The Little Nugget

e hour breeds thought. At twenty-one, life being all future, it may be examined with impunity. But, at thirty, having become an uncom

heavy with the peculiar desolation of a London winter morning. The houses looked dead and untenanted. A cart rumbled past, and ac

and the reaction after the emotions

proposed to Cynthia Drassilis. And I can honestl

to the question. Certainly I had never tried to do so five years ago when I had loved Audrey Blake. I had let myself be carried on from day to

y, for she in her tu

comfort, and I could afford to have it. From the moment I came of age and relieved my trustees of the care of my money, I wrapped myself in comfort as in a garment. I wallowed in

actually say in so many words, 'This beggar-maid shall be my queen', I said it plainly and often in my manner. She was the daughter of a dissolute, evil-tempered artist whom I had met at a Bohemian club. He made a living by painting an occasional picture, illustrating an occasional magazine-story, but mainly by doing advertisement work. A

althy son-in-law. Mr Blake jumped at me. It was one of his last acts on this earth. A w

with the removal of the bread-winner the only flaw in my Cophetua pose had vanished: and it gave Audrey a gre

had escaped, by a letter from her, handed to me one night at the club, where I was si

he point. She had bee

dynamited my life. In a sense it killed me. The man I had been died that night, regretted, I imagine, by few

y in ruins about my ears, face to face with the fact that, even

ked. How I loathed him, as I sat trying to think through his stream of words. I see now that he saved me. He forced me out of myself. But at the time he oppressed me. I was raw and bleeding. I was struggling to grasp the incredible. I had taken Audr

, and my self-satisfaction was in ribbons-and something deeper than self-satisfa

le this man tal

point past, it soothes. At least, it was so in my case. Gradually I found myself hating him less. Soon I began to listen, then to answer. Before I left the club that night, t

o London, and settled down again to a life which, superficially, was much the same as the one I had led in the days before I knew Audrey

who gets religion most strongly at the camp-meeting, and in my case 'getting religion' had taken the form of suppression of self. I never have been able to do things by halves, or even with a decent

tute 'money'. Mrs Drassilis was connected with money on all sides, but could only obtain it in rare and minute quantities. Any one of a dozen relations-in-law could, if they had wished, have trebled her annual income without feeling it. But they did not so wish. They disapproved of Mrs Drassilis. In their opinion the Hon. Hugo Drassilis had married beneath him-not so far beneath him as to make the thing a horror to be avoided in conversation and thought, but far enough to render them coldly polite to his wife d

he non-receipt of which had spoiled her temper, her looks, and

peak of Cynthia as hard. I never found her so myself, though heaven knows she

w her too well. I had no discoveries to make about her. Her honest, simple soul had always been open to me to read. There was none of that cu

ll I asked Cynthia to ma

*

fford, it was Audrey who was responsible. She had made me human, capable of symp

cause was certainl

one, and in the personal paragraphs of the coloured sporting weeklies, as 'Tanky'. I had seen him frequently at restaurants. Once, at the Empire, somebody had introduced me to him; but, as he had not been sober at the moment, he had missed any intellectual pleasure

ilis intr

have already

red gl

t rem

not su

my eye I observed a look of fuddled displeasure come

of her dress gained an added dignity from comparison with the rank glitter of her mother's. She wore unreli

er,' she said, lo

w. I'm

hing, what?' s

b's wa

d?' said Mrs Drassilis. 'I will te

' I heard a voice

ky Gifford, and I understood. I had seen that stuffed-fish look on his fa

take my cab,' I said to Mrs

that the sharp note in her voice was lost on

he said. 'Mr Gifford,

Burns. You will meet

o call ano

them, she turned on me l

traordinarily tactles

ect fool. Have

orry,'

evoted

sor

do you

y for

eginning to thump. We were both furiously angry. It was a moment that had been coming for years, and we both knew it

clutching at her self-control as it slipped from h

eat f

nk it friendly to try

d is a sample

do you

ch

r? I have noticed it for a long time. Because I have given you the run of the house

e-' I p

on the fact that you have known us all this time to m

entered to say that th

areless rapture which had carried us through the opening stages of the conflict, and discussion of the subject on a less

atue in black, was dancing with Tanky Gifford. They were opposite me

rself and moved q

said under her breat

oneliness, seemed by his expression to be endeavouring to bring his mind to bear on the m

e had reached the little r

he was looking

ar!' sh

journey in the cab, those dances,

very

to me with a tired smile. Th

yself spe

s shining. All the weariness s

ked a

my voice had had no ring of conviction. And then I saw what it was. Th

thought i

brother and sister,

toni

ed tonight? You

of admiration and pity which I had always felt for her. I wanted with all my heart to help her, to take her away from her dreadful surroundings, to make her happy. But did I want her

s older now than when I had wanted Au

ind against

nged tonigh

down and

against somebody. And then I kn

a cup of hot coffee

lled against my retur

ression

hat made for uneasiness, a sort of

had undertaken to give her happiness. Was I certain that I could

could get to a definition of it. Yes, poetry. With Cynthia my feet would always be

re a series of years of intolerable dullness. She was to

ing a man of thirty, in excellent health, cannot pose to himself for long

more admirably suited to each other. As for that first disaster, which I had been magnifying into a life-tragedy, what of it? An inciden

esk, unlocked it, and

le-minded and decisive-I wavered. I had intended to tear the thing in pieces without a

d challenged mine. How well I remembered them, those Irish-blue eyes under their expressive, rather heavy brows. How ex

-in-the-morning tribute to the pathos of the flying years, or did she really fill my

raph in its drawer was one. I felt that this thing could no

I was in bed. Hours seemed to pass whi

oherent thought was s

w that, come what migh

my death, I would play

nt