July brought in halcyon days for everybody.
They were halcyon days for Clementina. There were neglected portraits to
complete, new sitters for whom to squeeze in appointments, a host of
stimulating things, not the least of which was the beloved atmosphere,
half-turpentine, half-poetry, of the studio. Only the painter can know
the delight of the mere feel of the long-forsaken brush, and the sight
of the blobs of colour oozing out from the tubes on to the palette. Most
of us, returning to toil after holiday, sigh over departed joys. To the
painter the joy of getting back to his easel is worth all the joys that
have departed. Clementina plunged into work as a long-stranded duck
plunges into water. By rising at dawn, a practice contrary to her habit,
she managed to keep pace with her work and to attend to the various
affairs which her new responsibilities entailed. Her days were filled to
overflowing, and filled with extraordinary happiness. A nurse was
engaged for Sheila, a kind and buxom widow who also found herself living
in halcyon days. She could do practically whatever she liked, as her
charge was seldom in her company. The child had her being in the studio,
playing happily and quietly in a corner, thus realising Clementina’s
dream, or watching her paint, with great, wondering eyes. The process
fascinated her. She would sit for an hour at a time, good as gold,
absorbed in the magic of the brush-strokes, clasping the dingy Pinkie
tight against her bosom. Tommy appeared one day with a box of paints, a
miniature easel, and a great mass of uncoloured fashion-plates of
beautiful ladies in gorgeous raiment. A lesson or two inspired Sheila
with artistic zeal, so that often a sitter would come upon the two of
them painting breathlessly, Clementina screwing up her eyes, darting
backwards and forwards to her canvas, and the dainty child seated on a
milking-stool and earnestly making animated rainbows of the beautiful
ladies in the fashion-plates.
Then there was the tedious process of obtaining probate of Hammersley’s
will. Luckily, he had wound up all his affairs in Shanghai, to the
common satisfaction of himself and his London house, so that no
complications arose from the latter quarter. Indeed, the firm gave the
executors its cordial assistance. But the London house had to be
interviewed, and lawyers had to be interviewed, and Quixtus and all
kinds of other people, and papers had to be read and signed, and
affidavits to be made, and head-splitting intricacies of business and
investments to be mastered. All this ate up many of the sunny hours.
Tommy and Etta had halcyon days of their own, which, but by the free use
of curmudgeonly roughness, would have merged into Clementina’s. Etta had
cajoled an infuriated admiral, raving round the room after a horsewhip,
into a stern parent who consented to receive Tommy, explicitly reserving
to himself the right to throw him out of window should the young man not
take his fancy. Tommy called and was allowed to depart peacefully by the
front door. Then Quixtus; incited thereto by Tommy, called upon the
Admiral with the awful solemnity of a father in a French play, with the
result that Tommy was invited to dinner at the Admiral’s and given as
much excellent old port as he could stand. After which the Admiral
called on Clementina, whom he had not met before. During the throes of
horsewhip hunting he had threatened to visit her there and then and give
her a piece of his mind—which at that moment was more like a hunk of
molten lava than anything else. But the arts and wiles of Etta had
prevailed so that the above scheduled sequence of events had been
observed. Clementina, caught in the middle of a hot afternoon’s
painting, received him, bedaubed and bedraggled, in the studio, whose
chaos happened to be that day more than usually confounded. The Admiral,
accustomed to the point-device females of his world, and making the
spick and span of the quarter-deck a matter of common morality in
material surroundings, went from Romney Place an obfuscated man.
“I can’t make your friend out,” he said to Etta. “I don’t mind telling
you that if I had seen her, I should never have allowed you to visit
her. I found her looking more like a professional rabbit-skinner than a
lady, and when I went to sit down I had to clear away a horrid plate of
half-finished cold pie, by George, from the chair. She contradicted me
flatly in everything I said about you—as if I didn’t know my own
child—and filled me up with advice.”
“And wasn’t it good, dear?”
“No advice is ever good. Like Nebuchadnezzar’s food, it may be wholesome
but it isn’t good. And then she turned round and talked the most
downright common sense about women I’ve ever heard a woman utter. And
then, by Jove, I don’t know how it happened—I never talk shop, you
know——”
“Of course you don’t, dear, never,” said Etta.
