Kitabı oku: «The Golden Butterfly», sayfa 32
He took her in his arms and soothed and caressed her like a child, while she sobbed and cried.
"Look at me, Jack," she said presently. "Tell me, am I the same? Is there any change in me?"
"Yes, Phil; yes, my darling. You are changed. Your sweet eyes are full of tears, like the skies in April; and your cheeks are pale and white. Let me kiss them till they get their own colour again."
He did kiss them, and she stood unresisting. But she trembled.
"I know, Jack, now," she said softly. "It all came upon me in a moment, when your lips touched mine. O Jack, Jack! it was as if something snapped; as if a veil fell from my eyes. I know now what you meant when you said just now that you loved me."
"Do you, Phil? And can you love me, too?"
"Yes, Jack. I will tell you when I am able to talk again. Let me sit down. Sit with me, Jack."
She drew him beside her on the sofa and murmured low, while he held her hands.
"Do you like to sit just so, holding my hands? Are you better now, Jack?
"Do you think, Jack, that I can have always loved you – without knowing it all – just as you love me? O my poor Jack!
"My heart beats so fast. And I am so happy. What have you said to me, Jack, that I should be so happy?
"See, the sun has come out – and the showers are over and gone – and the birds are singing – all the sweet birds – they are singing for me, Jack, for you and me – Oh, for you and me!"
Her voice broke down again, and she hid her face upon her lover's shoulder, crying happy tears.
He called her a thousand endearing names; he told her that they would be always together; that she had made him the happiest man in all the world; that he loved her more than any girl ever had been loved in the history of mankind; that she was the crown and pearl and queen of all the women who ever lived; and then she looked up, smiling through her tears.
Ah, happy, happy day! Ah, day for ever to be remembered even when, if ever, the years shall bring its fiftieth anniversary to an aged pair, whose children and grandchildren stand around their trembling feet? Ah, moments that live for ever in the memory of a life! They die, but are immortal. They perish all too quickly, but they bring forth the precious fruits of love and constancy, of trust, affection, good works, peace, and joy, which never perish.
"Take me on the river, Jack," she said presently. "I want to think it all over again, and try to understand it better."
He fetched cushion and wrapper, for the boat was wet, and placed her tenderly in the boat. And then he began to pull gently up the stream.
The day had suddenly changed. The morning had been gloomy and dull, but the afternoon was bright; the strong wind was dropped for a light cool breeze; the swans were cruising about with their lordly pretence of not caring for things external; and the river ran clear and bright.
They were very silent now; the girl sat in her place, looking with full soft eyes on the wet and dripping branches or in the cool depths of the stream.
Presently they passed an old gentleman fishing in a punt; he was the same old gentleman whom Phillis saw one morning – now so long ago – when he had that little misfortune we have narrated, and tumbled backwards in his ark. He saw them coming, and adjusted his spectacles.
"Youth and Beauty again," he murmured. "And she's been crying. That young fellow has said something cruel to her. Wish I could break his head for him. The pretty creature! He'll come to a bad end, that young man." Then he impaled an immense worm savagely and went on fishing.
A very foolish old gentleman this.
"I am trying to make it all out quite clearly, Jack," Phillis presently began. "And it is so difficult." Her eyes were still bright with tears, but she did not tremble now, and the smile was back upon her lips.
"My darling, let it remain difficult. Only tell me now, if you can, that you love me."
"Yes, Jack," she said, not in the frank and childish unconsciousness of yesterday, but with the soft blush of a woman who is wooed. "Yes, Jack, I know now that I do love you, as you love me, because my heart beat when you kissed me, and I felt all of a sudden that you were all the world to me."
"Phil, I don't deserve it. I don't deserve you."
"Not deserve me? O Jack, you make me feel humble when you say that! And I am so proud.
"So proud and so happy," she went on, after a pause. "And the girls who know all along – how do they find it out? – want every one for herself this great happiness, too. I have heard them talk and never understood till now. Poor girls! I wish they had their – their own Jack, not my Jack."
Her lover had no words to reply.
"Poor boy! And you went about with your secret so long. Tell me how long, Jack?"
"Since the very first day I saw you in Carnarvon Square, Phil."
"All that time? Did you love me on that day – not the first day of all, Jack? Oh, surely not the very first day?"
"Yes; not as I love you now – now that I know you so well, my Phillis – mine – but only then because you were so pretty."
"Do men always fall in love with a girl because she is pretty?"
