'This my mean task would be
As heavy to me as 'tis odious; but
The mistress which I serve quickens what's dead
And makes my labours pleasures: Oh, she is
Ten times more gentle than her father's crabbed;
And he's composed of harshness. I must remove
Some thousands of these logs and pile them up,
Upon a sore injunction: my sweet mistress
Weeps when she sees me work; and says such baseness
Had never like executor.
He produced the illusion of youth, and his voice was so entrancing that
Clara, like Miranda, wept to see him.... He threw off his part with a
great shout, rushed at her and caught her up in a hug.
'Chicken,' he said, 'don't let us be silly any more. We have won
through. Here we are in the theatre. We've conquered the stage, and
soon all those seats out there will be full of eager people saying,
"Who are these wonders? Can it be? Surely they are none other than
Charles and Clara Mann?"'
'Day,' said she.
He stamped his foot impatiently.
'What's in a name? Day, if you like. Artists can and must do as they
please. This is our real life, here where we make beauty. The rest is
for city clerks and stockbrokers who can't trust themselves to behave
decently unless they have a perfect net of rules from which they cannot
escape.'
'I don't want to talk about it. Go on with your work, Charles.'
'I've finished for to-day.... Will you let me take you out to dinner?'
'No. I've promised Verschoyle.'
'Damn! You oughtn't to be seen with him so much. People will say you
have left me for his money.'
'I thought artists didn't care what people say.'
'They don't, Clara. They don't.'
'You must be sensible, Charles. You're not safe. You can't take risks
until you are successful.'
'Then I won't succeed. I won't go on.... A most unfortunate thing has
happened. Clott has vanished with all the money in the bank.... I let
him sign the cheques.'
'Oh! Oh! you fool, Charles.'
'He kept getting cheques out of me.'
'How?'
'He said he'd tell the police.'
Clara stamped her foot. Abominable! How abominable people were....
She had to protect Charles, but if she was with him she exposed him to
the most fearful risk. Was ever a girl in so maddening a position?
What made it worse was that her attitude towards him had changed. She
was no longer so utterly absorbed in him that she could only see life
through his eyes. Apart from him she had grown and had developed her
own independent existence.
'How much did he take?'
'Two hundred and ten pounds. We can't prosecute him, or he'll tell.
He knows that, or he wouldn't have done it.'
'Where is he?'
'I don't know. Laverock met him the other day, and asked him about
some committee business. He had the impudence to say that he had
resigned, and had come into money, so that his name was now no longer
Clott but Cumberland.'