He was nervous about the meeting, and felt conscious that he was dusty with his journey, and sure that he must have looked foolish staring at the old woman.
Gipsy took him down the street, and into a house with a balcony covered with gay-striped blinds, and led him upstairs till she came to a door, or rather curtain, which she lifted, putting her finger on her lip.
It was a long, low room, with the lights carefully arranged and shaded, containing drawing-boards and unframed sketches, a wonderful heap of “art treasures,” in one corner, Algerine scarves and stuffs, great, rough, green pitchers, and odds and ends of colour. Some one sat with his back to the door drawing, but Jack only beheld his brothers who were together at the further end of the room, and did not immediately see him, for they were looking at each other and appeared to the puzzled Jack oddly still and silent.
Miss Stanforth gave a little laugh, and Alvar looked round and exclaimed. Cheriton sprang up, and with a cry of delight seized on Jack, with an outburst of greetings and inquiries, in which all the surroundings were forgotten. Gipsy laughingly described her encounter to Alvar; while “father,” and “granny,” “the old parson,” “no good in having a Christmas at all at home without you,” passed rapidly between the other two.
“Come, Jack, that’s strong! But, indeed, I think you have brought Christmas here. How rude we are! You have never spoken to Mr Stanforth. Mr Stanforth, let him see the picture. Jack, do you think father will like it?”
“Yes. You look much jollier than in the photograph,” said Jack, as Mr Stanforth turned the picture round for his inspection.
It was a small half-length in tinted chalk showing Cherry seated and looking up, with a bright interested face, at Alvar, who was showing him a branch of pomegranates. The execution was of the slightest, but the likenesses were good, and the strong contrast of colouring and resemblance of form was brought out well. “Brothers,” was written underneath, and Jack looked at them as if the idea of any one wishing to make studies of them was strange to him.
“Jack is bewildered—lost, in more senses than one,” said Cherry, smiling.
“Come, it is time we went home, and then for news of every one! Mr Stanforth, we shall see you to-night.”
Jack’s arrival was an intense pleasure to Cheriton, whose reviving faculties were beginning to long for their old interests. He had recovered his natural spirits, and though he still looked delicate, and had no strength to spare, was quite well enough to look forward to his return to England and to beginning life there. Indeed the ardent hopes and ambitions, so cruelly checked in their first outlet, turned—with a difference indeed, but with considerable force—to the desire of distinction and success; and in return for Jack’s endless talk of home and Oxford, he planned the course of study to begin at Easter, and the hard work which he felt sure with patience must ensure good fortune. Cheriton was very sanguine, and since he had felt so much better, had no doubt of entire recovery; and Jack was accustomed to follow his lead, and was much relieved both by his liveliness and by his resolute mention of Rupert, and inquiry as to the arrangements for his marriage.