Barry Pain

“ I happen to be very wealthy. I can enjoy nothing—the day for that has gone past for me. I wish for one night to see somebody else enjoy something. It had to be somebody who did not usually spend money freely; somebody who worked hard; somebody who had refinement and education. I thought, and I still think, that I have found all these things in you. Will you come with me? Dinner, a theatre or a music-hall, a little supper at the Carlton, and then my brougham shall drive you home. ”

“ The electric brougham slid noiselessly up to them. They got in. In the brougham she watched him nervously, sideways. Yes, he was forty-five. His dark hair was grey on the temples; there was a melancholy cruelty in his thin-lipped mouth; but the greenish eyes, strong and searching, were not the eyes of one who had out-lived himself.'
"I can't understand," she said. "What do you mean? You can't enjoy anything?"
"Almost that. I am, unfortunately, one who must have novelty. There are many women to whom I have given pretty toys and suppers at the Carlton. ”

“ Those eyes were not dead yet.
"It won't do," said Lord Alcester.
The girl laughed bitterly. "I thought you might like to look at your work," she said. "You were the ruin of me five years ago."
"My good woman," said Lord Alcester. "If I stopped in Piccadilly to talk to all the women who think I have been the ruin of them, it would stop the traffic. Let me go, please."
She still clung to his arm. "Just half a moment," she said. "The work-girl whom you gave a pretty dress to, and a string of pearls, and a fan that once belonged to a princess. You remember?"
"Good God! " said Lord Alcester. ”