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As I looked up she pressed her lips down on my face, kissing me on the eyes and mouth with passionate repetition and insistence. "Dear little girl, dear little Suzee!" I answered, putting up my arms and folding them round her. I was only half-awake, and for a moment the old Chinaman was forgotten. It was all rather like a delicious dream.
"So, you see, it's a matter of opinion and idea. Now, will you say why the picture is so much worse than a kiss?" "A kiss," murmured Suzee, "is just between two people. It is done, and no one knows. It is gone." She spread out her hands and waved them in the air with an expressive gesture. "Those things remain a monument of shame for ever and ever." I laughed.
The scene, with its rough, fresh, vigorous barbarism, delighted me. I slackened my pace and stood still again before disturbing or interrupting the men. "Suzee," I said suddenly, "I admire this picture before us immensely. I should like to see it in the Academy to cheer up jaded Londoners next season. I should be glad to stop here to-day to paint it. We can go down the river to-morrow."
As soon as I woke I got up and went to look at my new possession. To my surprise the room seemed empty. I looked round. No Suzee. I went up to the bed. It had apparently not been slept in, but two of the blankets had been pulled off and disappeared.
Suzee began to sob. Tears were her invariable refuge under all circumstances. "Treevor, you were so long. I was all alone, and I was sure you were with another woman." "If you would learn to believe what I say and not fancy every one tells lies, as I suppose you do," I answered hotly, "it would be a great deal better for you.
I had opened my eyes and seen some men carrying out the body of Hop Lee and the tiny pliable form of dear little Suzee that I should never see or clasp again. The landlord had come up ashy-pale and shaking, with a note-book in his hand, and had questioned and re-questioned me, and I had answered until I fainted again.
Suzee sincerely mourned her lost jewels and gazed wistfully and furtively down into the street where they had gone in the darkness. I paid the bill for them that day, but I never knew what became of them, nor whose neck they now adorn!
Viola loved beauty, as I did, as all artists do, as they love their art, for itself alone. I stroked her smooth shining hair, gently, and shook my head, smiling down upon her. "Do you not value my love for you?" I asked. "Oh yes, yes; you know I do." "Well, then understand this: you would utterly and entirely lose it if you became a mother." Suzee shrank away from me. "But why, Treevor?
What a glory of light and passionate expression in the liquid dark eyes when she raised them to us! After a few minutes Morley got up, and I saw him laying down on the table the money for our tea. I added my share, and Morley remarked, "We'd better go and walk about before dinner, hadn't we? You'd like a look round?" I was gazing at Suzee. "Do you have any time to yourself?" I asked her.
The waiter picked himself up, and, catching hold of his iron stove-fitted basket in which he had brought up the dinner, slunk out of the room. I was left alone with Suzee, and I looked at her, with an immense sense of disgust and repulsion swelling up in me. "So you can't even be trusted an hour or two, it seems," I said contemptuously, throwing myself into a chair opposite her.
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