"Yes, Phil. They begin because she is pretty, and they love her more every day when she is so sweet and so good as my darling Phil."
All this time Jack had been leaning on his oars, and the boat was drifting slowly down the current. It was now close to the punt where the old gentleman sat watching them.
"They have made it up," he said. "That's right." And he chuckled.
She looked dreamy and contented; the tears were gone out of her eyes, and a sweet softness lay there, like the sunshine on a field of grass.
"She is a rose of Sharon and a lily of the valley," said this old gentleman. "That young fellow ought to be banished from the State for making other people envious of his luck. Looks a good-tempered rogue, too."
He observed with delight that they were thinking of each other while the boat drifted nearer to his punt. Presently – bump – bump!
Jack seized his sculls and looked up guiltily. The old gentleman was nodding and smiling to Phillis.
"Made it up?" he asked most impertinently. "That is right, that is right. Give you joy, sir, give you joy. Wish you both happiness. Wish I had it to do all over again. God bless you, my dear!"
His jolly red face beamed like the setting sun under his big straw hat, and he wagged his head and laughed.
Jack laughed too; at other times he would have thought the old angler an extremely impertinent person. Now he only laughed.
Then he turned the boat's head, and rowed his bride swiftly homewards.
"Phil, I am like Jason bringing home Medea," he said, with a faint reminiscence of classical tradition. I have explained that Jack was not clever.
"I hope not," said Phil; "Medea was a dreadful person."
"Then Paris bringing home Helen – No, Phil; only your lover bringing home the sweetest girl that ever was. And worth five and thirty Helens."
When they landed, Agatha L'Estrange was on the lawn waiting for them. To her surprise, Phillis, on disembarking, took Jack by the arm, and his hand closed over hers. Mrs. L'Estrange gasped. And in Phillis's tear-bright eyes, she saw at last the light and glow of love; and in Phillis's blushing face she saw the happy pride of the celestial Venus who has met her only love.
"Children – children!" she said, "what is this?"
Phillis made answer, in words which Abraham Dyson used to read to her from a certain Book, but which she never understood till now – made answer with her face upturned to her lover —
"I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me."
They were a quiet party that evening. Jack did not want to talk. He asked Phillis to sing; he sat by in a sort of rapture while her voice, in the songs she most affected, whispered and sang to his soul not words, but suggestions of every innocent delight. She recovered something of her gaiety, but their usual laughter was hushed as if by some unexpressed thought. It will never come back to her again, that old mirth and light heart of childhood. She felt while she played as if she was in some great cathedral; the fancies of her brain built over her head a pile more mystic and wonderful than any she had seen. Its arches towered to the sky; its aisles led far away into dim space. She was walking slowly up the church hand-in-hand with Jack, towards a great rose light in the east. An anthem of praise and thanksgiving echoed along the corridors, and pealed like thunder among the million rafters of the roof. Round them floated faces which looked and smiled. And she heard the voice of Abraham Dyson in her ear —
"Life should be two-fold, not single. That, Phillis, is the great secret of the world. Every man is a priest; every woman is a priestess; it is a sacrament which you have learned of Jack this day. Go on with him in faith and hope. Love is the Universal Church and Heaven is everywhere. Live in it; die in it; and dying begin your life of love again."
"Phil," cried Jack, "what is it? You look as if you had seen a vision."
"I have heard the voice of Abraham Dyson," she said solemnly. "He is satisfied and pleased with us, Jack."
That was nothing to what followed, for presently there occurred a really wonderful thing.
On Phillis's table – they were all three sitting in the pleasant morning-room – lay among her lesson-books and drawing materials a portfolio. Jack turned it over carelessly. There was nothing at all in it except a single sheet of white paper, partly written over. But there had been other sheets, and these were torn off.
"It is an old book full of writing," said Phillis carelessly. "I have torn out all the leaves to make rough sketches at the back. There is only one left now."
Jack took it up and read the scanty remnant.
"Good heavens!" he cried. "Have you really destroyed all these pages, Phil?"
Then he laughed.
"What is it, Jack? Yes I have torn them all out, drawn rough things on them, and then burnt them, every one."
"Is it anything important?" asked Mrs. L'Estrange.
"I should think it was important!" said Jack. "Ho, ho! Phillis has destroyed the whole of Mr. Dyson's lost chapter on the Coping-stone. And now his will is not worth the paper it is written on."
