第99章

'I don't think you care two straws about her,' Conway Dalrymple said to his friend John Eames, two days after the dinner-party at Mrs Dobbs Broughton's. The painter was at work in his studio, and the private secretary from the Income-Tax Office, who was no doubt engaged on some special mission to the West End on the part of Sir Raffle Buffle, was sitting in a lounging-chair and smoking a cigar.

'Because I don't go about with my stockings cross-gartered, and do that kind of business?'

'Well, yes; because you don't do that kind of business, more or less.'

'It isn't in my line, my dear fellow. I know what you mean, very well.

I daresay, artistically speaking--'

'Don't be an ass, Johnny.'

'Well then, poetically, or romantically, if you like that better --Idaresay that poetically or romantically I am deficient. I eat my dinner very well, and I don't suppose I ought to do that; and, if you'll believe me, I find myself laughing sometimes.'

'I never knew a man who laughed so much. You're always laughing.'

'And that, you think, is a bad sign?'

'I don't believe you really care about her. I think you are aware that you have got a love-affair on hand, and that you hang on to it rather persistently, having in some way come to a resolution that you would be persistent. But there isn't much heart in it. I daresay there was once.'

'And that is your opinion?'

'You are just like some of those men who for years past have been going to write a book on some new subject. The intention has been sincere at first, and it never altogether dies away. But the would-be author, though he still talks of his work, knows that it will never be executed, and is very patient under his disappointment. All enthusiasm about the thing is gone, but he is still known as the man who is going to do it some day. You are the man who means to marry Miss Dale in five, ten, or twenty years' time.'

'Now, Conway, all that is thoroughly unfair. The would-be author talks of his would-be book to everybody. I have never talked of Miss Dale to anyone but you, and one or two very old family friends. And from year to year, and from month to month, I have done all that has been in my power to win her. I don't think I shall ever succeed, and yet I am as determined about it as I was when I first began it--or rather much more so. If I do not marry Lily, I shall never marry at all, and if anybody were to tell me tomorrow that she had made up her mind to have me, Ishould well nigh go mad for joy. But I am not going to give up all my life for love. Indeed the less I can bring myself to give up for it, the better I shall think of myself. Now I'll go away and call on old Lady Demolines.'

'And flirt with her daughter.'

'Yes;--flirt with her daughter, if I get the opportunity. Why shouldn't I flirt with her daughter?'

'Why not, if you like it?'

'I don't like it--not particularly, that is; because the young lady is not very pretty, nor yet very graceful, not yet very wise.'

'She is pretty after a fashion,' said the artist, 'and if not wise, she is at any rate clever.'

'Nevertheless, I do not like her,' said John Eames.

'Then why do you go there?'

'One has to be civil to people though they are neither pretty nor wise.

I don't mean to insinuate that Miss Demolines is particularly bad, or indeed that she is worse than young ladies in general. I only abused her because there was an insinuation in what you said, that I was going to amuse myself with Miss Demolines in the absence of Miss Dale. The one thing has nothing to do with the other thing. Nothing that I shall say to Miss Demolines will at all militate against my loyalty to Lily.'

'All right, old fellow;--I didn't mean to put you on your purgation. Iwant you to look at that sketch. Do you know for whom it is intended?'

Johnny took up a scrap of paper, and having scrutinised it for a minute or two declared that he had not the slightest idea who was represented.

'You know the subject--the story that is intended to be told?' said Dalrymple.

'Upon my word, I don't. There's some old fellow seems to be catching it over the head; but it's all so confused, I can't make much of it. The woman seems to be uncommon angry.'

'Do you ever read your Bible?'

'Ah dear! not as often as I ought to do. Al, I see; it's Sisera. Inever could quite believe that story. Jael might have killed Captain Sisera in his sleep--for which, by-the-by, she ought to have been hung, and she might possibly have done it with a hammer and a nail. But she could not have driven it through, and staked him to the ground.'

'I've warrant enough for putting it into a picture, at any rate. My Jael there is intended for Miss Van Siever.'

'Miss Van Siever! Well, it is like her. Has she sat for it?'

'Oh dear, no; not yet. I mean to get her to do so. There's a strength about her, which would make her sit the part admirably. And I fancy she would like to be driving a nail into a fellow's head. I think I shall take Musselboro for a Sisera.'

'You're not in earnest?'

'He would just do for it. But of course I shan't ask him to sit, as my Jael would not like it. She would not consent to operate on so base a subject. So you really are going to Guestwick?'

'Yes; I start tomorrow. Good-bye, old fellow. I'll come and sit for Sisera if you'll let me;--only Miss Van Jael shall have a blunted nail, if you please.'