The Works of Rudyard Kipling Part 130

"I think not, dear. It would be kindest not to see me any more, please.

I don't want to seem rude, but--don't you think--perhaps you had almost better go now."

He was conscious that he could not bear himself as a man if the strain continued much longer.

"I don't deserve anything else. I'll go, d.i.c.k. Oh, I'm so miserable."

"Nonsense. You've nothing to worry about; I'd tell you if you had. Wait a moment, dear. I've got something to give you first. I meant it for you ever since this little trouble began. It's my Melancolia; she was a beauty when I last saw her. You can keep her for me, and if ever you're poor you can sell her. She's worth a few hundreds at any state of the market." He groped among his canvases. "She's framed in black. Is this a black frame that I have my hand on? There she is. What do you think of her?"

He turned a scarred formless muddle of paint towards Maisie, and the eyes strained as though they would catch her wonder and surprise. One thing and one thing only could she do for him.

"Well?"

The voice was fuller and more rounded, because the man knew he was speaking of his best work. Maisie looked at the blur, and a lunatic desire to laugh caught her by the throat. But for d.i.c.k's sake--whatever this mad blankness might mean--she must make no sign. Her voice choked with hard-held tears as she answered, still gazing at the wreck--"Oh, d.i.c.k, it is good!"

He heard the little hysterical gulp and took it for tribute. "Won't you have it, then? I'll send it over to your house if you will."

"I? Oh yes--thank you. Ha! ha!" If she did not fly at once the laughter that was worse than tears would kill her. She turned and ran, choking and blinded, down the staircases that were empty of life to take refuge in a cab and go to her house across the Parks. There she sat down in the dismantled drawing-room and thought of d.i.c.k in his blindness, useless till the end of life, and of herself in her own eyes. Behind the sorrow, the shame, and the humiliation, lay fear of the cold wrath of the red-haired girl when Maisie should return. Maisie had never feared her companion before. Not until she found herself saying, "Well, he never asked me," did she realise her scorn of herself. And that is the end of Maisie.

For d.i.c.k was reserved more searching torment. He could not realise at first that Maisie, whom he had ordered to go had left him without a word of farewell. He was savagely angry against Torpenhow, who had brought upon him this humiliation and troubled his miserable peace. Then his dark hour came and he was alone with himself and his desires to get what help he could from the darkness. The queen could do no wrong, but in following the right, so far as it served her work, she had wounded her one subject more than his own brain would let him know.

"It's all I had and I've lost it," he said, as soon as the misery permitted clear thinking. "And Torp will think that he has been so infernally clever that I shan't have the heart to tell him. I must think this out quietly."

"Hullo!" said Torpenhow, entering the studio after d.i.c.k had enjoyed two hours of thought. "I'm back. Are you feeling any better?"

"Torp, I don't know what to say. Come here." d.i.c.k coughed huskily, wondering, indeed, what he should say, and how to say it temperately.

"What's the need for saying anything? Get up and tramp." Torpenhow was perfectly satisfied.

They walked up and down as of custom, Torpenhow's hand on d.i.c.k's shoulder, and d.i.c.k buried in his own thoughts.

"How in the world did you find it all out?" said d.i.c.k, at last.

"You shouldn't go off your head if you want to keep secrets, d.i.c.kie. It was absolutely impertinent on my part; but if you'd seen me rocketing about on a half-trained French troop-horse under a blazing sun you'd have laughed. There will be a charivari in my rooms tonight. Seven other devils----"

"I know--the row in the Southern Soudan. I surprised their councils the other day, and it made me unhappy. Have you fixed your flint to go? Who d'you work for?"

"Haven't signed any contracts yet. I wanted to see how your business would turn out."

"Would you have stayed with me, then, if--things had gone wrong?" He put his question cautiously.

"Don't ask me too much. I'm only a man."

"You've tried to be an angel very successfully."

"Oh ye--es!... Well, do you attend the function tonight? We shall be half screwed before the morning. All the men believe the war's a certainty."

"I don't think I will, old man, if it's all the same to you. I'll stay quiet here."

"And meditate? I don't blame you. You observe a good time if ever a man did."

That night there was a tumult on the stairs. The correspondents poured in from theatre, dinner, and music-hall to Torpenhow's room that they might discuss their plan of campaign in the event of military operations becoming a certainty. Torpenhow, the Keneu, and the Nilghai had bidden all the men they had worked with to the orgy; and Mr. Beeton, the housekeeper, declared that never before in his checkered experience had he seen quite such a fancy lot of gentlemen. They waked the chambers with shoutings and song; and the elder men were quite as bad as the younger. For the chances of war were in front of them, and all knew what those meant.

Sitting in his own room a little perplexed by the noise across the landing, d.i.c.k suddenly began to laugh to himself.

"When one comes to think of it the situation is intensely comic.

Maisie's quite right--poor little thing. I didn't know she could cry like that before; but now I know what Torp thinks, I'm sure he'd be quite fool enough to stay at home and try to console me--if he knew.

Besides, it isn't nice to own that you've been thrown over like a broken chair. I must carry this business through alone--as usual. If there isn't a war, and Torp finds out, I shall look foolish, that's all. If there is a way I mustn't interfere with another man's chances. Business is business, and I want to be alone--I want to be alone. What a row they're making!"

Somebody hammered at the studio door.

"Come out and frolic, d.i.c.kie," said the Nilghai.

"I should like to, but I can't. I'm not feeling frolicsome."

"Then, I'll tell the boys and they'll drag you like a badger."

"Please not, old man. On my word, I'd sooner be left alone just now."

"Very good. Can we send anything in to you? Fizz, for instance.

Ca.s.savetti is beginning to sing songs of the Sunny South already."

For one minute d.i.c.k considered the proposition seriously.

"No, thanks, I've a headache already."

"Virtuous child. That's the effect of emotion on the young. All my congratulations, d.i.c.k. I also was concerned in the conspiracy for your welfare."

"Go to the devil--oh, send Binkie in here."

The little dog entered on elastic feet, riotous from having been made much of all the evening. He had helped to sing the choruses; but scarcely inside the studio he realised that this was no place for tail-wagging, and settled himself on d.i.c.k's lap till it was bedtime.

Then he went to bed with d.i.c.k, who counted every hour as it struck, and rose in the morning with a painfully clear head to receive Torpenhow's more formal congratulations and a particular account of the last night's revels.

"You aren't looking very happy for a newly accepted man," said Torpenhow.

"Never mind that--it's my own affair, and I'm all right. Do you really go?"

"Yes. With the old Central Southern as usual. They wired, and I accepted on better terms than before."

"When do you start?"

"The day after tomorrow--for Brindisi."

"Thank G.o.d." d.i.c.k spoke from the bottom of his heart.

"Well, that's not a pretty way of saying you're glad to get rid of me.

But men in your condition are allowed to be selfish."