It was actually so. Bit by bit, while Joseph Jagenal was leaving no corner unturned in the old house at Highgate in search of the precious document, without which Mr. Dyson's will was so much waste paper, this young lady was contentedly cutting out the sheets one by one and using them up for her first unfinished groups. Of course she could not read one word of what was written. It was a fitting Nemesis to the old man's plans that they were frustrated through the very means by which he wished to regenerate the world.
And now nothing at all left but a tag end, a bit of the peroration, the last words of the final summing-up. And this was what Jack read aloud —
"… these provisions and no other. Thus will I have my College for the better Education of Women founded and maintained. Thus shall it grow and develop till the land is full of the gracious influence of womankind at her best and noblest. The Coping-stone of a girl's Education should be, and must be, Love. When Phillis Fleming, my ward, whose example shall be taken as the model for my college, feels the passion of Love, her education is finally completed. She will have much afterwards to learn. But self-denial, sympathy, and faith come best through Love. Woman is born to be loved; that woman only approaches the higher state who has been wooed and who has loved. When Phillis loves, she will give herself without distrust and wholly to the man who wins her. It is my prayer, my last prayer for her, that he may be worthy of her." Here Jack's voice faltered for a moment. "Her education has occupied my whole thoughts for thirteen years. It has been the business of my later years. Now I send her out into the world prepared for all, except treachery, neglect, and ill treatment. Perhaps her character would pass through these and come out the brighter. But we do not know; we cannot tell beforehand. Lord, lead her not into temptation; and so deal with her lover as he shall deal with her."
"Amen," said Agatha L'Estrange.
But Phillis sprang to her feet and threw up her arms.
"I have found it!" she cried. "Oh, how often did he talk to me about the Coping-stone. Now I have nothing more to learn. O Jack, Jack!" she fell into his arms, and lay there as if it was her proper place. "We have found the Coping-stone – you and I between us – and it is here, it is here!"
CHAPTER XXXVIII
"'Tis well to be off with the old love,
Though you never get on with a new."
During the two of three weeks following their success with Gilead Beck the Twins were conspicuous, had any one noticed them, for a recklessness of expenditure quite without parallel in their previous history. They plunged as regarded hansoms, paying whatever was asked with an airy prodigality; they dined at the club every day, and drank champagne at all hours; they took half-guinea stalls at theatres: they went down to Greenwich and had fish-dinners; they appeared with new chains and rings; they even changed their regular hours of sleep, and sometimes passed the whole day broad awake, in the pursuit of youthful pleasures. They winked and nodded at each other in a way which suggested all kinds of delirious delights; and Cornelius even talked of adding an episode to the Epic, based on his own later experiences, which he would call, he said, the Jubilee of Joy.
The funds for this fling, all too short, were provided by their American patron. Gilead Beck had no objection to advance them something on account; the young gentlemen found it so pleasant to spend money, that they quickly overcame scruples about asking for more; perhaps they would have gone on getting more, but for a word of caution spoken by Jack Dunquerque. In consequence of this unkindness they met each other one evening in the Studio with melancholy faces.
"I had a letter to-day from Mr. Gilead Beck," said Cornelius to Humphrey.
"So had I," said Humphrey to Cornelius.
"In answer to a note from me," said Cornelius.
"In reply to a letter of mine," said Humphrey.
"It is sometimes a little awkward, brother Humphrey," Cornelius remarked with a little temper, "that our inclinations so often prompt us to do the same thing at the same time."
Said Humphrey, "I suppose then, Cornelius, that you asked him for money?"
"I did, Humphrey. How much has the Patron advanced you already on the great Picture?"
"Two hundred only. A mere trifle. And now he refuses to advance any more until the Picture is completed. Some enemy, some jealous brother artist, must have corrupted his mind."
"My case, too. I asked for a simple fifty pounds. It is the end of May, and the country would be delightful if one could go there. I have already drawn four or five cheques of fifty each, on account of the Epic. He says, this mercenary and mechanical patron, that he will not lend me any more until the Poem is brought to him finished. Some carping critic has been talking to him."
"How much of the Poem is finished?"
"How much of the Picture is done?"
The questions were asked simultaneously, but no answer was returned by either.
Then each sat for a few moments in gloomy silence.
"The end of May," murmured Humphrey. "We have to be ready by the beginning of October. June – July – only four months. My painting is designed for many hundreds of figures. Your poem for – how many lines, brother?"
