I hoped and
thought he would get tired after a time of the Paris halls and
drunken nights and sick headaches, but I waited in vain. He had
gradually got intimate with the back as well as the front of the
scenes, and this I liked less than anything. The state of Howard's
finances, too, threw an extra weight of responsibility on me, for he
must have trodden a straighter road, and perhaps he would have
worked more if he had had less money. And the money--his superfluous
cash--came generally from me. His own allowance was small; just
enough to keep him and no more. Gifts, under the name of loans, from
me supplied all extras, and filled all deficiencies and gaps. What
could I answer when he used to say, "Dear old boy! let me have
another twenty!" And yet I knew it was handing him the razor to cut
his throat. I hoped the sight of another fellow working as
persistently as I did would have been an encouragement to him to
make some sort of effort himself, but he looked upon me as a
misguided creature, and took pains not to follow my example.
"How do you know that you will ever marry Lucia? or make a success
of your books or anything?" he asked me one evening as we went
upstairs after dinner, he to dress before going to La Scarletta, I
to work on the MS.
"You are working for an uncertainty, a dream. It may never come off,
and then where will you be.
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