“You find that my picture improves on acquaintance?”
“Oh. yes! Very much. Or rather I improve.”
“But are you sure youre not coaxing yourself into a false admiration of it for my — to avoid hurting me?”
“No, indeed,” said Mary vehemently, trying by force of assertion to stifle this suspicion, which had come into her own mind before Herbert mentioned it.
“And do you still feel able to sympathize with my aims, and willing to encourage me, and to keep the highest aspects of my art before me, as you have done hitherto?”
“I feel willing, but not able. How often must I remind you that I owe all my feeling for art to you, and that I am only the faint reflexion of you in all matters concerning it?”
“Nevertheless without your help I should long ago have despaired. Are you quite sure — I beg you to answer me faithfully — that you do not despise me?”
“Mr. Herbert! How can you think such a thing of me? How can you think it of yourself?”
“I am afraid my constant self-mistrust is only too convincing a proof of my weakness. I sometimes despise myself.”
“It is a proof of your artistic sensibility. You do not need to learn from me that all the great artists have left passages behind them proving that they have felt sometimes as you feel now. Take the oars again; and let us spin down to the bridge. The exercise will cure your fancies.”
“Not yet. I have something else to say. Has it occurred to you that if by any accident — by the forming of a new tie, for instance — your sympathies came to be diverted from me, I should lose the only person whose belief in me has helped me to believe in myself? How utterly desolate I should be!”
“Desolate! Nonsense. Some day you will exhaust the variety of the sympathy you compliment me so highly upon. You will find it growing shallow and monotonous; and then you will not be sorry to be rid of it.”
“I am quite serious. Mary: I have felt for some time past that it is neither honest nor wise in me to trifle any longer with my only chance of happiness. Will you become engaged to me? You may meet many better and stronger men than I, but none who will value you more highly — perhaps none to whose life you can be so indispensable.”
There was a pause, Mary being too full of the responsibility she felt placed upon her to reply at once. Of the ordinary maidenly embarrassment she shewed not a trace.
“Why cannot we go on as we have been doing so happily?” she said, thoughtfully.
“Of course, if you wish it, we can. That is, if you do not know your own mind on the subject. But such happiness as there may be in our present indefinite relations will be all on your side.”
“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,