It's a-concernin' of what this 'ere man
was boastin' in his rage. 'Let them,' he says, 'as is responsive for
the movin' of her look out,' he says; 'I ain't done with them!' That's
conspiracy, I should think!"
Smiling away this diagnosis of Hughs' words, Hilary shook the old
man's withered hand, and closed the door. Sitting down again at his
writing-table, he buried himself almost angrily in his work. But the
queer, half-pleasurable, fevered feeling, which had been his, since the
night he walked down Piccadilly, and met the image of the little model,
was unfavourable to the austere process of his thoughts.
CHAPTER XXV
MR. STONE IN WAITING
That same afternoon, while Mr. Stone was writing, he heard a voice
saying:
"Dad, stop writing just a minute, and talk to me."
Recognition came into his eyes. It was his younger daughter.
"My dear," he said, "are you unwell?"
Keeping his hand, fragile and veined and chill, under her own warm
grasp, Bianca answered: "Lonely."
Mr. Stone looked straight before him.
"Loneliness," he said, "is man's chief fault"; and seeing his pen lying
on the desk, he tried to lift his hand. Bianca held it down. At that hot
clasp something seemed to stir in Mr. Stone. His cheeks grew pink.
"Kiss me, Dad."
Mr. Stone hesitated. Then his lips resolutely touched her eye.
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