Lucian swooped down upon the humble dwelling in which his less fortunate fellow resided, like an angel who came to destroy rather than to save. He took everything into his own hands, as soon as the field of operations lay open to him, and it was quite ten minutes before Sprats, by delicate finesse, managed to shut him up in one room with the invalid, while she and the wife talked practical matters in another. At the end of an hour she got him safely away from the house. He was in a pleasurable state of mind; the situation had been full of charm to him, and he walked out into the street gloating over the fact that the sick man and his wife and children were now fed and warmed and made generally comfortable, and had money in the purse wherewith to keep the wolf from the door for many days. His imagination had seized upon the misery which the unlucky couple must have endured before help came in their way: he conjured up the empty pocket, the empty cupboard, the blank despair that comes from lack of help and sympathy, the heart sickness which springs from the powerlessness to hope any longer. He had read of these things but had never seen them: he only realised what they meant when he looked at the faces of the sick man and his wife as he and Sprats left them. Striding away at Sprats’s side, his head drooping towards his chest and his hands plunged in his pockets, Lucian ruminated upon these things and became so keenly impressed by them that he suddenly paused and uttered a sharp exclamation.
‘By George, Sprats!’ he said, standing still and staring at her as if he had never seen her before, ‘what an awful thing poverty must be! Did that ever strike you?’
‘Often,’ answered Sprats, with laconic alacrity, ‘as{127} it might have struck you, too, if you’d kept your eyes open.’
‘I am supposed to have excellent powers of observation,’ he said musingly, ‘but somehow I don’t think I ever quite realised what poverty meant until to-night. I wonder what it would be like to try it for a while—to go without money and food and have no hope?—but, of course, one couldn’t do it—one would always know that one could go back to one’s usual habits, and so on. It would only be playing at being poor. I wonder, now, where the exact line would be drawn between the end of hope and the beginning of despair?—that’s an awfully interesting subject, and one that I should like to follow up. Don’t you think——’
‘Lucian,’ said Sprats, interrupting him without ceremony, ‘are we going to stand here at the street corner all night while you moon about abstract questions? Because if you are, I’m not.’
Lucian came out of his reverie and examined his surroundings. He had come to a halt at a point where the Essex Road is transected by the New North Road, and he gazed about him with the expression of a traveller who has wandered into strange regions.
‘This is a quarter of the town which I do not know,’ he said. ‘Not very attractive, is it? Let us walk on to those lights—I suppose we can find a hansom there, and then we can get back to civilisation.’
They walked forward in the direction of Islington High Street: round about the Angel there was life and animation and a plenitude of bright light; Lucian grew interested, and finally asked a policeman what part of the town he found himself in. On hearing that that was Islington he was immediately reminded of the ‘Bailiff’s Daughter’ and began to recall lines of it. But Islington and old ballads were suddenly driven quite out of his thoughts by an object which had no apparent connection with poetry.
Sprats, keeping her eyes open for a hansom, suddenly missed Lucian from her side, and turned to find him{128} gazing at the windows of a little café-restaurant with an Italian name over its door and a suspicion of Continental cookery about it. She turned back to him: he looked at her as a boy might look whose elder sister catches him gazing into the pastry-cook’s window.
‘I say, Sprats,’ he said coaxingly, ‘let’s go in there and have supper. It’s clean, and I’ve suddenly turned faint—I’ve had nothing since lunch. Dinner will be all over now at home, and besides, we’re miles away. I’ve been in these places before—they’re all right, really, something like the ristoranti in Italy, you know.’
Sprats was hungry too. She glanced at the little café—it appeared to be clean enough to warrant one in eating, at any rate, a chop in it.
‘I think I should like some food,’ she said.
‘Come on, then,’ said Lucian gaily. ‘Let’s see what sort of place it is.’
