him the question. He explained it to me afterwards, you know, poor dear; and it wasn’t exactly a story, for he had lodged there for a fortnight once, just after his marriage with mamma, and when he was beginning to get poor. So I was obliged to manage so cleverly to get to Regent’s Gardens, Dick, and when I did get there you were gone, and the Signora’s rooms were to let, and there was a nasty cross old woman in our lodgings, and the scarlet runners in the garden were so neglected, and I saw your rabbit-hutches, all broken and forgotten in the corner by the dust-hole, but the rabbits were gone. The dear old place seemed so changed, Dick, though Mr. and Mrs. Migson were very kind, and very pleased to see me, but they couldn’t tell me where you and the Signora were living.”
“No, we moved two or three times after leaving Regent’s Gardens. You see we’re obliged to study the pupils, Nell, rather than our own convenience. Chelsea was a long way from the Waterloo Phœnix, in spite of the short cuts; but wherever the Signora’s pupils are thickest, we’re obliged to pitch our tents. They’re thickest about Tottenham-court Road and Euston Square way now: so we’re living in the Pilasters, Dudley Street.”
“The Pilasters! That sounds quite grand, Dick.”
“Yes, doesn’t it? Magnifique et pas cher. We’ve a chimney-sweep next door but one, and no end of mangles. The Pilasters would be very nice, if we’d two sides of the way, but unfortunately we haven’t; the other side’s stables. It isn’t my prejudices make me object to that; but the grooms make such an abominable noise cleaning down their horses, and I wake every morning out of a dream in which it’s Boxing-night, and my transformation scene is getting the goose.”
The young man laughed cheerily, and guided his companion across the road to the other side of the boulevard. It was past ten o’clock when they reached the corner of the Rue l’Archevêque, and the butcher’s shop was closed.
Eleanor knew that she had only to push open the little side door, and that she would find the key of her father’s rooms in the custody of the butcher’s wife. She was very tired, almost ready to drop, poor girl, for she had walked a long way since alighting at the Palais Royal with her father; but she was almost sorry that she had reached her destination. The sense of her loneliness returned, now that she was to part with her old friend.
“Thank you very much for seeing me home, Dick,” she said, shaking hands with the young scene-painter. “It was very selfish of me to bring you so far out of your way.”
“Selfish of you! Why, you don’t suppose I’d let you prowl about the streets by yourself, Nell?”
Eleanor’s face flushed as her friend said this: there was a reproach to her father implied in the speech.
“It was my own fault that I was so late,” she said. “It was only just nine when papa left me; but I loitered a little, looking at the shops. I shall see you again, Dick, I hope. But of course I shall, for you’ll come and see papa, won’t you? How long do you stay in Paris?”
“About a week, I suppose. I’ve a week’s leave of absence, and double salary, besides my expenses. They know the value of a clever man at the Phœnix, Miss Vane.”
“And where are you staying, Dick?”
“At the Hôtel des Deux Mondes, near the markets. I’ve an apartment in convenient proximity to the sky, if I want to study atmospheric effects. And so you live here, Nell?”
“Yes, those are our windows.”
Eleanor pointed to the open sashes of the entresol: the fluffy worsted curtains were drawn, but the windows were wide open.
“And you expect your papa home—”
“At eleven o’clock at the latest,” she said.
Richard Thornton sighed. He remembered Mr. Vane’s habits, and he remembered that the little girl in pinafores had been wont to keep abnormal hours in her long watches for her father’s coming. He had often found her, on his return from the transpontine theatre at one or two o’clock, with the door of the little sitting-room ajar, waiting patiently for the old man’s coming.
“You won’t sit up for your papa, Nell,” he said, as he shook hands with her.
“Oh, no, papa told me not to sit up.”
“Good night, then. You look tired, Nell. I’ll call to-morrow, and I’ll take you to the theatre, if your papa will let you go, and you shall see ‘Raoul l’Empoisonneur.’ Such a scene, Nell, in the seventh act. The stage divided into eight compartments, with eight different actions going on simultaneously, and five murders before the fall of the curtain. It’s a great piece, and ought to make Spavin and Cromshaw’s fortune.”
“And yours, Dick.”
“Oh, yes, Cromshaw will shake me by the hand in that delightful, gentlemanly manner of his: and Spavin—why Spavin will give me a five-pound note for my adaptation of ‘Raoul,’ and tell every member of the company, in confidence, that all the great scenes have been written in by him, and that the piece was utter rubbish till he reconstructed it.”
“Poor Richard!”
“Yes, Nell, poorer than the gentleman who wrote the almanack, I dare say. But never mind, Nell. I don’t think the game of life pays for much expenditure in the way of illumination. I think the wisest people are those who take existence easily. Spavin’s wealth can’t give him anything better than diamond studs and a phaeton. The virtuous peasant, Nell, who can slap his chest, and defy his enemies to pick a hole in his green baize jerkin, gets the best of it in the long run, I dare say.”
“But I wish you were rich, Dick, for the Signora’s sake,” Eleanor said, gently.
“So do I, Nelly. I wish I was lessee of the Phœnix, and I’d bring you out as Juliet, with new palace arches for the ball-room, and a lime-light in the balcony scene. But, good night, my dear; I mustn’t keep you standing here, like this, though parting is such sweet sorrow, that I really shouldn’t have the heart to go away to-night if I didn’t mean to call to-morrow. That line’s rattier longer than the original, Nell, isn’t it?”
Eleanor Vane laughed heartily at her old
