a red-brick studio with white paint tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, and begonias and petunias and blue Hungarias to play among three-and-sixpenny pot-palms, and I'll mount all my pics in aniline-dye plush plasters, and I'll invite every woman who maunders over what her guide-books tell her is Art, and you shall receive 'em, Torp,--in a snuff-brown velvet coat with yellow trousers and an orange tie. You'll like that?'

'Too thin, d.i.c.k. A better man than you once denied with cursing and swearing. You've overdone it, just as he did. It's no business of mine, of course, but it's comforting to think that somewhere under the stars there's saving up for you a tremendous thrashing. Whether it'll come from heaven or earth, I don't know, but it's bound to come and break you up a little. You want hammering.'

d.i.c.k shivered. 'All right,' said he. 'When this island is disintegrated, it will call for you.'

'I shall come round the corner and help to disintegrate it some more.