What I received--what Davenport received for illustrating your
articles, Larcher, though it made him richer than he had often found
himself, had been pretty well used up incidentally to the transformation
and my subsequent emergence to the world. So I resorted to you to
facilitate my introduction to the market. When I met you here one day, I
expressed a wish that I might run across a copy of the Boydell
Shakespeare Gallery. I knew--it was another piece of my inherited
information from Davenport--that you had that book. In that way I drew an
invitation to call on you, and the acquaintance that began resulted as I
desired. Forgive me for the subterfuge. I'm grateful to you from the
bottom of my heart."
"The pleasure has been mine, I assure you," replied Larcher, with a
smile.
"And the profit mine," said Turl. "The check for those first three
sketches I placed so easily through you came just in time. Yet I hadn't
been alarmed. I felt that good luck would attend me--Francis Turl was
born to it. I'm confident my living is assured. All the same, that Bagley
money would unlock a good store of the sweets of life."
He paused, and his eyes sought Florence's face again. Still they found no
answer there--nothing but the same painful difficulty in knowing how to
regard him, how to place him in her heart.
"But the matter of livelihood, or the question of the money," he resumed,
humbly and patiently, "wasn't what gave me most concern. You will
understand now--Florence"--his voice faltered as he uttered the
name--"why I sometimes looked at you as I did, why I finally said what
I did.
Pages:
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216