“Of course I don’t—but somehow we got on to the subject, and she showed
a more intelligent appreciation of the state of naval affairs than any
man I’ve met for a long time! As for those superficial, theoretical
donkeys at the Club——”
“And what else, darling?” said Etta, who had often heard about the
donkeys, but now was dying to hear about Clementina. “Do tell me what
she talked about. She must have talked about me. Didn’t she?”
“About you! I’ve told you.” He took her chin in his hand—she was
sitting on a footstool, her arms about his knee.
“You can’t have told me everything, dear.”
“I think she informed me that her selection of a husband for you was a
damned sight better than mine—I beg your pardon, my dear, she didn’t
say ‘damned’—and then the little girl you’re always talking of came in,
and the rabbit-skinner seemed to turn into an ordinary sort of woman and
took me up, and, in a way, threw me down on the floor to play with the
child.”
“What did you play at, dad? When I was little you used to pretend to
swallow a fork. Did you swallow a fork?”
The iron features relaxed into a smile.
“I did, my dear, and it was the cold pie fork, wiped on a bit of
newspaper. And last of all, what do you think she said?”
“No one on earth could guess, dear, what Clementina might have said.”
“She actually asked me to sit for a crayon sketch. Said my face was
interesting to her as an artist, and she would like to make a study of
it for her own pleasure. Now what pleasure could anybody on earth find
in looking at my ugly old mug?”
“But, dear, you have a most beautiful mug,” cried Etta. “I don’t mean
beautiful like the photographs of popular actors—but full of strength
and character—just the fine face that appeals to the artist.”
“Do you think so?” asked the Admiral.
“I’m sure.” She ran to a little table and brought a Florentine mirror.
“Look.”
He looked. Instinctively the man of sixty-five touched the
finely-curving grizzled hair about his temples.
“You’re a silly child,” said he.
She kissed him. “Now confess. You had the goodest of good times with
Clementina this afternoon.”
“I don’t mind owning,” said the Admiral, “that I found her a most
intelligent woman.”
And that is the way that all of us sons of Adam, even Admirals of the
British Fleet, can be beguiled by the daughters of Eve.
Halcyon days were they for Quixtus, for whom London wore an entirely
different aspect from the Aceldama he had left. Instead of its streets
and squares stretching out before him as the scene of potential devilry,
it smiled upon him as the centre of manifold pleasant interests. He had
the great work to attack, the final picture that mortal knowledge could
draw of that far off, haunting phase of human life before the startling
use of iron was known to mankind. It was not to be a dull catalogue of
dead things. The dead things, a million facts, were to be the skeleton
on which he would build his great vivid flesh-and-blood story—the dream
of his life, which only now did he feel the vital impulse to realise. He
had his club and his cronies, harmless folk, beneath whose mild exterior
he no longer divined horrible corruption. From them all he received
congratulations on his altered mien. The change had done him good. He
was looking ten years younger. Some chaffed him, after the way of men.
Wonderful place, Paris. He found a stimulating interest in his new
responsibilities. Vestiges of his perfunctory legal training remained
and enabled him to unravel simple complications in the Hammersley
affairs, much to Clementina’s admiration and his own satisfaction. He
discovered a pleasure once more in the occasional society of Tommy, and
concerned himself seriously with his love-making and his painting. He
spoke of him to Dawkins, the rich donor of the Anthropological Society
portrait, to whom Tommy had alluded with such disrespect to Clementina.
Dawkins visited Tommy’s studio and walked away with a couple of
pictures, after having paid such a price as to make the young man regard
him as a fairy godfather in vast white waistcoat and baggy trousers.
Quixtus also entertained Tommy and Etta at lunch at the Carlton, Mrs.
Fontaine completing the quartette. “I should have liked it better,” said
Clementina, when she heard of the incident (as she heard all that
happened to the lovers), “I should have liked it better if he hadn’t
brought Mrs. Fontaine into it.” Whereat Tommy winked at Etta, unbeknown
to Clementina.
Quixtus’s friendship with the spotless flower of womanhood continued. He
had tea with her in her prettily-furnished little house in Pont Street,
where he met several of her acquaintances, people of unquestionable
position in the London world, and attended one or two receptions and
even a dance at which she was present. Very skilfully she drew him into
her circle and adroitly played him in public as a serious aspirant to
her spotless hand. There were many who called him the variegated
synonyms of a fool, for to hard-bitten worldlings few illusions are left
concerning a woman like Lena Fontaine; but they shrugged their shoulders
cynically, and viewed the capture with amused interest. Only the most
jaded complained. If she wanted to give them a sensation, why did she
not go a step further and lead about a bishop on her string? But these
uncharitable remarks did not reach Quixtus’s ears. The word went round
that he was a man of distinguished scientific position—whether he was a
metallurgist or a brain specialist no one at the tired end of the London
season either knew or cared to know—and, his courtly and scholarly
demeanour confirming the rumour, the corner of Vanity Fair in which Lena
Fontaine fought to hold her position paid him considerable deference.
