"Yes. I like him. He is a great artist and--a whole man. No disrespect
to your young man, my dear," he added, with a dismal attempt of his old
jaunty manner.
"Yes; he is 'a whole man.' Well, I must get on. Good-bye." With a nod
she left him and hurried on.
To Chelsea? Yes; No. 16-1/2 Tite Street--she knew. She had never seen
the house, but she had heard the number. No one ever went there. Madame
Joyselle had never been, and Théo only once. Why was he "tearing" there
at that hour? Because, of course, he wanted to be alone. There had
certainly been a row of some kind, of which Théo had not told her. The
old woman in Normandy had written, oh, yes; but then there must have
been a great _pourparler_, and even Félicité had grown angry. Poor
Félicité! To-night--oh, yes; at a dance at the Newlyns; she must give
Théo his answer. At a dance!
But how could she decide until she knew what Victor--"_Hansom!_" Her
own voice surprised her as a pistol shot might have done. "Tite Street,
Chelsea, 16-1/2."
The cabby, who was a romanticist and fed his brain on pabulum from the
pen of Mr. Fergus Hume and other ingenious concocters of peripatetic
mystery, wondered as he gave his horse a meaning lash with his whip--a
tribute to the beauty of the fare--"Wot the dickens she was h'up to,
with 'er big eyes and 'er 'ealthy pallor."
It further excited the excellent man's interest to be obliged, when he
had arrived at his destination, to remind his fare that they had done
so. "'Ere y'are, miss," he murmured soothingly down the trap. "Shall I
wait?"