He pushed open the swinging doors and entered. It was a small place, newly established, and the proprietor and his wife, two Italians, and their Swiss waiter were glad to see customers who looked as if they would need something more than a cup of coffee and a roll and butter. The proprietor bowed himself double and ushered them to the most comfortable corner in his establishment: he produced a lengthy menu and handed it to Lucian with great empressement; the waiter stood near, deeply interested; the proprietor’s wife, gracious of figure and round of face, leaned over the counter thinking of the coins which she would eventually deposit in her cash drawer. Lucian addressed the proprietor in Italian and discussed the menu with him; while they talked, Sprats looked about her, wondering at the red plush seats, the great mirrors in their gilded frames, and the jars of various fruits and conserves arranged on the counter. Every table was adorned with a flowering plant fashioned out of crinkled paper; the ceiling was picked out in white and gold; the Swiss waiter’s apron and napkin were very stiffly starched; the proprietor wore a frock coat, which fitted very tightly at the waist,{129} and his wife’s gown was of a great smartness. Sprats decided that they were early customers in the history of the establishment—besides themselves there were only three people in the place: an old gentleman with a napkin tucked into his neckband, who was eating his dinner and reading a newspaper propped up against a bottle, and a pair of obvious lovers who were drinking café-au-lait in a quiet corner to the accompaniment of their own murmurs.
‘I had no idea that I was so hungry,’ said Lucian when he and the proprietor had finally settled upon what was best to eat and drink. ‘I am glad I saw this place: it reminds me in some ways of Italy. I say, I don’t believe those poor people had had much to eat to-day, Sprats—it is a most fortunate thing that I happened to hear of them. My God! I wouldn’t like to get down to that stage—it must be dreadful, especially when there are children.’
Sprats leaned her elbows on the little table, propped her chin in her hands, and looked at him with a curious expression which he did not understand. A half-dreamy, half-speculative look came into her eyes.
‘I wonder what you would do if you did get down to that stage?’ she said, with a rather quizzical smile.
Lucian stared at her.
‘I? Why, what do you mean?’ he said. ‘I suppose I should do as other men do.’
‘It would be for the first time in your life, then,’ she answered. ‘I fancy seeing you do as other men do in any circumstances.’
‘But I don’t think I could conceive myself at such a low ebb as that,’ he said.
Sprats still stared at him with a speculative expression.
‘Lucian,’ she said suddenly, ‘do you ever think about the future? Everything has been made easy for you so far; does it ever strike you that fortune is in very truth a fickle jade, and that she might desert you?’{130}
He looked at her as a child looks who is requested to face an unpleasant contingency.
‘I don’t think of unpleasant things,’ he answered. ‘What’s the good? And why imagine possibilities which aren’t probabilities? There is no indication that fortune is going to desert me.’
‘No,’ said Sprats, ‘but she might, and very suddenly too. Look here, Lucian; I’ve the right to play grandmother always, haven’t I, and there’s something I want to put before you plainly. Don’t you think you are living rather carelessly and extravagantly?’
Lucian knitted his brows and stared at her.
‘Explain,’ he said.
‘Well,’ she continued, ‘I don’t think it wants much explanation. You don’t bother much about money matters, do you?’
He looked at her somewhat pityingly.
‘How can I do that and attend to my work?’ he asked. ‘I could not possibly be pestered with things of that sort.’
‘Very well,’ said Sprats, ‘and Haidee doesn’t bother about them either. Therefore, no one bothers. I know your plan, Lucian—it’s charmingly simple. When Lord Simonstower left you that ten thousand pounds you paid it into a bank, didn’t you, and to it you afterwards added Haidee’s two thousand when you were married. Twice a year Mr. Robertson pays your royalties into your account, and the royalties from your tragedy go to swell it as well. That’s one side of the ledger. On the other side you and Haidee each have a cheque-book, and you draw cheques as you please and for what you please. That’s all so, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ answered Lucian, regarding her with amazement, ‘of course it is; but just think what a very simple arrangement it is.’
‘Admirably simple,’ Sprats replied, laughing, ‘so long as there is an inexhaustible fund to draw upon. But seriously, Lucian, haven’t you been drawing on{131} your capital? Do you know, at this moment, what you are worth?—do you know how you stand?&............