The flattery of the frivolous pleased him, as it has pleased many a
good, simple man before him. He thought Mrs. Fontaine’s friends very
charming, though perhaps not over-intellectual people. He went among
them, however, scarce knowing why. A card of invitation would come by
post from Lady Anything, whom he had once met. Before he had time to
obey his first impulse and decline, Lena Fontaine’s voice would be heard
over the telephone.
“Are you going to Lady Anything’s on Friday?”
“I don’t think so.”
“She has asked you, I know. I’m going.”
“Oh?”
“Do come. Lady Anything tells me she has got some interesting people to
meet you; and I shall be so miserable if you’re not there.”
Who was he to cause misery to the spotless lady? The victim yielded, and
blandly unconscious of feminine guile was paraded before the interesting
people as the latest and most lasting conquest of Lena Fontaine’s bow
and spear.
August plans were discussed. She was thinking of Dinard. What was
Quixtus proposing to do? He had not considered the question. Had
contemplated work in London. She held up her hands. London in August!
How could he exist in the stuffy place? He needed a real holiday.
“To tell you the truth, I don’t know where to go,” said he.
Very delicately she suggested Dinard. He objected in his shy way. Dinard
was the haunt of fashion and frivolity.
“I should walk about the place like a daw among peacocks,” said he.
“But why should you be a daw? Why not do a little peacocking? Colour in
life would be good for you. And I would undertake to keep your feathers
trim.”
He smiled, half-allured, half-repelled by the idea of strutting among
such gay birds. To refuse the spotless lady’s request downright was an
act of discourtesy of which he was incapable. He gave a vague and
qualified assent to the proposal, which she did not then tempt him to
make more definite. Content with her progress, she bided her time.
Quixtus had little leisure to reflect on the sceptical attitude towards
humanity which, theoretically, he still maintained. In addition to all
these hour-absorbing interests, Sheila began to occupy a considerable
place in his life. Sometimes he would call at Romney Place; sometimes
Clementina would bring the child to Russell Square; sometimes, when
Clementina was too busy, Sheila came in the nurse’s charge. He cleared
out a large room at the top of the house, which was to be Sheila’s
nursery when she took up her quarters there. It needed re-papering,
re-carpeting, re-furnishing, he decided. Nothing like cheerful
surroundings for impressionable childhood. With this in view, he carried
off Sheila one day to a firm of wall-paper dealers, so that she could
choose a pattern for herself. Sheila sat solemnly on the sofa by his
side while the polite assistant turned over great strips of paper. At
last she decided. A bewildering number of parrots to the square yard,
all with red bodies and blue tails, darting about among green foliage on
which pink roses grew miraculously, was the chosen design. Quixtus
hesitated; but Sheila was firm. They proudly took home a strip to try
against the wall. Clementina, hearing from Sheila of her exploit, rushed
up the next afternoon to Russell Square, and blinked her eyes before the
dazzling thing.
“It’s only you, Ephraim, that could have taken a child of five to select
wall-papers.”
“I will own that the result is disastrous,” he said, ruefully. “But she
set her heart upon it.”
She sighed. “You’re two babies together. I see I’ve got to fix up that
nursery myself.” She looked at him with a woman’s delicious pity. What
could a lone man know of the fitting up of nurseries?
“You hear what your auntie says?” he asked—the child was sitting on his
knee. “We’re in disgrace.”
“If you’re in disgrace you go in the corner,” said Sheila.
“Let us go in the corner, then.”
“If you hold me very tight,” said Sheila.
But Clementina came up and forgave them, and kissed the little face
peeping over Quixtus’s shoulder.
“It does my heart good to see you with her,” she cried, with rare
demonstrativeness.
