This was the first note of discord which had been struck between the
two since the memorable night of the encounter near the cove. It was
struck deliberately by Lavirotte; O'Donnell could not guess why.
"I will not sing," said Eugene. "What is the matter with you,
Dominique? You seem to be in rather a brimstone humour to-day."
"Ah," said Lavirotte, shaking his head grimly, "the treacle period has
passed."
"Nonsense," said Eugene, "a young man like you! You ought to be
ashamed of yourself. A young man like you ought to be ashamed to give
way to such gloomy fancies. Look at me. I have not got even one chance
yet, and I have a wife and child depending on me."
"Ay," said Lavirotte, "a wife and a child! And I have no wife, no
child. I have earned a guinea, it is true, and you have earned
nothing, since we came to London. It doesn't make much difference
whether I ever earn another sovereign or not. What have I to live for?
What do a hundred days mean to me? In a hundred days, even if I go and
live at the tower, I shall be penniless."
"And I," said O'Donnell, "long before a hundred days, shall be a
pauper with my wife and child looking to me in vain for food. What
would you do, Dominique, if you found yourself without money, and a
wife and child asking you for bread?"
"Cut my throat."
"What? And leave them to starve?"
"Well, cut their throats, and hang for them."
"Men who talk about cutting their throats never do it."
"I own I don't think it's worth doing in my case. When a man has no
other way of making a stir in the world, he may get his name
prominently before the public by committing a great crime against his
neighbour, or a folly against himself. Eugene, I candidly own to you I
am no hero. I am, in fact, a bit of a coward, as you may know; for,
once upon a time, I did an unpardonably cowardly thing by you."
"Hush, man!" cried Eugene, "have we not agreed to banish that subject
for ever?"
"To banish it from our talk, ay. To banish it from our minds, never."
"I swear to you I never think of it, and it is ungenerous of you to
assume I ever think of it. Let us get away from these subjects, which
are even more gloomy than St. Prisca's Tower. Life is too short, and
the destroying influences of time too great, for such criminal
amusements as you are giving way to, Dominique. As sure as you go back
to that hideous tower you will fall into a melancholy. My dear old
friend, I can't afford to have you ill----"
"My dear old friend, you must afford to have me die."
"Upon my word, Dominique, you are intolerable. I will have no more of
your nonsense. When a man is in such infamous humour as you are now,
there is nothing so good for him as the sight of youth and beauty."
Eugene arose, opened the door, and called, "Nellie, bring the boy.
Here is Dominique in the blues."
In a minute in came the young mother, carrying the boy in her arms.
"Dominique in the blues!" she cried, laughing and shaking her rich
hair about her shoulders. "Do you hear that?" she said to her child.
"Uncle Dominique in a bad temper, Mark. What do you think of that?"
she said, as she handed the blue-eyed, curly-haired, sturdy child to
the Frenchman. "It is a bad example for a godfather to give his
godson. What! In the blues, Dominique! Must I go back and tidy my
hair? Eugene, how could you be so inconsiderate? You forget that when
a mother is engaged in minding a great big child like Mark, she can't
be as tidy as she would wish to be."
The boy went freely to Lavirotte, and put his arms round him and clung
to him, and called him "Dom," and told him his mother was very naughty
since she would not give him sweeties.
"Eugene," said Lavirotte, suddenly, "I once knew a man who had a child
about the age of this boy in my arms, and he was playing with the
child in a perfectly friendly way, as I am now playing with your
boy, and owing, mind you, to mere awkwardness, he let the child's
back--just here, the small of his back--somewhat rudely touch the edge
of a table, and the child lost the use of his lower limbs, and in
time, a hunch appeared upon his back. Amiable as you are, Eugene, I
wonder what you would say to me if, by accident, I hurt your boy so?"
"Dominique," cried the mother, hastily snatching her child from his
arms, "what do you mean? There is something queer about you. Your eyes
are too quiet for your words."
Lavirotte laughed. "My eyes are too quiet for my words," he said
"There is a good deal in that, and my mind may be too quiet for my
eyes or--the other way." Again he laughed.
"I cannot make you out to-day," said Eugene.
"Nor can I," said Mrs. O'Donnell. "Mark, what is the matter with
godfather?"
The child had but one thought. His godfather was ill. He stretched out
his hands to go to him.
Lavirotte shook his head sadly, and said: "You are safer where you
are."
Within a week Lavirotte once more took up his residence in St.
Prisca's Tower. For some days Eugene thought that the change had been
absolutely beneficial to his friend. Lavirotte's spirits seemed more
equable; he made no further allusion to the gloomy subjects which had,
for some time previous, haunted him. He told Eugene that he had no
notion how much more comfortable it was to practise alone, and in the
tower, than in the old Percy Street lodgings.
"In the first place," he said, "there is one of the lofts with nothing
on it, and you can hear much better in an empty room all that is
undesirable. I do four to six hours a day. Come and visit me in my new
diggings. You must come. Of course, it's out of the way. No one but
carters and fish-salesmen ever trouble Porter Street. But all so much
the better. You might shout loud enough to stop a clock, and not a
soul would hear. Come, you will come; you must come."
"I can't, go very well," said Eugene. "Nellie is out, and has left me
in charge of the boy."
"Let us take Mark with us," said Lavirotte. "We can get an omnibus at
the end of the street. It will amuse the child. Mark, wouldn't you
like to come in an omnibus?"
"Yes," cried the boy.
"There you are, Eugene. Just leave a line or word with the landlady,
and let us take the boy with us. He will be no trouble, and it is sure
to amuse him. An hour's practice with me will do you no harm, and you
have never yet been in my tower."
Eugene was persuaded, and went.
The inside of St. Prisca's was in exactly the same condition as when
Lavirotte had last lived there. In order to get from the ground floor
to the second loft it was still necessary to ascend by means of the
slater's ladder.
"I know the place better than you," said Lavirotte. "I'll carry the
child and lead the way."
When he was about to step from the ladder to the floor of the second
loft, he said, with a strange laugh: "It's upwards of thirty feet from
this to the top of the vault below. An awkward fall that would be. It
would be worse for Mark than even striking his back against the edge
of a table. Eh, Eugene?"
"In heaven's name, Dominique, what's the matter with you? This place
must have an unwholesome influence on you."
"Doubtless it has," laughed Lavirotte, "but we're up safe at last,
Mark."
"Yes, Uncle Dom," said the child. And that was his first experience of
St. Prisca's Tower.