The Prodigal Father Part 24

"The public likes daubs."

"If they know the signature; yes, by all means. But who knows mine?"

"Some Jews are great picture-buyers," suggested Hillary.

An answering gleam lit Lucas's eye for an instant, and then burned out.

"For the artist there are three ways of making a living," he p.r.o.nounced.

"One is painting for the million--children with rosy cheeks and large wheelbarrows; beds with angels hovering over them and kind doctors with stethoscopes sitting beside them--that sort of thing--the obvious road to the heart. The second is. .h.i.tting the superior kind of idiot in the eye--inventing a cheap new formula--putting a goblin upside down in one corner, an immoral-looking woman in another, and pa.s.sing the arrangement off as an allegory. Then up jumps an interpreter and booms you. The third is slowly making your name by the sweat of your brow, and selling your pictures when you are fifty-five to people who never recognized their merit till they had been told you were famous."

"Well," said Hillary, "that gives you a biggish target."

"Does it? I have no popular knack; I lack the conjurer's instincts; and I don't mean to wait for Jean Walkingshaw till I am fifty-five."

"Must it be she?" asked Hillary.

"It must!"

"Her father won't help?"

"If he wasn't so infernally respectable he'd shoot me at sight."

"Run away with her. Once you've got her, he won't be heathen enough to let her starve."

"In the first place," replied Lucas, "she wouldn't run away with me.

That's the infernal, charming, irritating, splendid thing about her--she is true to us both."

"Won't chuck you and won't chuck the old boy either?"

Lucas nodded.

"The thing can be done," said Hillary languidly; "it only wants a little energy and enterprise. Great achievements are never accomplished by slackness. Woman was created to yield to the energetic advances of man.

Remember that, Luc--"

"Besides," interrupted the painter, who had paid singularly little attention to this stirring speech, "I happen to be handicapped by a little pride. Can you imagine me helping her to compose begging letters to her father? 'We are in great distress this winter, and a check for twenty pounds will be gratefully, etc. etc. etc.!' Can you see me stooping to that sort of thing? What?"

"I merely threw out the idea as it were tentatively," said Hillary mildly.

Lucas gave his mustaches a fierce twist and planted himself firmly with his back to the despised picture.

"It must have been a practical joke of the Devil's that gave Jean that father and then threw me in her way. Old Heriot Walkingshaw is one of those men who were created as an antidote to human affection. He stands between his children's hearts and the suns.h.i.+ne outside like the brick wall of a prison. His virtues are those of a paperweight. Neither his daughter nor his fortune are likely to blow away while he is planted on them; and there his merits end."

"What a dreadful fellow," murmured Hillary.

"And the worst of such fellows is that they are infectious. One can catch grimness and hardness of soul just as one can catch high spirits and courage. Bah! I won't think of him any more. I'll have another shot at this thing."

He took his brush again and faced the canvas. For a few minutes he labored painfully, and then turned with an exclamation.

"The memory of the old devil has got into my brush--" he began, and then stopped.

There was a knock upon the studio door.

"Hullo! A patron?" said Hillary.

"A dun more probably," muttered Lucas.

He opened the door and found himself confronting the rubicund countenance and imposing form of Heriot Walkingshaw. Over the shoulder of this apparition he looked into the clear eyes of Frank. They were trying to convey a caution to use whatever tact he possessed; but the artist was too dumbfounded to heed them.

"Well?" he demanded.

CHAPTER V

"Good-day, Mr. Vernon," said his guest.

He held out his hand, and Lucas mechanically shook it.

"May we come in?" he asked.

"If you want to--certainly," said Lucas; and they entered.

"A fellow-artist, I presume?" inquired Mr. Walkingshaw, glancing at the pale and pretty youth.

Lucas automatically introduced them.

"Very happy to meet you, Mr. Hillary," said the W.S. genially. "Let me introduce my son."

Leaving the two young men to entertain each other, he walked aside for a few paces with his host. His countenance was composed and his air dignified; though, as he thoughtlessly took Vernon's arm to direct his partially paralyzed movements, the artist began dimly to apprehend that no overt outrage was premeditated.

"I say," he began in that pleasantly unconventional vein which appeared to afford his vigorous reflections the readiest outlet, "this must seem a bit odd and so on, but why the deuce should we go on quarreling just because we've once begun? We're above that, eh?"

"I have no wish--" began the artist.

"Exactly, exactly," interrupted his visitor breezily; "we both mean the same thing, so that's all right. Perhaps we misunderstood each other on a previous occasion. Of course perhaps we didn't--we may be a couple of scoundrels just as we imagined, eh? Ha, ha! Still, let's a.s.sume there was a little misunderstanding. Now what have you been painting?"

The artist's blue eyes looked at him fixedly.

"I am addressing the same Mr. Heriot Walkingshaw?" he inquired in a voice compounded of several emotions.

"The same, my dear fellow--essentially the same. I look better--younger--fitter, I dare say, eh?"

"Yes," said Lucas, still eyeing him curiously, "you do."

"But you see I am still Frank's father."

He laughed genially, and this argument at last seemed to convince the young man that he was not the victim of a strange delusion.