It was true. Sheila’s sweet ways with Tommy and Etta caused her ever so
little a pang of jealousy. Her increasing fondness for Quixtus made
Clementina thrill with pleasure. You may say that Clementina,
essentially just, was scrupulous not to encroach upon Quixtus’s legal
half-share in the child’s esteem. But a sense of justice is not an
emotion. And it was emotion, silly, feminine, romantic emotion, which
she did not try to explain to herself, that filled her eyes with
moisture whenever she saw the two happy together.
She laid her hand upon the fair hair.
“Do you love your Uncle Ephim?”
“I adore him,” said Sheila.
“Your uncle fully reciprocates the sentiment, my dear,” said Quixtus,
his hand also instinctively rising to caress the hair.
So the hands of the guardians touched. Clementina withdrew hers and
turned away quickly, so that he should not see the flush that sprang
into her face.
“We must be getting home now, dear,” she said. “Auntie is wasting
precious daylight.” And with her old abruptness she left him.
He followed her down the stairs. “My dear Clementina,” said he, standing
bareheaded at his front door, “I wonder whether you realise how Sheila
and yourself light up this dull old house for me.”
She sniffed scornfully. “_I_ light up?”
“_You_,” said he, with smiling emphasis.
She looked at him queerly for an instant, and then went her way.
The next time he saw her, a few days afterwards, one late afternoon,
when she was tired after a heavy day’s painting, she railed at him, with
a return of her old biting manner. He looked surprised and pained. She
relented.
“Forgive me, my good Ephraim,” she said, “but I’ve the rough luck to be
a woman. No man alive can ever conjecture what a devil of a thing that
is to be.”
He smiled. “You mustn’t overwork,” said he. “A woman hasn’t the brute
strength of a man.”
“You’re delicious!” she said.
But she was kind—exceedingly kind, to him thereafter, and fitted up the
nursery in a way that made the two babies beam with delight. So Quixtus
lived halcyon days.
In spite of qualms of conscience, these were halcyon days for Huckaby.
He had already entered on his duties as Quixtus’s assistant in the
preparation of the monumental work on “The Household Arts of the
Neolithic Age.” There were hundreds of marked passages in books to
transcribe, with accurate notes of reference, hundreds of learned
periodicals in all languages with articles bearing on the subject to be
condensed and indexed, thousands of notes of Quixtus’s to be collated,
thousands of photographs and drawings to be classified. Never having
been admitted into the inner factory of his patron’s work, he was
astonished at the enormous amount of material, the evidence of the
unsuspected patient labour of years. He began to feel a new respect for
Quixtus, whom hitherto he had regarded as a dilettante. Of course, he
knew that Quixtus had a European reputation. He had not taken the
reputation seriously. Like Clementina, he had been wont to scoff at
prehistoric man. Now he realised for the first time that a man cannot
gain a European reputation in any branch of human activity without
paying the price in toil; that there are qualities of energy, brain and
will inherent in any man who takes front rank; that there must be a
calm, infinite thoroughness in his work which is beyond the power of the
smaller man. No wonder his French colleagues called Quixtus _cher
maître_, and deferred to his judgment. In his workroom Quixtus was a
great man, and Huckaby, seeing him now in his workroom; recognised the
fact.
The prospects of his appointment as secretary to the Anthropological
Society were also fair. Hitherto the responsibilities of that position
had been borne by one of the members in an honorary capacity, a paid and
unimportant underling performing the clerical duties. But for the last
year or so the operations of the society having extended, the
secretaryship had become too great a tax on the time of any unpaid and
no matter how enthusiastic gentleman. The Council therefore had
practically determined on the appointment of a salaried secretary, and
were much impressed by the qualifications of the President’s nominee. A
secretary who can print below his name on official papers the fact that
he is a Master of Arts and late Fellow of his College lends distinction
to any learned society. A snuffy, seedy, and crotchety member had been
put forward as an opposition candidate. But his chances were small.
Huckaby’s star was in the ascendant.
It was a happy day for him when he moved his books and few other
belongings from the evil garret where he had lived to modest but
cheerful lodgings near Russell Square. He looked for the last time
around the room which had been the scene of so many degradations, of so
many despairs, of so many torturings of soul. All that was a part of his
past life; the greasy wall-paper, the rickety deal furniture, the
filth-sodden, ragged carpet, the slimy soot on the window-sill that had
crept in from the circumambient chimney-stacks through the ill-fitting
window-sash, the narrow, rank bed—all that had been part and parcel of
his being. The familiar smell of uncared-for, unclean human lives
saturated the house. He shuddered and slammed the door and tore down the
stairs. Never again! Never again, so help him God! A short while
afterwards he was busy arranging his books in the bright, clean
sitting-room of his new lodgings, and a neat maid in white cap, cuffs,
and apron brought in afternoon tea, which she disposed in decent fashion
on a little table. When she had gone, he stood and looked down upon the
dainty array. He realised that henceforward this was his home. He picked
up from a plate a little three-cornered watercress sandwich; but instead
of eating it, he stared at it, and the tears rolled down his face.
