"Does not he! I begin to doubt it myself. But, at all events, you can't doubt of mine, and I am grateful for yours; and since you have given me the trouble of coming here to no purpose, I may as well take the next week's pay in advance--four sovereigns if you please, Dolly Poole."

CHAPTER XII.

ANOTHER HALT--CHANGE OF HORSES--AND A TURN ON THE ROAD.

Colonel Morley, on learning that Jasper declined a personal conference with himself, and that the proposal of an interview with Jasper's alleged daughter was equally scouted or put aside, became still more confirmed in his belief that Jasper had not yet been blest with a daughter sufficiently artful to produce. And pleased to think that the sharper was thus unprovided with a means of annoyance, which, skilfully managed, might have been seriously hara.s.sing; and convinced that when Jasper found no farther notice taken of him, he himself 'would be compelled to pet.i.tion for the terms he now rejected, the Colonel dryly informed Poole "that his interference was at an end; that if Mr. Losely, either through himself, or through Mr. Poole, or any one else, presumed to address Mr. Darrell direct, the offer previously made would be peremptorily and irrevocably withdrawn. I myself," added the Colonel, "shall be going abroad very shortly for the rest of the summer; and should Mr. Losely, in the mean while, think better of a proposal which secures him from want, I refer him to Mr. Darrell's solicitor. To that proposal, according to your account of his dest.i.tution, he must come sooner or later; and I am glad to see that he has in yourself so judicious an adviser"--a compliment which by no means consoled the miserable Poole.

In the briefest words, Alban informed Darrell of his persuasion that Jasper was not only without evidence to support a daughter's claim, but that the daughter herself was still in that part of Virgil's Hades appropriated to souls that have not yet appeared upon the upper earth; and that Jasper himself, although holding back, as might be naturally expected, in the hope of conditions more to his taste, had only to be left quietly to his own meditations in order to recognise the advantages of emigration. Another L100 a-year or so, it is true, he might bargain for, and such a demand might be worth conceding. But, on the whole, Alban congratulated Darrell upon the probability of hearing very little more of the son-in-law, and no more at all of the son-in-law's daughter.

Darrell made no comment nor reply. A grateful look, a warm pressure of the hand, and, when the subject was changed, a clearer brow and livelier smile, thanked the English Alban better than all words.

CHAPTER XIII.

COLONEL MORLEY SHOWS THAT IT IS NOT WITHOUT REASON THAT HE ENJOYS HIS REPUTATION OF KNOWING SOMETHING ABOUT EVERYBODY.

"Well met," said Darrell, the day after Alban had conveyed to him the comforting a.s.surances which had taken one thorn from his side-dispersed one cloud in his evening sky. "Well met," said Darrell, encountering the Colonel a few paces from his own door. "Pray walk with me as far as the New Road. I have promised Lionel to visit the studio of an artist friend of his, in whom he chooses to find a Raffaele, and in whom I suppose, at the price of truth, I shall be urbanely compelled to compliment a dauber."

"Do you speak of Frank Vance?"

"The same."

"You could not visit a worthier man, nor compliment a more promising artist. Vance is one of the few who unite gusto and patience, fancy and brushwork. His female heads, in especial, are exquisite, though they are all, I confess, too much like one another. The man himself is a thoroughly fine fellow. He has been much made of in good society, and remains unspoiled. You will find his manner rather off-hand, the reverse of shy; partly, perhaps, because he has in himself the racy freshness and boldness which he gives to his colours; partly, perhaps, also, because he has in his art the self-esteem that patricians take from their pedigree, and shakes a duke by the hand to prevent the duke holding out to him a finger."

"Good," said Darrell, with his rare, manly laugh. "Being shy myself, I like men who meet one half-way. I see that we shall be at our ease with each other."

"And perhaps still more 'when I tell you that he is connected with an old Eton friend of ours, and deriving no great benefit from that connection; you remember poor Sidney Branthwaite?"

"To be sure. He and I were great friends at Eton somewhat in the same position of pride and poverty. Of all the boys in the school we two had the least pocket-money. Poor Branthwaite! I lost sight of him afterwards. He went into the Church, got only a curacy, and died young."