"Twenty cantos of about five hundred lines each."
"Twenty times five hundred is ten thousand."
Then they relapsed into silence again.
"Brother Cornelius," the Artist went on, "this has been a most eventful year for us. We have been rudely disturbed from the artistic life of contemplation and patient work into which we had gradually dropped. We have been hurried – hurried, I say, brother – into Action, perhaps prematurely – "
Cornelius grasped his brother's hand, but said nothing.
"You, Cornelius, have engaged yourself to be married."
Cornelius dropped his brother's hand. "Pardon me, Humphrey; it is you that is engaged to Phillis Fleming."
"I am nothing of the sort, Cornelius," the other returned sharply. "I am astonished that you should make such a statement."
"One of us certainly is engaged to the young lady. And as certainly it is not I. 'Let your brother Humphrey hope,' she said. Those were her very words. I do think, brother, that it is a little ungenerous, a little ungenerous of you, after all the trouble I took on your behalf, to try to force this young lady on me."
Humphrey's cheek turned pallid. He plunged his hands into his silky beard, and walked up and down the room gesticulating.
"I went down on purpose to tell Phillis about him. I spoke to her of his ardour. She said she appreciated – said she appreciated it, Cornelius. I even went so far as to say that you offered her a virgin heart – perilling my own soul by those very words – a virgin heart" – he laughed melodramatically. "And after that German milkmaid! Ha, ha! The Poet and the milkmaid!"
Cornelius by this time was red with anger. The brothers, alike in so many things, differed in this, that, when roused to passion, while Humphrey grew white Cornelius grew crimson.
"And what did I do for you?" he cried out. The brothers were now on opposite sides of the table, walking backwards and forwards with agitated strides. "I told her that you brought her a heart which had never beat for another – that, after your miserable little Roman model! An artist not able to resist the charms of his own model!"
"Cornelius!" cried Humphrey, suddenly stopping and bringing his fist with a bang upon the table.
"Humphrey!" cried his brother, exactly imitating his gesture.
Their faces glared into each other's; Cornelius, as usual, wrapped in his long dressing-gown, his shaven cheeks purple with passion; Humphrey in his loose velvet jacket, his white lips and cheeks, and his long silken beard trembling to every hair.
It was the first time the brothers had ever quarrelled in all their lives. And like a tempest on Lake Windermere, it sprang up without the slightest warning.
They glared in a steady way for a few minutes, and then drew back and renewed their quick and angry walk side by side, with the table between them.
"To bring up the old German business!" said Cornelius.
"To taunt me with the Roman girl!" said Humphrey.
"Will you keep your engagement like a gentleman, and marry the girl?" cried the Poet.
"Will you behave as a man of honour, and go to the Altar with Phillis Fleming?" asked the Artist.
"I will not," said Cornelius. "Nothing shall induce me to get married."
"Nor will I," said Humphrey. "I will see myself drawn and quartered first."
"Then," said Cornelius, "go and break it to her yourself, for I will not."
"Break what?" asked Humphrey passionately. "Break her heart, when I tell her, if I must, that my brother repudiates his most sacred promises?"
Cornelius was touched. He relented. He softened.
"Can it be that she loves us both?"
They were at the end of the table, near the chairs, which as usual were side by side.
"Can that be so, Cornelius?"
They drew nearer the chairs; they sat down; they turned, by force of habit, lovingly towards each other; and their faces cleared.
"Brother Humphrey," said Cornelius, "I see that we have mismanaged this affair. It will be a wrench to the poor girl, but it will have to be done. I thought you wanted to marry her."
"I thought you did."
"And so we each pleaded the other's cause. And the poor girl loves us both. Good heavens! What a dreadful thing for her."
"I remember nothing in fiction so startling. To be sure, there is some excuse for her."
"But she can't marry us both?"
"N – n – no. I suppose not. No – certainly not. Heaven forbid! And as you will not marry her – "
Humphrey shook his head in a decided manner.
"And I will not – "
"Marry?" interrupted Humphrey. "What! And give up this? Have to get up early; to take breakfast at nine; to be chained to work; to be inspected and interfered with while at work – Phillis drew me once, and pinned the portrait on my easel; to be restricted in the matter of port; to have to go to bed at eleven; perhaps, Cornelius, to have babies; and beside, if they should be Twins! Fancy being shaken out of your poetic dream by the cries of Twins!"
