him still. Murphy’s respect for the imponderables of personality was profound, he took the miscarriage of his tribute very nicely. If she felt she could not, why then she could not, and that was all. Liberal to a fault, that was Murphy.
“So far I keep abreast,” said Mr. Kelly. “There is just this tribute—”
“I have tried so hard to understand that,” said Celia.
“But what makes you think a tribute was intended?” said Mr. Kelly.
“I tell you he keeps nothing from me,” said Celia.
“Did it go something like this?” said Mr. Kelly. “‘I pay you the highest tribute that a man can pay a woman, and you throw a scene.’”
“Hark to the wind,” said Celia.
“Damn your eyes,” said Mr. Kelly, “did he or didn’t he?”
“It’s not a bad guess,” said Celia.
“Guess my rump,” said Mr. Kelly. “It is the formula.”
“So long as one of us understands,” said Celia.
In respecting what he called the Archeus, Murphy did no more than as he would be done by. He was consequently aggrieved when Celia suggested that he might try his hand at something more remunerative than apperceiving himself into a glorious grave and checking the starry concave, and would not take the anguish on his face for an answer. “Did I press you?” he said. “No. Do you press me? Yes. Is that equitable? My sweet.”
“Will you conclude now as rapidly as possible,” said Mr. Kelly. “I weary of Murphy.”
He begged her to believe him when he said he could not earn. Had he not already sunk a small fortune in attempts to do so? He begged her to believe that he was a chronic emeritus. But it was not altogether a question of economy. There were metaphysical considerations, in whose gloom it appeared that the night had come in which no Murphy could work. Was Ixion under any contract to keep his wheel in nice running order? Had any provision been made for Tantalus to eat salt? Not that Murphy had ever heard of
“But we cannot go on without any money,” said Celia.
“Providence will provide,” said Murphy.
The imperturbable negligence of Providence to provide goaded them to such transports as West Brompton had not known since the Earl’s Court Exhibition. They said little. Sometimes Murphy would begin to make a point, sometimes he may have even finished making one, it was hard to say. For example, early one morning he said: “The hireling fleeth because he is an hireling.” Was that a point? And again: “What shall a man give in exchange for Celia?” Was that a point?
“Those were points undoubtedly,” said Mr. Kelly.
When there was no money left and no bill to be cooked for another week, Celia said that either Murphy got work or she left him and went back to hers. Murphy said work would be the end of them both.
“Points one and two,” said Mr. Kelly.
Celia had not been long back on the street when Murphy wrote imploring her to return. She telephoned to say that she would return if he undertook to look for work. Otherwise it was useless. He rang off while she was still speaking. Then he wrote again saying he was starved out and would do as she wished. But as there was no possibility of his finding in himself any reason for work taking one form rather than another, would she kindly procure a corpus of incentives based on the only system outside his own in which he felt the least confidence, that of the heavenly bodies. In Berwick Market there was a swami who cast excellent nativities for sixpence. She knew the year and date of the unhappy event, the time did not matter. The science that had got over Jacob and Esau would not insist on the precise moment of vagitus. He would attend to the matter himself, were it not that he was down to four-pence.
“And now I ring him up,” concluded Celia, “to tell him I have it, and he tries to choke me off.”
“It?” said Mr. Kelly.
“What he told me to get,” said Celia.
“Are you afraid to call it by its name?” said Mr. Kelly.
“That is all,” said Celia. “Now tell me what to do, because I have to go.”
Drawing himself up for the third time in the bed Mr. Kelly said:
“Approach, my child.”
Celia sat down on the edge of the bed, their four hands mingled on the counterpane, they gazed at one another in silence.
“You are crying, my child,” said Mr. Kelly. Not a thing escaped him.
“How can a person love you and go on like that?” said Celia. “Tell me how it is possible.”
“He is saying the same about you,” said Mr. Kelly.
“To his funny old chap,” said Celia.
“I beg your pardon,” said Mr. Kelly.
“No matter,” said Celia. “Hurry up and tell me what to do.”
“Approach, my child,” said Mr. Kelly, slipping away a little from his surroundings.
“Damn it, I am approached,” said Celia. “Do you want me to get in beside you?”
The blue glitter of Mr. Kelly’s eyes in the uttermost depths of their orbits became fixed, then veiled by the classical pythonic glaze. He raised his left hand, where Celia’s tears had not yet dried, and seated it pronate on the crown of his skull—that was the position. In vain. He raised his right hand and laid the forefinger along his nose. He then returned both hands to their point of departure with Celia’s on the counterpane, the glitter came back into his eye and he pronounced:
“Chuck him.”
Celia made to rise, Mr. Kelly pinioned her wrists.
“Sever your connexion with this Murphy,” he said, “before it is too late.”
“Let me go,” said Celia.
“Terminate an intercourse that must prove fatal,” he said, “while there is yet time.”
“Let me go,” said Celia.
He let her go and she stood up. They gazed at each other in silence. Mr. Kelly missed nothing, his seams began to work.
“I bow to passion,” he said.
Celia went to the door.
“Before you go,” said Mr. Kelly, “you might hand me the tail of my kite. Some tassels have come adrift.”
Celia went to the cupboard where he kept his kite, took out the tail and loose tassels and brought them over to the bed.
“As you say,” said Mr. Kelly, “hark to the wind. I shall fly her out of sight tomorrow.”
He fumbled vaguely at the coils of tail. Already he was