"And left a son, poorer than himself, who married Frank Vance's sister."

"You don't say so. The Branthwaites were of good old family; what is Mr.

Vance's?"

"Respectable enough. Vance's father was one of those clever men who have too many strings to their bow. He, too, was a painter; but he was also a man of letters, in a sort of a way--had a share in a journal, in which he wrote Criticisms on the Fine Arts. A musical composer, too.

"Rather a fine gentleman, I suspect, with a wife who was rather a fine lady. Their house was much frequented by artists and literary men: old Vance, in short, was hospitable--his wife extravagant. Believing that posterity would do that justice to his pictures which his contemporaries refused, Vance left to his family no other provision. After selling his pictures and paying his debts, there was just enough left to bury him.

Fortunately, Sir --------, the great painter of that day, had already conceived a liking to Frank Vance--then a mere boy--who had shown genius from an infant, as all true artists do. Sir -------- took him into his studio and gave him lessons. It would have been unlike Sir --------, who was open-hearted but close-fisted, to give anything else. But the boy contrived to support his mother and sister. That fellow, who is now as arrogant a stickler for the dignity of art as you or my Lord Chancellor may be for that of the bar, stooped then to deal clandestinely with fancy shops, and imitate Watteau on fans. I have two hand-screens that he painted for a shop in Rathbone Place. I suppose he may have got ten shillings for them, and now any admirer of Frank's would give L100 apiece for them."

"That is the true soul in which genius lodges, and out of which fire springs," cried Darrell cordially. "Give me the fire that lurks in the flint, and answers by light the stroke of the hard steel. I'm glad Lionel has won a friend in such a man. Sidney Branthwaite's son married Vance's sister--after Vance had won reputation?"

"No; while Vance was still a boy. Young Arthur Branthwaite was an orphan. If he had any living relations, they were too poor to a.s.sist him. He wrote poetry much praised by the critics (they deserve to be hanged, those critics!)--scribbled, I suppose, in old Vance's journal; saw Mary Vance a little before her father died; fell in love with her; and on the strength of a volume of verse, in which the critics all solemnly deposed to his surpa.s.sing riches--of imagination, rushed to the altar, and sacrificed a wife to the Muses! Those villanous critics will have a dark account to render in the next world! Poor Arthur Branthwaite! For the sake of our old friend, his father, I bought a copy of his little volume. Little as the volume was, I could not read it through."

"What!--below contempt?"

"On the contrary, above comprehension! All poetry praised by critics now-a-days is as hard to understand as a hieroglyphic. I own a weakness for Pope and common sense. I could keep up with our age as far as Byron; after him I was thrown out. However, Arthur was declared by the critics to be a great improvement on Byron--more 'poetical in form'--more 'aesthetically artistic'--more 'objective' or 'subjective' (I am sure I forget which; but it was one or the other, nonsensical, and not English) in his views of man and nature. Very possibly. All I know is--I bought the poems, but could not read them; the critics read them, but did not buy. All that Frank Vance could make by painting hand-screens and fans and alb.u.m-sc.r.a.ps, he sent, I believe, to the poor poet; but I fear it did not suffice. Arthur, I suspect, must have been publishing another volume on his own account. I saw a Monody on something or other, by Arthur Branthwaite, advertised, and no doubt Frank's fans and hand-screens must have melted into the printer's bill. But the Monody never appeared: the poet died, his young wife too. Frank Vance remains a bachelor, and sneers at gentility--abhors poets--is insulted if you promise posthumous fame--gets the best price he can for his pictures--and is proud to be thought a miser. Here we are at his door."

CHAPTER XIV.

ROMANTIC LOVE PATHOLOGICALLY REGARDED BY FRANK VANCE AND ALBAN MORLEY.

