"Absolutely never," flashed Sylvia, showing all the celebrated family obstinacy by her beautiful set mouth, "I'd rather----"

"Never mind what you'd rather. _I know_ what you'd rather, thanks very much. All right, you mean it. Cross him out. And now we know where we are."

"But still I'm afraid ... you don't seem to think I ought to marry Mr.

Woodville, do you?"

"Not that exactly," said Savile. "But I think the man who's been making love to my sister ought to marry _her_. What's more, he's got to."

"Oh, Savile, how can you! Don't you think he cares for me?"

"Off the rails as usual! Yes, I do think so, but it doesn't matter a straw what my thoughts are. It matters what's going to be done."

"But what can be done? Unless he goes away to Athens, I mean."

"Great Scott!" exclaimed Savile, starting up. "What's the use of all his friends--Chetwode, and Mervyn, and Wilton, Vere and Broughton, and heaps more--if they can't get him something? A splendid chap like old Woodville! He was looked upon as a brilliant man at Balliol. I happen to know that--never mind how."

She kissed him. "Do you think, then, that Arthur Mervyn would help him?

I mean, do you think that Frank might go on the stage?"

He looked at her quite anxiously, as though he thought her troubles had turned her brain.

"Go on the _stage_! Go on _what_ stage? Oh, you'd like to see your husband prancing about like a painted mountebank with a chorus of leading ladies, would you?"

"Oh no, indeed I shouldn't! But are leading ladies all dreadful? And I thought you were in love with a singer yourself," said Sylvia.

Savile threw away his cigarette, with what he hoped was a hollow laugh.

"My dear child, what I choose to do and what I allow my sister to do are two very different things."

"I dare say they are, darling," said Sylvia mildly. "And, _please_ don't imagine for one moment that I suppose you ever do anything at all--I mean, that you oughtn't."

"No, I shouldn't worry about _me_," said Savile. "We're talking about _your_ troubles.... As if Woodville were such an a.s.s! Catch him going in for such rot!" He laughed. "Sylvia, do you suppose that he's stayed here in this hole," said Savile in a m.u.f.fled undertone, looking round the exquisite room, and then repeating loudly and defiantly, "I say, in this _Hole_, except for you? Do you think he can't do anything better? Mind you, the Governor's fond of Woodville, it's only the cash and all that.

If that idiot of an uncle of his hadn't married his housekeeper, it would have been all right."

"Oh, Savile, fancy, I saw her once! She wore----"

"Describe her dress some other day, dear, for Heaven's sake. What I say is that Woodville is the sort of man who could make his mark."

"Do you think he could make a name by painting?" she asked eagerly.

Savile looked rather sick, and said with patient resignation, "By painting what? The front of the house? Look here, _some one's_ got to talk sense. Leave this to me." He then waited a minute, and said, "_I'll_ get him something to do!"

"Oh, Savile!--Angel!--Genius! How?"

"Would you mind, very kindly, telling me what Chetwode's our brother-in-law for?" said Savile. "What use is he? When's he ever seen with Felicity? He can't live at curiosity shops and race-meetings. He can't expect to. Why (keep this to yourself) I brought him back last night from Yorkshire! Just in time, don't you know. Felicity was as pleased as Punch."

"My darling boy, I _know_ you're sweet and clever, but you talk as if you had any amount of power and influence, and all that!"

"Well, I got Bertie Wilton a decoration!" He laughed. "The Order of the Boot! Now, Sylvia, pull yourself together and I'll see it through. Don't say a word to Woodville, mind that!"

"I adore you for this, Savile." During the interview the girl of twenty seemed to have grown much younger and more inexperienced, and the boy four years her junior, to have become a man.

"Tell me," she asked anxiously, "then am I to pretend to consent to his going to Athens? Why, if he did _go_, well, it would kill me--to begin with!"

"And what to go on with? Rot! It wouldn't kill you. It might spoil your looks, or give you a different sort of looks, that mightn't suit you so well. Awfully jolly it would be, too, having an anxious sister looking out for the post. Thanks! What a life for me! How soon has he to give an answer?"

"Oh, in a month," she answered.

"Well, let things slide; let them remain in ... what's that word?"

"I don't know. In doubt? In ... Chancery?"

"Chancery! Really, Sylvia! I know! In abeyance, that's the word," said Savile. He seemed to take special pleasure in it. "Yes, _abeyance_," he repeated, with a smile. "Well, good-bye! I'm going out." He looked to see that his trousers were turned up and the last b.u.t.ton of his waistcoat left unfastened in the correct Eton fashion, and said, "Do look all right in our box to-night, Sylvia. You can if you like, you know."

"I _promise_, Savile! I'd do _anything_ for you! I shall never forget."

"You know, looking decent can't do any harm anyway anyhow, to anybody.

Never be seen out of uniform." He stopped at the door to say very kindly, "Buck up, dear, and don't go confiding in people--I know what girls are. I suppose now," remarked Savile sarcastically, "that you want a powder-puff, and a cup of tea. I'll tell Price--about the tea, I mean."

CHAPTER XII

AT THE STUDIO

Woodville let himself in with the key, and sat down, in deep despondency, in front of his easel. On it was a second copy of a copy that some one had found him doing at the National Gallery of the great Leonardo. It was not good, and it made him sick to look at it. The studio was a battered little barn in the depths of Chelsea, with the usual dull scent of stale paint and staler tobacco, and very little else; it was quite devoid of the ordinary artistic trappings. From the window shrill cries were heard from the ragged children, who fought and played in the gutter of a sordid street. Woodville had come here to think.

He knew how shocked and distressed Sylvia had been when he had ventured to say that he thought he saw something in the Athenian scheme. He smiled with a slight reaction of gaiety at his surroundings, and wondered, for the hundredth time, why that extraordinary old American lady at the National Gallery had actually ordered from him the second copy of his picture. How marvellously bad it was!

An unusual noise in the street--that of a hansom cab rattling up to the door--startled him. He went to the window, with a strange feeling at his heart. It was impossible that it could be Sylvia; she did not even know the address. It was Sylvia, in pale grey, gracefully paying the cabman while dirty children collected round her feet. He saw through the window that she smiled at them, and gave them a bunch of violets and some money, for which they fought. Horrified, he almost fell down the stairs and opened the door. There was no one else in the house.

She followed him up to the studio, looking pale, but smiling bravely. He closed the door and leant against it. He was panting.

"_What--on--earth_," he said, "do you mean by this madness?"

Sylvia, seeing he was angry, took the hatpin out of her hat, and looked round for a place to sit down and quarrel comfortably.

There was no seat, except a thing that had once been red and once a sofa, but was now a skeleton, and looked so cold and bare that she instinctively took off her chinchilla fur cloak and covered it up. Then she said--

"_Because--I--chose!_ I never can get a word with you at home, and I have a perfect right to come and talk to my future husband on a subject that concerns my whole happiness."

She had invented this speech coming along, being prepared for his anger.

"But what would people----"

"People! People! You live for people! Everything matters except me!"