"Pudgie," he said, in a moved sort of voice, "I'm no good to you. Get out of this. Get out--" "No, no, Benlian!" I pleaded. "Get out, do you hear, and don't come again! Go and live somewhere else--go away from London--don't let me know where you go--" "Oh, what have I done?" I asked unhappily; and he was muttering again. "Perhaps it would be better for me too," he muttered; and then he added, "Come, bundle out!" So in home I went, and finished my ivory for the firm; but I can't tell you how friendless and unhappy I felt. Now I used to know in those days a little girl--a nice, warm-hearted little thing, just friendly you know, who used to come to me sometimes in another place I lived at and mend for me and so on. It was an awful long time since I'd seen her; but she found me out one night--came to that yard, walked straight in, went straight to my linen-bag, and began to look over my things to see what wanted mending, just as she used to. I don't mind confessing that I was a bit sweet on her at one time; and it made me feel awfully mean, the way she came in, without asking any questions, and took up my mending. So she sat doing my things, and I sat at my work, glad of a bit of company; and she chatted as she worked, just jolly and gentle and not at all reproaching me. But as suddenly as a shot, right in the middle of it all, I found myself wondering about Benlian again. And I wasn't only wondering; somehow I was horribly uneasy about him. It came to me that he might be ill or something. And all the fun of her having come to see me was gone. I found myself doing all sorts of stupid things to my work, and glancing at my watch that was lying on the table before me. At last I couldn't stand it any longer. I got up. "Daisy," I said, "I've got to go out now." She seemed surprised. "Oh, why didn't you tell me I'd been keeping you!" she said, getting up at once. I muttered that I was awfully sorry.... I packed her off. I closed the door in the hoarding behind her. Then I walked straight across the yard to Benlian's. He was lying on a couch, not doing anything. "I know I ought to have come sooner, Benlian," I said, "but I had somebody with me." "Yes," he said, looking hard at me; and I got a bit red. "She's awfully nice," I stammered; "but you never bother with girls, and you don't drink or smoke--" "No," he said. "Well," I continued, "you ought to have a little relaxation; you're knocking yourself up." And, indeed, he looked awfully ill. But he shook his head. "A man's only a definite amount of force in him, Pudgie," he said, "and if he spends it in one way he goes short in another. Mine goes--there." He glanced at the statue. "I rarely sleep now," he added. "Then you ought to see a doctor," I said, a bit alarmed. (I'd felt sure he was ill.) "No, no, Pudgie. My force is all going there--all but the minimum that can't be helped, you know.... You've heard artists talk about 'putting their soul into their work,' Pudgie?"