PTER XIII

SIXES AND SEVENS

In the meantime, while Dick Stanmore is hugging himself in the warm
atmosphere of hope, while Lord Bearwarden hovers on the brink of a
stream in which he narrowly escaped drowning long ago, while Tom Ryfe
is plunged in depths of anxiety, jealousy, and humiliation that scorch
like liquid fire, Miss Bruce's dark eyes, and winning, wilful ways,
have kindled the torch of mistrust and discord between two people of
whom she has rarely seen the one and never heard of the other.

Mr. Bargrave's chambers in Gray's Inn were at no time more remarkable
for cleanliness than other like apartments in the same locality; but
the dust lies inch-thick now in all places where dust _can_ lie,
because that Dorothea, more moping and tearful than ever, has not the
heart to clean up, no, nor even to wash her own hands and face in the
afternoon as heretofore.

She loves her "Jim," of course, all the more passionately that he
makes her perfectly miserable, neglecting her for days together,
and when they do meet, treating her with an indifference far more
lacerating than any amount of cruelty or open scorn.

Not that he is always good-humoured. On the contrary, "Gentleman Jim,"
as they call him, has lost much of the rollicking, devil-may-care
recklessness that earned his nickname, and is often morose
now--sometimes even fierce and savage to brutality.

The poor woman has had a quarrel with him, not two hours ago,
originating, it is but fair to state, in her own extremely irritating
conduct regarding beer, Jim being anxious to treat his ladye-love with
that fluid for the purpose, as he said, of "drowning unkindness," and
possibly with the further view of quenching an inconvenient curiosity
she has lately indulged about his movements. No man likes to be
watched; and the more reason the woman he is betraying has to doubt
him, the less patience he shows for her anxiety, the less he tolerates
her inquiries, her jealousy, or her reproaches.

Now Dorothea's suspicions, sharpened by affection, have of late grown
extremely wearisome, and Jim has been heard to threaten more than once
that "if so be as she doesn't mend her manners, and live conformable,
he'll take an' hook it, he will, blessed if he won't!"--a dark saying
which sinks deeply and painfully into the forlorn one's heart. When,
therefore, instead of drinking her share, as usual, of a foaming quart
measure containing beer, dashed with something stronger, th