I will work for you, I will indeed, papa--willingly, happily."
"When your work can give me such a home as Cotenoir--a home that one word
of yours would secure for me--I will thank you."
"If you will only wait, papa, if you will only have patience--"
"Patience! Wait! Do you know what you are talking about? Do you prate of
patience, and waiting, and hope in the future to a man who has no
future--to a man whose days are numbered, and who feels the creeping
chills of death stealing over him every day as he sits beside his
wretched hearth, or labours through his daily drudgery? I can live as I
have always lived! Yes; but do you know, or care to know, that with every
day life becomes more difficult for me? Your fine friends at Bayswater
have done with me. I have spent the last sixpence I shall ever see from
Philip Sheldon. Hawkehurst has cut me, like the ungrateful hound he is.
When they have squeezed the orange, they throw away the rind. Didn't
Voltaire say that, when Frederick of Prussia gave him the go-by? Heaven
knows it's true enough; and now you, who by a word might secure yourself
a splendid position--yes, I say splendid for a poor drudge and dependent
like you, and insure a home for me--you, forsooth, must needs favour me
with your high-flown sentiments about your sense of right, and promise me
a home in the future, if I will wait and hope! No, Diana, waiting and
hoping are done with for me, and I can find a home in the bed of the
river without your help.
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