He did not do so, for fear of causing distress, hoping that it would pass away in time, and redoubled his caresses to his mother and sister, and clung to them more than ever; and became more considerate of others in manner, word, and deed than he had ever been before, as though by constantly assuming the virtue he had no longer he would gradually coax it back again. There was no trouble he would not take to give pleasure to the humblest.
Also, his vanity about himself had become as nothing, and he missed it almost as much as his affection.
Yet he told himself over and over again that he was a great artist, and that he would spare no pains to make himself a greater. But that was no merit of his own.
2 + 2 = 4, also 2 × 2 = 4; that peculiarity was no reason why 4 should be conceited; for what was 4 but a result, either way?
Well, he was like 4—just an inevitable result of circumstances over which he had no control—a mere product or sum; and though he meant to make himself as big a 4 as he could (to cultivate his peculiar fourness), he could no longer feel the old conceit and self-complacency; and they had been a joy, and it was hard to do without them.
At the bottom of it all was a vague, disquieting unhappiness, a constant fidget.
And it seemed to him, and much to his distress, that such mild unhappiness would be the greatest he could ever feel henceforward—but that, such as it was, it would never leave him, and that his moral existence would be for evermore one long, gray, gloomy blank—the glimmer of twilight—never glad, confident morning again!
So much for Little Billee’s convalescence.
Then one day in the late autumn he spread his wings and flew away to London, which was very ready with open arms to welcome William Bagot, the already famous painter, alias Little Billee!
Part V
Little Billee
An Interlude
“Then the mortal coldness of the Soul like death itself comes down;
It cannot feel for others’ woes, it dare not dream its own;
That heavy chill has frozen o’er the fountain of our tears,
And, though the eye may sparkle yet, ’tis where the ice appears.“Though wit may flash from fluent lips, and mirth distract the breast,
Through midnight hours that yield no more their former hope of rest:
’Tis but as ivy leaves around a ruined turret wreathe,
All green and wildly fresh without, but worn and gray beneath.”
When Taffy and the Laird went back to the studio in the Place St. Anatole des Arts, and resumed their ordinary life there, it was with a sense of desolation and dull bereavement beyond anything they could have imagined; and this did not seem to lessen as the time wore on.
They realized for the first time how keen and penetrating and unintermittent had been the charm of those two central figures—Trilby and Little Billee—and how hard it was to live without them, after such intimacy as had been theirs.
“Oh, it has been a jolly time, though it didn’t last long!” So Trilby had written in her farewell letter to Taffy; and these words were true for Taffy and the Laird as well as for her.
And that is the worst of those dear people who have charm: they are so terrible to do without, when once you have got accustomed to them and all their ways.
And when, besides being charming, they are simple, clever, affectionate, constant, and sincere, like Trilby and Little Billee! Then the lamentable hole their disappearance makes is not to be filled up! And when they are full of genius, like Little Billee—and like Trilby, funny without being vulgar! For so she always seemed to the Laird and Taffy, even in French (in spite of her Gallic audacities of thought, speech, and gesture).
All seemed to have suffered change. The very boxing and fencing were gone through perfunctorily, for mere health’s sake; and a thin layer of adipose deposit began to soften the outlines of the hills and dales on Taffy’s mighty forearm.
Dodor and l’Zouzou no longer came so often, now that the charming Little Billee and his charming mother and still more charming sister had gone away—nor Carnegie, nor Antony, nor Lorrimer, nor Vincent, nor the Greek. Gecko never came at all. Even Svengali was missed, little as he had been liked. It is a dismal and sulky looking piece of furniture, a grand-piano that nobody ever plays—with all its sound and its souvenirs locked up inside—a kind of mausoleum! a lopsided coffin—trestles and all!
So it went back to London by the “little quickness,” just as it had come!
Thus Taffy and the Laird grew quite sad and mopey, and lunched at the Café de l’Odéon every day—till the goodness of the omelets palled, and the redness of the wine there got on their nerves and into their heads and faces, and made them sleepy till dinnertime. And then, waking up, they dressed respectably, and dined expensively, “like gentlemen,” in the Palais Royal, or the Passage Choiseul, or the Passage des Panoramas—for three francs, three francs fifty, even five francs a head, and half a franc to the waiter!—and went to the theatre almost every night, on that side of the water—and more often than not they took a cab home, each smoking a Panatella, which costs twenty-five centimes—five sous—2½d.
Then they feebly drifted into quite decent society—like Lorrimer and Carnegie—with dress-coats and white ties on, and their
