Alice on the Situation

“I bet the building alone won’t cost less than seventy thousand pounds,” he said.

He was back again with Alice in the intimacy of Werter Road, and relating to her, in part, the adventures of the latter portion of the day.  He had reached home long after tea-time; she, with her natural sagacity, had not waited tea for him.  Now she had prepared a rather special tea for the adventurer, and she was sitting opposite to him at the little table, with nothing to do but listen and refill his cup.

“Well,” she said mildly, and without the least surprise at his figures, “I don’t know what he could have been thinking of—­your Priam Farll!  I call it just silly.  It isn’t as if there wasn’t enough picture-galleries already.  When what there are are so full that you can’t get in—­then it will be time enough to think about fresh ones.  I’ve been to the National Gallery twice, and upon my word I was almost the only person there!  And it’s free too!  People don’t want picture-galleries.  If they did they’d go.  Who ever saw a public-house empty, or Peter Robinson’s?  And you have to pay there!  Silly, I call it!  Why couldn’t he have left his money to you, or at any rate to the hospitals or something of that?  No, it isn’t silly.  It’s scandalous!  It ought to be stopped!”

Now Priam had resolved that evening to make a serious, gallant attempt to convince his wife of his own identity.  He was approaching the critical point.  This speech of hers intimidated him, rather complicated his difficulties, but he determined to proceed bravely.

“Have you put sugar in this?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said.  “But you’ve forgotten to stir it.  I’ll stir it for you.”

A charming wifely attention!  It enheartened him.

“I say, Alice,” he said, as she stirred, “you remember when first I told you I could paint?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Well, at first you thought I was daft.  You thought my mind was wandering, didn’t you?”

“No,” she said, “I only thought you’d got a bee in your bonnet.”  She smiled demurely.

“Well, I hadn’t, had I?”

“Seeing the money you’ve made, I should just say you hadn’t,” she handsomely admitted.  “Where we should be without it I don’t know.”

“You were wrong, weren’t you?  And I was right?”

“Of course,” she beamed.

“And do you remember that time I told you I was really Priam Farll?”

She nodded, reluctantly.

“You thought I was absolutely mad.  Oh, you needn’t deny it!  I could see well enough what your thoughts were.”

“I thought you weren’t quite well,” she said frankly.

“But I was, my child.  Now I’ve got to tell you again that I am Priam Farll.  Honestly I wish I wasn’t, but I am.  The deuce of it is that that fellow that came here this morning has found it out, and there’s going to be trouble.  At least there has been trouble, and there may be more.”