The Difference Engine Read Online Free PDF Page B

and the all-seeing eye, to obey Michael Radley, and serve him faithfully, so help you God! Do you so swear?”
    She stared at him in dismay. “Must I really?”
    “Yes.”
    “But isn’t it a great sin, to make such an oath, to a man who . . . I mean to say . . . we’re not in holy wedlock . . .”
    “That’s a marriage vow,” he said impatiently, “and this a ‘prentice oath!”
    She saw no alternative. Tugging her skirts back, she knelt before him on cold gritty stone.
    “Do you so swear?”
    “I do, so help me God.”
    “Don’t look so glum,” he said, helping her to her feet, “that’s a mild and womanly oath you swore, compared to some.” He pulled her to her feet. “Let it brace you, should you have doubts or disloyal thoughts. Now take this” — he handed her the guttering candle — “and hunt up that gin-soak of a stage-manager, and tell him I want the boilers fired.”

    They dined that evening in the Argyll Rooms, a Haymarket resort not far from Laurent’s Dancing Academy. The Argyll had private supper-rooms in which the indiscreet might spend an entire night.
    Sybil was mystified by the choice of a private room. Mick was certainly not ashamed to be seen with her in public. Midway through the lamb, however, the waiter admitted a stout little gentleman with pomaded red hair and a gold chain across a taut velvet waistcoat. He was round and plush as a child’s doll.
       ”Hullo, Corny, ” Mick said, without bothering to put down his knife and fork.
    “Evening, Mick,” the man said, with the curiously un-placeable accent of an actor, or a provincial long in service to city gently. “I was told you’d need of me.”
    “And told correctly. Corny.” Mick neither offered to introduce Sybil nor asked the man to sit. She began to feel quite uncomfortable. ” ‘Tis a brief part, so you should have little trouble remembering your lines.” Mick produced a plain envelope from his coat and handed it to the man. “Your lines, your cue, and your retainer. The Garrick, Saturday night.”
    The man smiled mirthlessly as he accepted the envelope. “Quite some time since I played the Garrick, Mick.” He winked at Sybil and took his leave with no more formality than that.
    “Who’s that, Mick?” Sybil asked. Mick had returned to his lamb and was spooning mint sauce from a pewter serving-pot.
    “An actor of parts,” Mick said. “He’ll play opposite you in the Garrick, during Houston’s speech.”
    Sybil was baffled. “Play? Opposite me?”
    “You’re a ‘prentice adventuress, don’t forget. You can expect to be called on to play many roles, Sybil. A political speech can always benefit from a bit of sweetening.”
    “Sweetening?”
    “Never mind.” He seemed to lose interest in his lamb, and pushed his plate aside. “Plenty of time for rehearsal tomorrow. I’ve something to show you now.” He rose from the table, crossed to the door, and bolted it securely. Returning, he lifted the proofed canvas portmanteau from the carpet beside his chair and placed it before her on the Argyll’s clean but much mended linen.
    She’d been curious about the portmanteau. Not curious that he’d carried it with him, from the Garrick’s pit, first to the printers, to examine the handbills for Houston’s lecture, then on to the Argyll Rooms, but because it was of such cheap stuff, nothing at all like the gear he so obviously prided himself on. Why should Dandy Mick choose to carry about a bag of that sort, when he could afford some flash confection from Aaron’s, nickel clasps and silk woven in Ada checkers? And she knew that the black bag no longer contained the kino cards for the lecture, because he’d wrapped those carefully in sheets of The Times and hidden them again behind the stage-mirror.
    Mick undid the wretched tin clasps, opened the bag, and lifted out a long narrow case of polished rosewood, its corners trimmed with bright brass. Sybil wondered if it mightn’t contain a telescope, for