tired child.
"Are you one of my wife's friends?" he asked.
"I don't suppose I am," she answered gently; "but I like her, all the
same. Indeed, I like her very much. And I think her beautiful!"
"Ah, she is beautiful!" he said eagerly. "Doesn't she look splendid in
her furs? By Jove, you are right! She is a beautiful woman. I am proud
of her!"
Then the smile faded from his face.
"Beautiful," he said half to himself, "but hard."
"Come now," said Bernardine; "you are surrounded with books and
newspapers. What shall I read to you?"
"No one reads what I want," he answered peevishly. "My tastes are not
their tastes. I don't suppose you would care to read what I want to
hear!"
"Well," she said cheerily, "try me. Make your choice."
"Very well, the _Sporting and Dramatic_," he said. "Read every word of
that. And about that theatrical divorce case. And every word of that
too. Don't you skip, and cheat me."
She laughed and settled herself down to amuse him. And he listened
contentedly.
"That is something like literature," he said once or twice. "I can
understand papers of that sort going like wild-fire."
When he was tired of being read to, she talked to him in a manner that
would have astonished the Disagreeable Man: not of books, nor learning,
but of people she had met and of Places she had seen; and there was fun
in everything she said. She knew London well, and she could tell him
about the Jewish and the Chinese quarters, and about her adventures in
company with a man who took her here, there, and everywhere.
She made him some tea, and she cheered the poor fellow as he had not
been cheered for months.
"You're just a little brick," he said, when she was leaving. Then once
more he added eagerly:
"And you're not to be paid, are you?"
"Not a single _sou_!" she laughed. "What a strange idea of yours!"
"You are not offended?" he said anxiously. "But you can't think what a
difference it makes to me. You are not offended?"
"Not in the least!" she answered. "I know quite well how you mean it.
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