Morgan shall know distinctly on what footing I am.”
Mrs. Moreen demurred. “Surely you don’t want to show off to a child?”
“To show YOU off, do you mean?”
Again she cast about, but this time it was to produce a still finer flower. “And YOU talk of blackmail!”
“You can easily prevent it,” said Pemberton.
“And YOU talk of practising on fears,” she bravely pushed on.
“Yes, there’s no doubt I’m a great scoundrel.”
His patroness met his eyes - it was clear she was in straits. Then she thrust out her money at him. “Mr. Moreen desired me to give you this on account.”
“I’m much obliged to Mr. Moreen, but we HAVE no account.”
“You won’t take it?”
“That leaves me more free,” said Pemberton.
“To poison my darling’s mind?” groaned Mrs. Moreen.
“Oh your darling’s mind -!” the young man laughed.
She fixed him a moment, and he thought she was going to break out tormentedly, pleadingly: “For God’s sake, tell me what IS in it!” But she checked this impulse - another was stronger. She pocketed the money - the crudity of the alternative was comical - and swept out of the room with the desperate concession: “You may tell him any horror you like!”
CHAPTER VI
A couple of days after this, during which he had failed to profit by so free a permission, he had been for a quarter of an hour walking with his charge in silence when the boy became sociable again with the remark: “I’ll tell you how I know it; I know it through Zenobie.”
“Zenobie? Who in the world is SHE?”
“A nurse I used to have - ever so many years ago. A charming woman. I liked her awfully, and she liked me.”
“There’s no accounting for tastes. What is it you know through her?”
“Why what their idea is. She went away because they didn’t fork out. She did like me awfully, and she stayed two years. She told me all about it - that at last she could never get her wages. As soon as they saw how much she liked me they stopped giving her anything. They thought she’d stay for nothing - just BECAUSE, don’t you know?” And Morgan had a queer little conscious lucid look. “She did stay ever so long - as long an she could. She was only a poor girl. She used to send money to her mother. At last she couldn’t afford it any longer, and went away in a fearful rage one night - I mean of course in a rage against THEM. She cried over me tremendously, she hugged me nearly to death. She told me all about it,” the boy repeated. “She told me it was their idea. So I guessed, ever so long ago, that they have had the same idea with you.”
“Zenobie was very sharp,” said Pemberton. “And she made you so.”
“Oh that wasn’t Zenobie; that was nature. And experience!” Morgan laughed.
“Well, Zenobie was a part of your experience.”
“Certainly I was a part of hers, poor dear!” the boy wisely sighed. “And I’m part of yours.”
“A very important part. But I don’t see how you know that I’ve been treated like Zenobie.”
“Do you take me for the biggest dunce you’ve known?” Morgan asked. “Haven’t I been conscious of what we’ve been through together?”
“What we’ve been through?”
“Our privations - our dark days.”
“Oh our days have been bright enough.”
Morgan went on in silence for a moment. Then he said: “My dear chap, you’re a hero!”
“Well, you’re another!” Pemberton retorted.
“No I’m not, but I ain’t a baby. I won’t stand it any longer. You must get some occupation that pays. I’m ashamed, I’m ashamed!” quavered the boy with a ring of passion, like some high silver note from a small cathedral cloister, that deeply touched his friend.
“We ought to go off and live somewhere together,” the young man said.
“I’ll go like a shot if you’ll take me.”
“I’d get some work that would keep us both afloat,” Pemberton continued.
“So would I. Why shouldn’t I work? I ain’t such a beastly little muff as that comes to.”
“The difficulty is that your parents wouldn’t hear of it. They’d never part with you; they worship the ground you tread on. Don’t you see the proof of it?” Pemberton developed. “They don’t dislike me; they wish me no harm; they’re very amiable people; but they’re perfectly ready to expose me to any awkwardness in life for your sake.”
The silence in which Morgan received his fond sophistry struck Pemberton somehow as expressive. After a moment the child repeated: “You are a hero!” Then he added: “They leave me with you altogether. You’ve all the responsibility. They put me off on you from morning till night. Why then should they object to my taking up with you completely? I’d help you.”