One day, however, towards the end of July, was marked by a black cloud.
His day’s work being over he was walking with light step to his
lodgings, when he saw in the distance, awaiting him, almost on his
doorstep, the sinister forms of Billiter and Vandermeer. His first
impulse was to turn and flee; but they had already caught sight of him
and were advancing to meet him. He went on.
“Hullo, old friend,” said Billiter, in a beery voice. “So we’ve tracked
you down, eh? We called at the old place, and found you had gone and
left no address. Thought you would give us the slip, eh?”
He still wore the costume in which he had gone racing with Quixtus; but
after constant use it had begun to look shabby. His linen was of the
dingiest. His face had grown more bloated. Vandermeer, pinched, foxy,
and rusty, thrust his hard felt hat to the back of his head, and, hands
on hips, looked threateningly at Huckaby.
“I suppose you know you’ve been playing a low-down game.”
“I know nothing of the sort,” said Huckaby.
“Oh, don’t you,” said Billiter. “Look at you and look at us. Who’s been
getting all the fat, and who all the lean? We have something to say to
you, old friend, so let’s get indoors and have it out between us.”
He made a move, accompanied by Vandermeer, towards the front door. But
Huckaby checked them, stricken with sudden revolt. His past life should
not defile the sanctity of his new home. He would not admit them across
his threshold.
“No,” said he. “Whatever we’ve got to say to one another can be said
here.”
“All right,” said Vandermeer, sulkily. “There’s a quiet pub at the
corner.”
“I’ve chucked pubs,” said Huckaby.
“Come off it,” sneered Billiter. “At any rate, you can stand a round of
drinks.”
“I’ve chucked drink, too,” said Huckaby. “I’ve sworn off. I’ll never
touch a drop of liquor as long as I live—and I advise you fellows to do
the same.”
They burst out laughing, asked him for tickets for his next temperance
lecture, and then began to abuse him after the manner of their kind.
“This is a decent street,” said Huckaby, “so please don’t make a row.”
“We’re not making any row,” cried Billiter. “We only want our share of
the money.”
“What money? Didn’t I write and tell you the whole thing was off? She
couldn’t stick it, and neither could I. Quixtus hasn’t given her one
penny piece.”
“We’ll see what the lady has to say about that,” growled Billiter.
“You’re going to leave that lady alone henceforth and for ever,” said
Huckaby, with a new ring of authority in his voice.
The others sneered. Since when had Huckaby constituted himself squire of
dames? Billiter, with profane asseveration, would do exactly what he
chose. Wasn’t it his scheme? He deserved his share. Vandermeer gloomily
reminded him that he had cast doubts from the first on Huckaby’s
probity. He had put them in the cart in fine fashion. They refused to
believe in Lena Fontaine’s squeamishness. Huckaby grew impatient.
“Haven’t you each received a letter from Quixtus’s solicitors? Haven’t
you each signed an agreement not to worry him—on forfeiture of your
allowance? Now I swear to God that if either of you molest her, you’ll
be molesting Quixtus. I’ll jolly well see to that. She’ll tell me, and
I’ll tell him—and bang! goes the monthly money.”
Vandermeer’s shrewd wits began to work.
“Molest her and we molest Quixtus? Oho! Is that the little game? She’s
going to marry him, eh?”
“If she does, what the blazes has that got to do with you?” Huckaby
cried, fiercely. “You just let the woman alone. You’ve got a damned
sight more out of Quixtus than you ever expected, and you ought to be
satisfied.”
“We ought to get more,” said Billiter, “considering what we’ve done for
him.”
“You won’t,” said Huckaby, and seeing that they both still regarded
Quixtus as a subject for further exploitation, “Let me tell you
something,” said he, “a few simple facts that alter the situation
completely. Let us take a turn down the street.”
