As the old man's fairy tales had long ago stirred Nance's imagination and
wakened her to the beauty of invisible things, so now his broken, futile
life, with its one great glory of renunciation, called out to the soul of
her and roused in her a strange, new sense of spiritual beauty.
For one week he lived among the luxurious surroundings of his daughter's
home. Everything that skill and money could do, was done to restore him
to health and sanity. But he saw only the sordid sights he had been
seeing for the past fourteen years; he heard only the sounds to which his
old ears had become accustomed.
"You would better move my cot, Nancy," he would say, plucking at the
silken coverlid. "They are scrubbing the floor up in the Lavinski flat.
The water always comes through." And again he would say: "It is nice and
warm in here, but I am afraid you are burning too much coal, dear. I
cannot get another bucket until Saturday."
One day Mrs. Clarke saw him take from his tray, covered with delicacies,
a half-eaten roll and slip it under his pillow.
"We must save it," he whispered confidentially, "save it for to-morrow."
In vain they tried to reassure him; the haunting poverty that had stalked
beside him in life refused to be banished by death.
Mrs. Clarke remained "the lady" to him to the end. When he spoke to her,
his manner assumed a faint dignity, with a slight touch of gallantry, the
unmistakable air of a gentleman of the old school towards an attractive
stranger of the opposite sex.
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