Walking down to his studio, carefully dressed, faultlessly booted and gloved, and, as Tom Bently was accustomed to say, "too confoundedly well groomed for an artist," Fenton tried in vain to determine how he should manage the important conversation with Mr. Hubbard. He had racked his brains in the night in vain attempts to solve this problem, but in the end he was forced to leave everything for chance or circumstances to decide.
When Stewart Hubbard sat before him, Fenton was conscious of a tingling excitement in every vein, but outwardly he was only the more calm. A close observer might have noticed a nervous quickness in his movements, and a certain shrillness in his voice, but the sitter gave no heed to these tokens, which he would have regarded as of no importance had he seen them. The talk was at first rather rambling, and was not kept up with much briskness on either side. Fenton, indeed, was so absorbed in the task which lay before him that he hardly followed the other's remarks, and he suddenly became aware that he had lost the thread of conversation altogether, so that he could not possibly imagine what the connection was when Hubbard observed,—
"Yes, it is certainly the hardest thing in the world for one being to comprehend another."
Fenton rallied his wits quickly, and retorted with no apparent hesitation,—
"It is so. Probably a cat couldn't possibly understand how a human mother can properly bring up a child when she has no tail for her offspring to play with."
"That wasn't exactly what I meant," the other returned, laughing; "but what a fellow you are to give an unexpected turn to things."
"Do you think so?" the artist said. Then, with a painful feeling of tightness about the throat, and a soberness of tone which he could not prevent, he added,—"That is a reason why I have always felt that I was one of those comparatively rare persons whom wealth would adorn, if somebody would only show me an investment to get rich on."
"You are one of those still rarer persons who would adorn wealth," Mr. Hubbard retorted, ignoring the latter part of the artist's remark. "Only that you are so astonishingly outspoken, that you might cause a revolution if you had Vanderbilt's millions to add weight to your words. It doesn't do to be too honest."
The sigh which left Fenton's lips was almost one of relief, although he felt that this first attempt to turn the talk into financial channels had failed.
"No," he replied. "Civilized honesty consists largely in making the truth convey a false impression, so that one is saved a lie in words while telling one in effect."