"No sitting up at night with pipes and brandy-and-water," echoed the Poet. "And, Humphrey" – here he chuckled, and his face quite returned to its brotherly form – "should we go abroad, no flirting with Roman models – eh, eh, eh?"
"Ho, ho, ho!" laughed the Artist melodiously. "And no carrying milk-pails up the Heidelberg hills – eh, eh, eh?"
"Marriage be hanged!" cried the Poet, starting up again. "We will preserve our independence, Humphrey. We will be free to woo, but not to wed."
Was there ever a more unprincipled Bard? It is sad to relate that the Artist echoed his brother.
"We will, Cornelius – we will. Vive la liberté!" He snapped his fingers, and began to sing:
"Quand on est a Paris
On ecrit a son pere,
Qui fait reponse, 'Brigand,
Tu n'en as – '"
He broke short off, and clapped his hands like a school-boy. "We will go to Paris next week, brother."
"We will, Humphrey, if we can get any more money. And now – how to get out of the mess?"
"Do you think Mrs. L'Estrange will interfere?"
"Or Colquhoun?"
"Or Joseph?"
"The best way would be to pretend it was all a mistake. Let us go to-morrow, and cry off as well as we can."
"We will, Cornelius."
The quarrel and its settlement made them thirsty, and they drank a whole potash-and-brandy each before proceeding with the interrupted conversation.
"Poor little Phillis!" said the Artist, filling his pipe. "I hope she won't pine much."
"Ariadne, you know," said the Poet; and then he forgot what Ariadne did, and broke off short.
"It isn't our fault, after all. Men of genius are always run after. Women are made to love men, and men are made to break their hearts. Law of nature, dear Cornelius – law of Nature. Perhaps the man is a fool who binds himself to one. Art alone should be our mistress – glorious Art!"
"Yes," said Cornelius; "you are quite right. And what about Mr. Gilead Beck?"
This was a delicate question, and the Artist's face grew grave.
"What are we to do, Cornelius?"
"I don't know, Humphrey."
"Will the Poem be finished?"
"No. Will the Picture?"
"Not a chance."
"Had we not better, Humphrey, considering all the circumstances, make up our minds to throw over the engagement?"
"Tell me, Cornelius – how much of your Poem remains to be done?"
"Well, you see, there is not much actually written."
"Will you show it to me – what there is of it?"
"It is all in my head, Humphrey. Nothing is written."
He blushed prettily as he made the confession. But the Artist met him half-way with a frank smile.
"It is curious, Cornelius, that up to the present I have not actually drawn any of the groups. My figures are still in my head."
Both were surprised. Each, spending his own afternoons in sleep, had given the other credit for working during that part of the day. But they were too much accustomed to keep up appearances to make any remark upon this curious coincidence.
"Then, brother," said the Poet, with a sigh of relief, "there really is not the slightest use in leading Mr. Beck to believe that the works will be finished by October, and we had better ask for a longer term. A year longer would do for me."
"A year longer would, I think, do for me," said Humphrey, stroking his beard, as if he was calculating how long each figure would take to put in. "We will go and see Mr. Beck to-morrow."
"Better not," said the sagacious Poet.
"Why not?"
"He might ask for the money back."
"True, brother. He must be capable of that meanness, or he would have given us that cheque we asked for. Very true. We will write."
"What excuse shall we make?"
"We will state the exact truth, Brother. No excuse need be invented. We will tell our Patron that Art cannot – must not – be forced."
This settled, Cornelius declared that a weight was off his mind, which had oppressed him since the engagement with Mr. Beck was first entered into. Nothing, he said, so much obstructed the avenues of fancy, checked the flow of ideas, and destroyed grasp of language, as a slavish time-engagement. Now, he went on to explain, he felt free; already his mind, like a garden in May, was blossoming in a thousand sweet flowers. Now he was at peace with mankind. Before this relief he had been – Humphrey would bear him out – inclined to lose his temper over trifles; and the feeling of thraldom caused him only that very evening to use harsh words even to his twin brother. Here he held out his hand, which Humphrey grasped with effusion.
They wrote their letters next day – not early in the day, because they prolonged their evening parliament till late, and it was one o'clock when they took breakfast But they wrote the letters after breakfast, and at two they took the train to Twickenham.
Phillis received them in her morning-room. They appeared almost as nervous and agitated as when they called a week before. So shaky were their hands that Phillis began by prescribing for them a glass of wine each, which they took, and said they felt better.
