“Just think of that little fellow at Osborne—he’s got to be Prince of Wales now, and I suppose they’ll take him away from there,” she murmured brokenly, as she went off, aghast.
I sat down again. It seemed to me, as I reflected among these tombs and cenotaphs, that a woman’s eyes, on such an occasion, were a good test of the genuineness of popular affection.
I then noticed that, while the Irish lady and I had been whispering, another acquaintance of mine had mysteriously entered the church without my cognizance and had set up his tent in the south transept. This was a young man who, having gained a prominent place in a certain competition at the Royal College of Art, had been sent off with money in his pocket, at the expense of the British nation, to study art and to paint in Italy. He possessed what is called a travelling scholarship, and the treasures of Italy were at his feet as at the feet of a conqueror. Already he had visited me at my hotel, and filled my room with the odour of his fresh oil-sketches. There were only two things in his head—the art of painting, and the prospect of an immediate visit to Venice. He had lodged his easel on a memorial-stone among the flags of the pavement, and was painting a vista of tombs ending in a bright light of stained glass. His habit was to paint before the museums opened and after they closed. I went and accosted him. Again I was conscious of the naïve pride of a bringer of tragic tidings. He was young and strong, with fire in his eye. I need not be afraid of knocking him down, at any rate.
“The King’s dead,” I said.
He lifted his brush.
“Not—?”
I nodded.
He burst out with a tremendous, “By Jove!” that broke that fresh morning stillness once for all, and faintly echoed into silence among those tombs. “By Jove!”
His imagination had at once risen to the solemn grandeur of the event, as an event; but the sharp significance of death did not penetrate the armour of that enthusiastic youthfulness. “What a pity!” he exclaimed nicely; but he could not get the iridescent vision of Venice out of his head, nor the problems of his canvas. He continued painting—what else could he do?—and then, after a few moments, he said eagerly, “I wish I was in London!”