"'My face is my fortune, Sir,' she said."
Vance smiled—Lionel laughed; Sophy nestled still nearer to the boy.
Gentleman Waife (with pathos and dignity). "You see before you an old man; one way of life is the same to me as another. But she—do you think Mr. Rugge's stage the right place for her?"
Vance. "Certainly not. Why did you not introduce her to the London manager who would have engaged yourself?"
Waife could not conceal a slight change of countenance. "How do I know she would have succeeded? She had never then trod the boards. Besides, what strikes you as so good in a village show may be poor enough in a metropolitan theatre. Gentlemen, I did my best for her—you cannot think otherwise, since she maintains me! I am no Œdipus, yet she is my Antigone."
Vance. "You know the classics, Sir. Mr. Merle said you were a scholar!—read Sophocles in his native Greek, I presume, Sir?"
Mr. Waife. "You jeer at the unfortunate; I am used to it."
Vance (confused). "I did not mean to wound you—I beg pardon. But your language and manner are not what—what one might expect to find in a—in a—Bandit persecuted by a remorseless Baron."
Mr. Waife. "Sir, you say you are an artist. Have you heard no tales of your professional brethren—men of genius the highest, who won fame which I never did, and failed of fortune as I have done? Their own fault, perhaps—improvidence, wild habits—ignorance of the way how to treat life and deal with their fellow-men; such fault may have been mine, too. I suffer for it; no matter—I ask none to save me. You are a painter—you would place her features on your canvas—you would have her rank among your own creations. She may become a part of your immortality. Princes may gaze on the effigies of the innocent, happy childhood, to which your colors lent imperishable glow. They may ask who and what was this fair creature? Will you answer, 'One whom I found in tinsel, and so left, sure that she would die in rags!'—Save her!"
Lionel drew forth his purse, and poured its contents on the table. Vance covered them with his broad hand, and swept them into his own pocket! At that sinister action Waife felt his heart sink into his shoes; but his face was calm as a Roman's, only he resumed his pipe with a prolonged and testy whiff.
