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So long as they don't destroy works of art that appeal to me, I prefer to bray with them than with their enemies." Merian rose impatiently a slim, dark-browed St. George towering over the other two. "After that, I'd rather hear them attacked by Blaydes, than defended by you, Lathrop!" he said with energy, as he buttoned up his coat. Lathrop threw him a cool glance.
They snatched their caps, and were presently mounting the path which led ultimately through the woods of Monk Lawrence to the western front. Blaydes frowned as he walked. He was a young man of a very practical turn of mind, who in spite of an office-boy's training possessed an irrelevant taste for literature which had made him an admirer of Lathrop's two published volumes.
They entered the hut together, and Lathrop rekindled the fire. The two men sat over it smoking. Blaydes plied his companion with eager questions, to which Lathrop returned the scantiest answers. At last he said with a sarcastic look "I was offered four hundred pounds this afternoon and refused it." "The deuce you did!" cried Blaydes, fiercely. "What about my debt and what do you mean?"
The kitten refused it, but when he dipped his fingers in the milk, it made a momentary effort to lick them, then subsiding, sank to sleep again. "Poor little beast!" said Blaydes "what's the matter?" "Some poison I don't know what. It'll die tonight." "Then you'll be all alone?" "I'm never alone," said Lathrop, with decision.
"And here I am hanging round her" he said to himself, as he strolled about the room, peering through his eye-glass at its common vases, and trivial knick-knacks "just because Blaydes bothers me. I might as well cry for the moon. But she's worth watching, by Jove. One gets copy out of her, if nothing else!
I only meant to suggest to you a reasonable view of the chances." "Look here is she as handsome as people say?" "Blaydes! this is the last time I shall allow you to talk about her you get on my nerves. Handsome? I don't know." He walked on, muttering to himself and twitching at the trees on either hand.
"I won't lend you a farthing more unless you promise me to take this thing seriously," said Blaydes, doggedly. Lathrop burst into a nervous shout of laughter. "I say, do shut up! I assure you, you can't bully me. Now then here's the house!"
"I am simply putting what is your duty to yourself and your creditors," said Blaydes, sulkily "You must know your affairs are in a pretty desperate state." "And a girl like that is to be sacrificed to my creditors! Good Lord!" "Oh, well, if you regard yourself as such an undesirable, naturally, I've nothing to say. Of course I know there's that case against you.
It was evident that he was full of speech, of which he could not in the end unburden himself. The door closed behind him, and he was gone. "Poor devil!" said Blaydes, tipping the end of his cigarette into the fire-"he's in love with a girl who's been in prison three times. He thinks she'll kill herself and he can't influence her at all. He takes it hard.
There is some sweetness in that and in teasing the stupid fellow who no doubt will own her some day." And he thought exultantly of Winnington's letter to him, and his own insolent reply. It had been a perfectly civil letter and a perfectly proper thing for a guardian to do. But for the moment "I have the whip hand and it amuses me to keep it, Now then for Blaydes!"
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