Beggars -- Fiction; Love stories; Revenge -- Fiction; Women sculptors -- Fiction
I can't be at the studio till eleven. Please find somewhere
about you the kindness to wait, or at least to come again at
that time. You will greatly oblige,
Yours sincerely,
BARBARA FERRIS.
Blizzard read his note three times; it was very friendly. The "Yours
sincerely" touched his imagination. Especially the "Yours."
"Yours," he said, "mine," and with a sudden idiocy of passion he crushed
the note to his lips. And then, as if with remorse at having been rough
with a helpless thing, he smoothed out the crumpled sheet, and placed
it, together with its envelope, in that pocket which was nearest to his
heart. Then he seated himself on the edge of the model's platform, laid
his crutches aside, closed his eyes, and for perhaps five minutes slept,
motionless as a statue, except that now and then his ears twitched. At
the end of five minutes, he waked, greatly refreshed, and ready, if the
need should arise, to sit up the whole of the following night.
There was a sound of a man's steps mounting the stairs. And then a brisk
knocking on the studio door.
"Come in," said Blizzard.
Dr. Ferris entered, hesitated, and then closed the door behind him.
"You'll pardon me," said Blizzard coolly, "if I don't get up?"
"Yes--yes," said Dr. Ferris, and in his handsome eyes was a look of
pain and pity.
"It isn't easy for me to get up," Blizzard continued in the same cool,
emotionless voice, "you can see for yourself. I can't spring to my
feet--like other men. Do you know who I am?"
"Yes," said Dr. Ferris, "I'm afraid I do. But they told me the name of
the man who has been posing for Miss Ferris was Blizzard. Your name--"
"My name," said Blizzard, "is forgotten."
Dr. Ferris bowed gravely. "Quite so, Mr. Blizzard," he said.
"Miss Barbara," said Blizzard, watching closely the effect upon the
older man of the familiarity, "will not be here till eleven. And as you
and I cannot possibly have anything pleasant to say to each other, and
as you, although the older man, are far better off than I am for means
of locomotion, and as even _thinking_ of you has something the effect
upon my stomach that mustard and warm water would have--"
"If you have any mercy in your heart," said Dr. Ferris, his mouth
distorted with emotion, "don't talk to me that way. What made a hell of
your life has made a hell of mine."
The look of cold hatred in Blizzard's face changed at once to curiosity.
"Really?" he said; "you mean that?"
"It is the truth."
Blizzard considered, and then shook his head. "No," he said, "it
couldn't be the same. It may have stretched you on the hot grid now and
then, but between times of remorse you've had long, long stretches of
success and happiness. I haven't. I have burned in hell fires from that
day to this."
"I told you on that day," said the surgeon, "that if there was ever
anything under heaven that I could do for you, I would do it. You've
never called upon me for anything--money--or service."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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