And as they walked, he told them briefly of Hammersley’s death and the
Marseilles visit and the return of Quixtus, a changed man, with
Clementina and the child. The bee, on which they had reckoned for honey,
had left Quixtus’s bonnet. There was no more Bedlamite talk about
wickedness. Their occupation as evil counsellors had gone for ever. They
had better accept thankfully what they had, and disappear. Any action
directed against either Quixtus or Lena Fontaine would automatically
bring about the demise of the goose with the golden eggs. At last he
convinced them of the futility of blackmail; but they parted from him,
each with a burning sense of wrong. Lena Fontaine and Huckaby had put
them in the cart. They were left, they were done, they were stung—they
were all things that slang has invented to describe the position of men
deceived by those in whom they trusted.
“And she’s going to marry him,” said Vandermeer.
“Huckaby didn’t say so,” replied Billiter.
“He didn’t contradict it. She’s going to marry him, and you bet that son
of a pawn-ticket will get his commission.”
“Well, we can’t help ourselves,” said Billiter.
“H’m!” said Vandermeer, darkly.
Huckaby, conscious of victory, went home, and taking an old student’s
text of the “Phædo” from his shelves, abstracted his mind from the
sordid happenings of the modern world.
It was a day or two after this adventure of Huckaby’s that Quixtus
informed Clementina of his intention of giving a dinner-party, in honour
of Tommy and Etta’s engagement. She commended the project; a nice little
intimate dinner——
“I’m afraid I’m planning rather a large affair,” said he,
apologetically. “A party of about twenty people.”
“Lord save us!” cried Clementina, “where are you going to dig them up
from?”
He stretched out his long, thin legs. They were sitting on a bench in
the gardens of Russell Square, Sheila having strayed a few yards to
investigate the contents of a perambulator in charge of a smiling and
friendly nursemaid.
“There are people to whom I owe a return of hospitality,” said he, with
a smile, “and I think a certain amount of formality is due to Admiral
Concannon.”
“All right,” said Clementina, “who are they?”
“There are the Admiral and yourself and Tommy and Etta, Lord and Lady
Radfield, General and Mrs. Barnes, Sir Edward and Lady Quinn,
Doorly—the novelist, you know—Mrs. Fontaine and Lady Louisa
Malling——”
Clementina stiffened. The blood seemed to flow from her heart, leaving
it an intolerable icicle. “Why Mrs. Fontaine?”
“Why not?”
“Why should Mrs. Fontaine be asked to Etta’s party?”
“She’s a charming woman,” said Quixtus.
“Just a shallow society hack,” said Clementina, to whom Quixtus had not
confided his adventures in the gay world, not through conscious
disingenuousness, but assuming that such chronicles would not interest
her.
“I’m afraid you do her an injustice,” he said, warmly. “Mrs. Fontaine
has very brilliant social gifts. I’m sorry, my dear Clementina, that we
disagree on the point; but anyhow she must be invited. As a matter of
fact, it was she who suggested the party.”
Clementina opened her lips to speak, and then closed them with a snap.
Mother Eve sat at her elbow and murmured words of good counsel. Not by
abuse is an infatuated and quixotic man weaned from seductresses. She
swallowed her anger and fierce jealousy.
“In that case, my dear Ephraim,” she said, with mincing civility, “there
is no question about it. Of course she must be invited.”
“Of course,” said he.
“Who else are to come?”
He ran through the list. One or two of the prospective guests she knew
personally, others by name; as to the personalities of those unknown to
her she made polite inquiries. So unwontedly sugared were her phrases
that Quixtus, simple man, forgot her outburst.
“You haven’t given a dinner-party like this for a long time.”
“Not for many years. Of course I have had men’s dinners—chiefly my
colleagues in the Anthropological Society. But this is a new venture.”
“I wish it every success,” said Clementina, mendaciously. “The only
wrong note in it would be myself. Oh yes, my dear Ephraim,” she said,
anticipating his protest, “I’m not made for such a galaxy of fashion. I
tread upon daintily covered corns. I’m a savage—all right in my wigwam
with those I care for—but no use in a drawing-room. You must leave me
out of it.”
Quixtus, shocked and hurt, turned and put out both hands in appeal.
“My dearest friend, how can you say such things? You positively must
come.”
“My dearest friend,” she replied, forcing her grim lips into a smile, “I
positively won’t.”
And that was the end of the matter. She parted from him cordially, and
went home with more devils tearing her to pieces with redhot pincers
than had ever been dreamed of in Quixtus’s demonology.