"We talked a great deal of you, Arnold," Clara went on. "I confided to her some of my hopes and ambitions for you; and I am free to confess to you that she has greatly modified all my plans and calculations."
"Oh!" Arnold was interested in this "But, my dear Clara, I have my profession. I must follow my profession."
"Surely--surely! Listen, Arnold, patiently. Anybody can become an artist--anybody, of course, who has the genius. And all kinds of people, gutter people, have the genius."
"The sun," said Arnold, just as if he had been Lala Roy, "shines on all alike."
"Quite so; and there is an immense enthusiasm for art everywhere; but there is no art leader. There is no one man recognized as the man most competent to speak on art of every kind. Think of that. It is Stella"s idea entirely. This man, when he is found, will sway enormous authority; he will become, if he has a wife able to a.s.sist him, an immense social power."
"And you want me to become that man?"
"Yes, Arnold. I do not see why you should not become that man. Cease to think of becoming President of the Royal Academy, yet go on painting; prove your genius, so as to command respect; cultivate the art of public speaking; and look about for a wife who will be your right hand. Think of this seriously. This is only a rough sketch, we can fill in the details afterward. But think of it. Oh, my dear boy!
if I were only a man, and five-and-twenty, with such a chance before me! What a glorious career is yours, if you choose! But of course you will choose. Good gracious, Arnold! who is that?"
She pointed to the canvas on the easel, where Iris"s face was like the tale of Cambuscan, half told.
"It is no one you know, Clara."
"One of your models?" She rose and examined it more closely through her gla.s.ses. "The eyes are wonderful, Arnold. They are eyes I know. As if I could ever forget them! They are the same eyes, exactly the same eyes. I have never met with any like them before. They are the eyes of my poor, lost, betrayed Claude Deseret. Where did you pick up this girl, Arnold? Is she a common model?"
"Not at all. She is not a model. She is a young lady who teaches by correspondence. She is my tutor--of course I have so often talked to you about her--who taught me the science of Heraldry, and wrote me such charming letters."
"Your tutor! You said your tutor was an old gentleman."
"So I thought, Clara. But I was wrong. My tutor is a young lady, and this is her portrait, half-finished. It does not do her any kind of justice."
"A young lady!" She looked suspiciously at Arnold, whose telltale cheek flushed. "A young lady! Indeed! And you have made her acquaintance."
"As you see, Clara; and she does me the honor to let me paint her portrait."
"What is her name, Arnold?"
"She is a Miss Aglen."
"Strange. The Deserets once intermarried with the Aglens. I wonder if she is any connection. They were Warwickshire Aglens. But it is impossible--a teacher by correspondence, a mere private governess! Who are her people?"
"She lives with her grandfather. I think her father was a tutor or journalist of some kind, but he is dead; and her grandfather keeps a second-hand bookshop in the King"s Road close by."
"A bookshop! But you said, Arnold, that she was a young lady."
"So she is, Clara," he replied simply.
"Arnold!" for the first time in his life Arnold saw his cousin angry with him. She was constantly being angry with other people, but never before had she been angry with him. "Arnold, spare me this nonsense.
If you have been playing with this shop-girl I cannot help it, and I beg that you will tell me no more about it, and do not, to my face, speak of her as a lady."
"I have not been playing with her, I think," said Arnold gravely; "I have been very serious with her."
"Everybody nowadays is a young lady. The girl who gives you a cup of tea in a shop; the girl who dances in the ballet; the girl who makes your dresses."
"In that case, Clara, you need not mind my calling Miss Aglen a young lady."
"There is one word left, at least: women of my cla.s.s are gentlewomen."
"Miss Aglen is a gentlewoman."
"Arnold, look me in the face. My dear boy, tell me, are you mad? Oh, think of my poor unhappy Claude, what he did, and what he must have suffered!"
"I know what he did. I do not know what he suffered. My case, however, is different from his. I am not engaged to any one."
"Arnold, think of the great scheme of life I have drawn out for you.
My dear boy, would you throw that all away?"
She laid her hands upon his arm and looked in his eyes with a pitiful gaze. He took her hands in his.
"My dear, every man must shape his life for himself, or must live out the life shaped for him by his fate, not by his friends. What if I see a life more delightful to me than that of which you dream?"
"You talk of a delightful life, Arnold; I spoke of an honorable career."
"Mine will be a life of quiet work and love. Yours, Clara, would be of noisy and troublesome work without love."
"Without love, Arnold? You are infatuated."
She sunk into the chair and buried her face in her hands. First, it was her lover who had deserted her for the sake of a governess, the daughter of some London tradesman; and now her adopted son, almost the only creature she loved, for whom she had schemed and thought for nearly twenty years, was ready to give up everything for the sake of another governess, also connected with the lower forms of commercial interests.
"It is very hard, Arnold," she said. "No, don"t try to persuade me. I am getting an old woman, and it is too late for me to learn that a gentleman can be happy unless he marries a lady. You might as well ask me to look for happiness with a grocer."
"Not quite," said Arnold.
"It is exactly the same thing. Pray, have you proposed to this--this young lady of the second-hand bookshop?"
"No, I have not."
"You are in love with her, however?"
"I am, Clara."
"And you intend to ask her--in the shop, I dare say, among the second-hand books--to become your wife?"
"That is my serious intention, Clara."
"Claude did the same thing. His father remonstrated with him in vain, he took his wife to London, where, for a time, he lived in misery and self-reproach."
"Do you know that he reproached himself?"
"I know what must have happened when he found out his mistake. Then he went to America, where he died, no doubt in despair, although his father had forgiven him."
"The cases are hardly parallel," said Arnold. "Still, will you permit me to introduce Miss Aglen to you, if she should do me the honor of accepting me? Be generous, Clara. Do not condemn the poor girl without seeing her."