As the door clicked behind the children, Fairfax laughed.

"What a little trump she is! She thinks the game is worth the candle!"

CHAPTER XIX

That miserable foot of his gave him pain. The unusual strain of standing long at his work, the tramps he took to save car-fare, wearied him, and he was finally laid up for ten days. No one missed him, apparently, and the long, painful hours dragged, and he saw no one but his little landladies. His mother, as if she knew, sent him extra money and wonderful letters breathing pride in him and confidence in his success.

When he was finally up and setting forth again to the studio, a visitor was announced. Fairfax thought of Benvenuto--(he would have been welcome)--he thought of Bella, and not of his Aunt Caroline.

"My dear boy, why didn't you let us know you had been ill?"

There is something exquisite to a man in the presence of a woman in his sick-room, be she lovely or homely, old or young.

"This is awfully, awfully good of you, Auntie. I've had a mighty bad time with this foot of mine."

Mrs. Carew in her street dress, ready for an all-day's shopping, came airily in and laid her hand on her nephew's shoulder. Fairfax thought he saw a look of Bella, a look of his mother. He eagerly leaned forward and kissed his visitor.

"It's mighty good of you, Auntie."

"No, my dear boy, it isn't! I really didn't know you were ill. We would have sent you things from the Buckingham. Our own cook is so poor."

She couldn't sit down, she had just run in on her way to shop. She had something to say to him....

"What's wrong, Aunt Caroline?"

His aunt took a seat beside him on the bed. Her dove-like eyes wandered about his room, bare save for the drawings on the walls and on a chair in the corner, a cast covered by a wet cloth. Mrs. Carew's hands clasped over her silk bead purse hanging empty between the rings.

"I have come to ask a great favour of you, Antony."

He repeated, in astonishment, "Of _me_--why, Auntie, anything that I can do...."

Mrs. Carew's slender figure undulated, the sculptor thought. She made him think of a swan--of a lily. Her pale, ineffectual features had an old-fashioned loveliness. He put his hand over his aunt's. He murmured devotedly--

"You must let me do anything there is to do."

"I am in debt, Tony," she murmured, tremulously. "Your uncle gives me _so_ little money--it's impossible to run the establishment."

He exclaimed hotly, "It's a _shame_, Aunt Caroline."

"Henry thinks we spend a great deal of money, but I like to dress the children well."

Her nephew recalled Bella's wardrobe. Mrs. Carew, as though she confessed a readily-forgiven fault, whispered--

"I am so fond of bric-a-brac, Antony."

He could not help smiling.

"Down in Maiden Lane last week I bought a beautiful lamp for the front hall. I intended paying for it by instalments; but I've not been able to save enough--the men are waiting at the house. I _can't_ tell your uncle, I really _can't_. He would turn me out of doors."

Over Fairfax's mind flashed the picture of the "Soul of honour"

confronted by a debt to a Jew ironmonger. His aunt's daily pilgrimage began to a.s.sume a picturesqueness and complexity that were puzzling.

"Carew's a brute," he said, shortly. "I can't see why you married him."

Mrs. Carew, absorbed in the picture of the men waiting in the front hall and the iron lamp waiting as well, did not reply.

"How much do you need, Auntie?"

"Only fifty dollars, my dear boy. I can give it back next week when Henry pays me my allowance."

He exclaimed: "I am lucky to have it to help you out, Auntie. I've got it right here."

The sense of security transformed Mrs. Carew. She laughed gently, put her hand on her nephew's shoulder again, exclaiming--

"How _fortunate_! Tony, how _glad_ I am I thought of you!"

He gave her all of his mother's gift but ten dollars, and as she bestowed it carefully away she murmured--

"It _is_ a superb lamp, and a _great_ bargain. You shall see it lit to-night."

"I'm afraid not to-night, Aunt Caroline. I'm off to see Cedersholm now, and I shan't be up to much, I reckon, when I get back."

His visitor rose, and Fairfax discovered that he did not wish to detain her as he had thought to do before she had mentioned her errand. She seemed to have entirely escaped him. She was as intangible as air, as unreal.

As he opened the door for her, considering her, he said--

"Bella looks very much like my mother, doesn't she, Aunt Caroline?"

Mrs. Carew thought that Bella resembled her father.

As Fairfax took his car to go down to Ninth Street, he said to himself--

"If _this_ is the first sentimental history on which I am to embark, it lacks romance from the start."

CHAPTER XX

At the studio he was informed by Cedersholm's man, Charley, that his master was absent on a long voyage.

"He has left me a letter, Charley, a note?"

"Posted it, no doubt, sir."