“It seems so ungrateful to hesitate. It is doubt of myself that makes me do so. You have always immensely overrated me; and I should not like you to feel at some future day that you had made a mistake. When you are famous, you will be able to choose whom you please, and where you please.”
“If that is the only consideration that hinders you, I claim your consent. Do you not think that I, too, do not feel how little worthy of your acceptance my offer is? But if we can love one another, what does all that matter? It is not as though we were strangers: we have proved one another. It is absurd that we two should say ‘Mr Herbert’ and ‘Miss Sutherland, as if our friendship were an acquaintance of ceremony.”
“I have often wished that you would call me Mary. At home we always speak of you as Adrian. But I could hardly have asked you to, could I?”
“I am sorry you did not. And now, will you give me a definite answer? Perhaps I have hardly made you a definite offer; but you know my position. I am too poor with my wretched £300 a year to give you a proper home at present. For that I must depend on my brush. You can fancy how I shall work when every exertion will bring my wedding day nearer; though, even at the most hopeful estimate, I fear I am condemning you to a long engagement. Are you afraid to venture on it?”
“Yes, I am afraid; but only lest you should find out the true worth of what you are waiting for. If you will risk that, I consent.”
CHAPTER III
On one of the last days of July, Mary Sutherland was in her father’s house at Windsor, copying a sketch signed A. H. The room had a French window opening on a little pleasure ground and shrubbery, far beyond which, through the swimming summer atmosphere, was the river threading the distant valley. But Mary did not look that way. With her attention concentrated on a stained scrap of paper, she might have passed for an æsthetic daughter of the Man with the Muck Rake. At last a shadow fell upon the drawing board. Then she turned, and saw a tall, handsome lady, a little past middle age, standing at the window.
“Mrs Herbert!” she exclaimed, throwing down her brush, and running to embrace the newcomer. “I thought you were in Scotland.”
“So I was, until last week. The first person I saw in London was your Aunt Jane; and she has persuaded me to stay at Windsor with her for a fortnight How well you are looking! I saw your portrait in Adrian’s studio; and it is not the least bit like you.”
“I hope you did not tell him so. Besides, it must be like me. All Adrian’s artistic friends admire it.”
“Yes; and he admires their works in return. It is a well understood bargain. Poor Adrian! He did not know that I was coming back from Scotland; and I gave him a very disagreeable surprise by walking into his studio on Monday afternoon.”
“Disagreeable! I am sure he was delighted.”
“He did not even pretend to be pleased. His manners are really getting worse and worse. Who is the curious person that opened the shrubbery gate for me? — a sort of Cyclop with a voice of bronze.”
“It is only Mr Jack, Charlie’s tutor. He has nothing to do at present, as Charlie is spending a fortnight at Cambridge.”
“Oh, indeed! Your Aunt Jane has a great deal to say about him. She does not like him; and his appearance rather confirms her, I must say, though he has good eyes. Whose whim was Mr Jack, pray?”
“Mine, they say; though I had no more to do with his being engaged than papa or Charlie had.”
“I am glad Adrian had nothing to do with it. Well, Mary, have you any news for me? Has anything wonderful happened since I went to Scotland?”
“No. At least, I think not. You heard of papa’s aunt Dorcas’s death.”
“That was in April, just before I went away. I heard that you left London early in the season. It is childish to bury yourself down here. You must get married, dear.”
Mary blushed. “Did Adrian tell you of his new plans?” she said.
“Adrian never tells me anything. And indeed I do not care to hear of any plans of his until he has, once for all, given up his absurd notion of becoming a painter. Of course he will not hear of that: he has never forgiven me for suggesting it. All that his fine art has done for him as yet is to make him dislike his mother; and I hope it may never do worse.”
“But, Mrs Herbert, you are mistaken: I assure you you are quite mistaken. He is a little sore, perhaps, because you do not appreciate his genius; but he loves you very dearly.”
“Do not trouble yourself about my not appreciating his genius, as you call it, my dear. I am not one bit prejudiced against art; and if Adrian had the smallest chance of becoming a good painter, I would share my jointure with him and send him abroad to study. But he will never paint. I am not what is called an &ligae;sthete; and pictures that are generally understood to be the perfection of modern art invariably bore me, because I do not understand them. But I do understand Adrian’s daubs; and I know that they are invariably weak and bad. All the Royal Academy could not persuade me to the contrary — though, indeed, they are not likely to try. I wish I could make you understand that anyone who dissuades Adrian from pursuing art will be his best friend. Don’t you feel that yourself when you look at his pictures, Mary?”
“No,” said Mary, fixing her glasses and looking boldly at her visitor, “I feel just the contrary.”
“Then you must be blind or infatuated. Take his portrait of you as an example! No one could recognize it. Even Adrian told me that he would have destroyed it, had you not forbidden him; though he was bursting with suppressed resentment because I did not pretend to admire it.”
“I believe that Adrian will be a great man yet, and that you will acknowledge that you were mistaken in him.”
“Well, my dear, you are young, and not very wise, for all your cleverness. Besides, you did not know Adrian’s father.”
“No; but I know Adrian — very well, I think. I have faith in the entire worthiness of his conceptions; and he has proved that he does not grudge the hard work which is all that is requisite to secure the power of executing what he conceives. You cannot expect him to be a great painter without long practice and study.”
“I do not understand metaphysics, Mary. Conceptions and executions are Greek to me. But I know very well that Adrian will never be happy until he is married to some sensible woman. And married he never can be whilst he remains an artist.”
“Why?”
“What a question! How can he marry with only three hundred a year? He would not accept an allowance from me, even if I could afford to make him one; for since we disagreed about this wretched art, he has withdrawn himself from me in every possible way, and with an ostentation, too, which — natural feeling apart — is in very bad taste. He will never add a penny to his income by painting: of that I am certain; and he has not enterprise enough to marry a woman with money. If he persists in his infatuation, you will find that he will drag out his life waiting for a success that will never come. And he has no social talents. If he were a genius, like Raphael, his crotchets would not matter. If he were a humbug, like his uncle John he would flourish as all humbugs do in this wicked world. But Adrian is neither: he is only a duffer, poor fellow.”
Mary reddened, and said nothing.
“Have you any influence over him?” said Mrs. Herbert, watching her.
“If I had,” replied Mary “I would not use it to discourage him.”
“I am sorry for that. I had some hope that you would help me to save him from wasting his opportunities. Your Aunt Jane has been telling me that you are engaged to