"We come for a few words of serious explanation," said the Poet.
"Yes," said Phillis. "Will Mrs. L'Estrange do?"
"On the contrary, it is with you that we would speak."
"Very well," she replied. "Pray go on."
They were sitting side by side on the sofa, looking as grave as a pair of owls. There was something Gog and Magogish, too, in their proximity.
Phillis found herself smiling when she looked at them. So, to prevent laughing in their very faces, she changed her place, and went to the open window.
"Now," she said.
Cornelius, with the gravest face in the world, began again.
"It is a delicate and, I fear, a painful business," he said. "Miss Fleming, you doubtless remember a conversation I had with you last week on your lawn?"
"Certainly. You told me that your brother, Mr. Humphrey, adored me. You also said that he brought me a virgin heart. I remember perfectly. I did not understand your meaning then. But I do now. I understand it now." She spoke the last words with softened voice, because she was thinking of the Coping-stone and Jack Dunquerque.
Humphrey looked indignantly at his brother. Here was a position to be placed in! But Cornelius lifted his hand, with a gesture which meant, "Patience; I will see you through this affair," and went on —
"You see, Miss Fleming, I was under a mistake. My brother, who has the highest respect, in the abstract, for womanhood, which is the incarnation and embodiment of all that is graceful and beautiful in this fair world of ours, does not – does not – after all – "
Phillis looked at Humphrey. He sat by his brother, trembling with a mixture of shame and terror. They were not brave men, these Twins, and they certainly drank habitually more than is good for the nervous system.
She began to laugh, not loudly, but with a little ripple of mirth which terrified them both, because in their vanity they thought it the first symptoms of hysterical grief. Then she stepped to the sofa, and placed both her hands on the unfortunate Artist's shoulder.
He thought that she was going to shake him, and his soul sank into his boots.
"You mean that he does not, after all, adore me. O Mr. Humphrey, Mr. Humphrey! was it for this that you offered me a virgin heart? Is this your gratitude to me for drawing your likeness when you were hard at work in the Studio? What shall I say to your brother Joseph, and what will he say to you?"
"My dear young lady," Cornelius interposed hastily, "there is not the slightest reason to bring Joseph into the business at all. He must not be told of this unfortunate mistake. Humphrey does adore you – speak, brother – do you not adore Miss Fleming?"
Humphrey was gasping and panting.
"I do," he ejaculated, "I do – Oh, most certainly."
Then Phillis left him and turned to his brother.
"But there is yourself, Mr. Cornelius. You are not an artist; you are a poet; you spend your days in the Workshop, where Jack Dunquerque and I found you rapt in so poetic a dream that your eyes were closed and your mouth open. If you made a mistake about Humphrey, it is impossible that he could have made a mistake about you."
"This is terrible," said Cornelius. "Explain, brother Humphrey. Miss Fleming, we – no, you as well – are victims of a dreadful error."
He wiped his brow and appealed to his brother.
Released from the terror of Phillis's hands upon his shoulder, the Artist recovered some of his courage and spoke. But his voice was faltering. "I, too," he said, "mistook the respectful admiration of my brother for something dearer. Miss Fleming, he is already wedded."
"Wedded? Are you a married man, Mr. Cornelius? Oh, and where is the virgin heart?"
"Wedded to his art," Humphrey explained. Then he went a little off his head, I suppose, in the excitement of this crisis, because he continued in broken words, "Wedded – long ago – object of his life's love – with milk-pails on the hills of Heidelberg, and light blue eyes – the Muse of Song. But he regards you with respectful admiration."
"Most respectful," said Cornelius. "As Petrarch regarded the wife of the Count de Sade. Will you forgive us, Miss Fleming, and – and – try to forget us?"
"So, gentlemen," the young lady said, with sparkling eyes, "you come to say that you would rather not marry me. I wonder if that is usual with men?"
"No, no!" they both cried together. "Happy is the man – "
"You may be the happy man, Humphrey," said Cornelius.
"No; you, brother – you."
Never had wedlock seemed so dreadful a thing as it did now, with a possible bride standing before them, apparently only waiting for the groom to make up his mind.
"I will forgive you both," she said; "so go away happy. But I am afraid I shall never, never be able to forget you. And if I send you a sketch of yourselves just as you look now, so ashamed and so foolish, perhaps you will hang it up in the Workshop or the Studio, to be looked at when you are awake; that is, when you are not at work."
