Marilda, meanwhile, sat writing at her davenport, and presently rising, came towards him with a closed envelope. 'There, Edgar,' she said. 'Now put "Sold" on your picture.'
'Polly, Polly, you're a girl of gold!' cried Edgar, starting to his feet. 'You've made a man of me. I must give you a kiss.'
To Cherry's amazement, a little to her horror, the kiss was given; Marilda only bluntly and gruffly saying, 'There then, only take warning, and don't be a fool again.'
'Your warning comes sweetened, my dear,' said Edgar, 'and it ought to save me. I don't mind confessing that I was in a most awful fix. Well, you have Brynhild, and we'll hang her over the drawing-room door for a scare-crow, only don't let in any Sigurds who won't be as good as you are to art out at elbows!—Good-bye, my Cherry ripe. I must betake me to shaking off the toils of the hunter, now that this good mouse has nibbled them through.'
Cherry had not spirit to rally him on his quiet assumption of the lion's part. And her acceptance of his embrace was not warm. To the delicate sense nurtured under Felix, the whole proceeding was as painful as it was strange; and she was longing to have sold her pictures so as to relieve him herself. True, she had many visions, but she would much have preferred freeing her brother herself to seeing Marilda make a purchase to which she was indifferent, palpably for the sake of assisting him.
Maybe he saw the questioning look in her face, and therefore hurried away so fast that Marilda broke out in regret at having failed to secure him for an intended visit to Sydenham the next day, when part of the day would be spent with friends and the rest in the Crystal Palace. It was the sort of expedition Edgar hated, and Cherry's pride rose enough against the notion of his being purchased to be dragged at Marilda's chariot wheels to prevent her from seconding the proposal to write and ask for his company.
She would have been glad enough of his arm through the long galleries. The heartless glare and plaster showiness tired her to death; nor were Mrs. Underwood's friends particularly restful.
When she came home late in the evening, she had hardly energy to open a note that lay on the table; but when she had wearily unfolded it, she screamed with amazement and delight. Mr. Renville wrote to tell her of an offer for the Acolyte, and to propose to her to meet the intending purchaser at his studio on the second day ensuing, at twelve o'clock, to consult about an order for a companion water-colour, the subject likewise taken from the Silver Store, the price of the two together to be £150. Here opened the fulfilment of the longing of her heart, the lightening of Felix's burthen! Her dreams were a strange maze of beautiful forms to be drawn, and of benefits to be heaped on all the world; and her first measure in the morning was to write a dispatch to Edgar, begging him to come and support her at the interview, and almost laying her gains at his feet.
All day she expected him to show himself, full of advice, joy, and congratulation; but he came not. Her note must have missed him, she supposed; and she had to experience the lack of sympathy, for Spooner had come almost before breakfast was over, and Marilda had immediately gone back with him into the City; and Mrs. Underwood was not sure whether it were comifo to be elated about selling a picture, and had no council to give between Cherry's sketches of the robin with the wheat-ear, the monk and his olive tree, the blessing of the swallows, or the widow Euphrasia and her straw.
When Marilda did come home, she was more glum than Cherry had ever seen her. She would not even guess why Edgar made no answer, but advised that no one should think about it. Man could not be always dancing after woman. She was in no better humour in the morning, when Cherry expressed her security that though he might have come home too late to answer her note, he would not fail her at the appointment.