Vance was before his easel, Lionel looking over his shoulder. Never was Darrell more genial than he was that day to Frank Vance. The two men took to each other at once, and talked as familiarly as if the retired lawyer and the rising painter were old fellow-travellers along the same road of life. Darrell was really an exquisite judge of art, and his praise was the more gratifying because discriminating. Of course he gave the due meed of panegyric to the female heads, by which the artist had become so renowned. Lionel took his kinsman aside, and, with a mournful expression of face, showed him the portrait by which, all those varying ideals had been suggested--the portrait of Sophy as t.i.tania.

"And that is Lionel," said the artist, pointing to the rough outline of Bottom.

"Pish!" said Lionel, angrily. Then turning to Darrell: "This is the Sophy we have failed to find, sir--is it not a lovely face?"

"It is indeed," said Darrell. "But that nameless refinement in expression--that arch yet tender elegance in the simple, watchful att.i.tude--these, Mr. Vance, must be your additions to the original."

"No, I a.s.sure you, sir," said Lionel: "besides that elegance, that refinement, there was a delicacy in the look and air of that child to which Vance failed to do justice. Own it, Frank."

"Rea.s.sure yourself, Mr. Darrell," said Vance, "of any fears which Lionel's enthusiasm might excite. He tells me that t.i.tania is in America; yet, after all, I would rather he saw her again--no cure for love at first sight like a second sight of the beloved object after a long absence."

DARRELL (somewhat gravely).--"A hazardous remedy--it might kill, if it did not cure."

COLONEL MORLEY.--"I suspect, from Vance's manner, that he has tested its efficacy on his own person."

LIONEL.--"NO, mon Colonel--I'll answer for Vance. He in love! Never."

Vance coloured--gave a touch to the nose of a Roman senator in the famous cla.s.sical picture which he was then painting for a merchant at Manchester--and made no reply. Darrell looked at the artist with a sharp and searching glance.

COLONEL MORLEY.--"Then all the more credit to Vance for his intuitive perception of philosophical truth. Suppose, my dear Lionel, that we light, one idle day, on a beautiful novel, a glowing romance--suppose that, by chance, we are torn from the book in the middle of the interest--we remain under the spell of the illusion--we recall the scenes--we try to guess what should have been the sequel--we think that no romance ever was so captivating, simply because we were not allowed to conclude it. Well, if, some years afterwards, the romance fall again in our way, and we open at the page where we left off, we cry, in the maturity of our sober judgment, 'Mawkish stuff!--is this the same thing that I once thought so beautiful?--how one's tastes do alter!'"

DARRELL.--"Does it not depend on the age in which one began the romance?"

LIONEL.--"Rather, let me think, sir, upon the real depth of the interest--the true beauty of the--"

VANCE (interrupting).--"Heroine?--Not at all, Lionel. I once fell in love--incredible as it may seem to you--nine years ago last January. I was too poor then to aspire to any young lady's hand--therefore I did not tell my love, but 'let concealment,' et cetera, et cetera. She went away with her mamma to complete her education on the Continent. I remained 'Patience on a monument.' She was always before my eyes--the slenderest, shyest creature just eighteen. I never had an idea that she could grow any older, less slender, or less shy. Well, four years afterwards (just before we made our excursion into Surrey, Lionel), she returned to England, still unmarried. I went to a party at which I knew she was to be-saw her, and was cured."

"Bad case of small-pox, or what?" asked the Colonel, smiling.

VANCE--"Nay; everybody said she was extremely improved--that was the mischief--she had improved herself out of my fancy. I had been faithful as wax to one settled impression, and when I saw a fine, full-formed, young Frenchified lady, quite at her ease, armed with eyegla.s.s and bouquet and bustle, away went my dream of the slim blushing maiden.

The Colonel is quite right, Lionel; the romance once suspended, 'tis a haunting remembrance till thrown again in our way, but complete disillusion if we try to renew it; though I swear that in my case the interest was deep, and the heroine improved in her beauty. So with you and that dear little creature. See her again, and you'll tease, me no more to give you that portrait of t.i.tania at watch over Bottom's soft slumbers. All a Midsummer Night's Dream, Lionel. t.i.tania fades back into the arms of Oberon, and would not be t.i.tania if you could make her--Mrs.

Bottom."

CHAPTER XV.