“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an allowance from me, even if I could afford to make him one; for since we disagreed about this wretched art, he has withdrawn himself from me in every possible way, and with an ostentation, too, which — natural feeling apart — is in very bad taste.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 him; but that is such an old story now that I never pay any attention to it.”
“Has Adrian not told you?”
“My dear, I have already said a dozen times that Adrian never tells me anything. The more important his affairs are, the more openly and purposely he excludes me from them. I hope you have not been so silly as to rely on his visions of fame for your future support.”
“The truth is that we have been engaged since last April. I wanted Adrian to write to you; but he said he preferred to speak to you about it. I thought he would have done so the moment you returned. However, I am sure he had good reasons for leaving me to tell you; and I am quite content to wait until he reaps the reward of his labor. We must agree to differ about his genius. I have perfect faith in him.”
“Well, Mary, I am very sorry for your sake. I am afraid, if you do not lose patience and desert him in time, you will live to see all your own money spent, and to try bringing up a family on three hundred a year. If you would only be advised, and turn him from his artistic conceit, you would be the best wife in England for him. You have such force of character — just what he wants.”
Mary laughed. “You are so mistaken in everything concerning Adrian!” she said. “It is he who has all the force of character: I am only his pupil. He has imposed all his ideas on me, more, perhaps, by dint of their purity and truth than of his own assertiveness; for he is no dogmatist. I am always the follower: he the leader.”
“All very fine, Mary; but my oldfashioned common sense is better than your clever modern nonsense. However, since Adrian has turned your head, there is nothing for it but to wait until you both come to your senses. That must be your Aunt Jane at the door. She promised to follow me within half an hour.”
Mary frowned, and recovered her serenity with an effort as she rose to greet her aunt, Mrs. Beatty, an elderly lady, with features like Mr. Sutherland’s but fat and imperious. She exclaimed, “I hope I’ve not come too soon, Mary. How surprised you must have been to see Mrs Herbert!”
“Yes. Mr Jack let her into the shrubbery; and she appeared to me at the window without a word of warning.”
“Mr Jack is a nice person to have in a respectable house,” said Mrs. Beatty scornfully. “Do you know where I saw him last?”
“No,” said Mary impatiently; “and I do not want to know. I am tired of Mr Jack’s misdemeanors.”
“Misdemeanors! I call it scandal, Mary. A perfect disgrace!”
“Dear me! What has he done now?’
“You may well ask. He is at present shewing himself in the streets of Windsor in company with common soldiers, openly entering the taverns with them.”
“O Aunt Jane! Are you sure?”
Perhaps you will allow me to believe my senses. I drove through the town on my way here — you know what a small town is, Mrs Herbert, and how everybody knows everybody else by sight in it, let alone such a remarkable looking person as this Mr Jack; and the very first person I saw was Private Charles, the worst character in my husband’s regiment, conversing with my nephew’s tutor at the door of the ‘Green Man.’ They went into the bar together before my eyes. Now, what do you think of your Mr Jack?”
“He may have had some special reason”
“Special reason! Fiddlestick! What right has any servant of my brother’s to speak to a profligate soldier in broad daylight in the streets?* There can be no excuse for it. If Mr Jack, had a particle of selfrespect he would maintain a proper distance between himself and even a full sergeant. But this Charles is such a drunkard that he spends half his time in cells. He would have been dismissed from the regiment long since, only he is a bandsman; and the bandmaster begs Colonel Beatty not to get rid of him, as he cannot be replaced.”
“If he is a bandsman,” said Mary, “that explains it. Mr Jack wanted musical information from him, I suppose.”
“I declare, Mary, it is perfectly wicked to hear you defend such conduct. Is a public house the proper place for learning music? Why could not Mr Jack apply to your uncle? If he had addressed himself properly to me, Colonel Beatty could have ordered the man to give him whatever information was required of him.”
“I must say, aunt, that you are the last person I should expect Mr Jack to ask a favor from, judging by your usual manner towards him.”
“There!” said Mrs Beatty, turning indignantly to Mrs Herbert. “That is the way I am treated in this house to gratify Mr Jack. Last week I was told that I was in the habit of gossiping with servants, because Mrs Williams housemaid met him in the Park on Sunday — on Sunday, mind — whistling and singing and behaving like a madman. And now, when Mary’s favorite is convicted in the very act of carousing with the lowest of the low, she turns it off by saying that I do not know how to behave myself before a tutor.”
“I did not say so, aunt; and you know that very well.”
“Oh, well, of course if you are going to fly out at me—”
“I am not flying at you, aunt; but you are taking offence without the least reason; and you are making Mrs Herbert believe that I am Mr Jack’s special champion