No More Learning

That fair type recovers itself very quickly. You won't know her in a
week or two, when that abject fear has died out of her eyes. She'll be
too happy and smiling for my purposes. "

"But surely you're not taking her out of charity? --to please me? "

"I am not in the habit of playing with hot coals to please anybody. She
has been sent from heaven, as I may have remarked before, to help me
with my Melancolia. "

"Never heard a word about the lady before. "

"What's the use of having a friend, if you must sling your notions at
him in words? You ought to know what I'm thinking about. You've heard me
grunt lately? "

"Even so; but grunts mean anything in your language, from bad 'baccy to
wicked dealers. And I don't think I've been much in your confidence for
some time. "

"It was a high and soulful grunt. You ought to have understood that
it meant the Melancolia.
" Dick walked Torpenhow up and down the room,
keeping silence. Then he smote him in the ribs, "Now don't you see it?
Bessie's abject futility, and the terror in her eyes, welded on to one
or two details in the way of sorrow that have come under my experience
lately. Likewise some orange and black,--two keys of each. But I can't
explain on an empty stomach. "

"It sounds mad enough. You'd better stick to your soldiers, Dick,
instead of maundering about heads and eyes and experiences. "

"Think so? " Dick began to dance on his heels, singing--

"They're as proud as a turkey when they hold the ready cash, You ought
to 'ear the way they laugh an' joke; They are tricky an' they're funny
when they've got the ready money,--Ow! but see 'em when they're all
stone-broke. "

Then he sat down to pour out his heart to Maisie in a four-sheet letter
of counsel and encouragement, and registered an oath that he would get
to work with an undivided heart as soon as Bessie should reappear.

The girl kept her appointment unpainted and unadorned, afraid and
overbold by turns. When she found that she was merely expected to sit
still, she grew calmer, and criticised the appointments of the studio
with freedom and some point. She liked the warmth and the comfort and
the release from fear of physical pain. Dick made two or three studies
of her head in monochrome, but the actual notion of the Melancolia would
not arrive.

"What a mess you keep your things in!