“Oh, but what a heavenly story you are telling me!” he cried. “And the little flower of your own—what do you mean? Are you writing something, or painting, or what?”
“Yes, the fortunate woman who lives down there is hoping to make a little flower of ink. She has already made one, such as it is, and her friends, and even other people as well, like that little ink-flower; though, of course, tastes differ, and others say it is a disgraceful, horrid weed. She has heard several people talk about it. But nobody, except Peggy, knows that it came from her own garden, and though you are going to know this minute, dear Mr. Hugh, you musn’t tell anybody till I give you leave. Because at present everybody thinks that it came from the garden of Andrew Robb. Yes, it is called ‘Gambits.’”
Hugh stood quite silent; then he gave a long sigh, and let his eyes wander over the down, over the trees and house that lay below, the still, sky-reflecting streak of the Kennet through the water-meadows. Then, still quite grave, he looked at her again, as if half dazed by the news that he felt instinctively was big with import for him.
Then he took her hand and kissed it.
“Ah, dear Andrew Robb,” he said, “at last I have found you; at last I can thank you.”
Then suddenly a huge wave of exultation swept over him, though he did not at the moment know its significance, nor from what fathomless and mighty sea it came, and he threw his hat high in the air and caught it again.
“I never heard of anything so splendid in all my life!” he cried.
CHAPTER VI
THE President of the “Literific,” who was wonderfully well equipped for that office, for she habitually spent weeks in London every year, and during them positively lived in galleries, concert-rooms, and theatres and had been to Venice no less than four distinct times, was dining informally, “taking pot-luck,” as Canon Alington expressed it, at his vicarage that night, and he could not but feel that it was a fortunate circumstance that Mrs. Owen should thus be dropping in while Hugh was there, for he distinctly liked Hugh to know that though they lived in the provinces they were not provincial, and that the pulse of artistic and intellectual life beat as strongly, if not more strongly, at Mannington than in town. The last of Mrs. Alington’s fortnightly dinners had taken place only the week before, so that it was impossible to parade the intellect of Mannington in its cohorts, but, as her husband dressed for dinner, he thought that this one informal guest would be likely to give Hugh a better notion of the high mental activity of Mannington than even one of the larger and more formal parties could have done. For Mrs. Owen, the brightest star in their intellectual constellation, really shone best alone, and Agnes often told her husband that he never talked half so well to her as he did to Mrs. Owen.
This was quite true, though the sentiment had no touch of resentment or regret about it, for Agnes was perfectly aware that it was quite natural that it should be so. For she had so identified herself with all the tastes, pursuits and industries of her husband’s life that such a thing as discussion, except on such points as floral decoration or outdoor relief, could hardly exist between them. But Mrs. Owen always had some fresh topic of literary or artistic interest, as indeed a person who was quite in “a set” in London and went to Venice so frequently could not fail to have, and necessarily she could talk about Tintoret to Canon Alington and strike out fresh lights from him in a way that Agnes was incapable of doing, though in the matter of actual familiarity with Venice the husband and wife were exactly on a par, since neither had ever been there. But he had so fine and retentive a memory that he could from photograph-knowledge only quite hold his own in these discussions, and indeed he sometimes corrected her as to the locality of some Titian or Tintoret, and what was referred to by Mrs. Owen as being in S. Giorgio was sometimes allocated by the Canon to its true position in the Scuola di San Rocco or the Accademia, a position which Baedeker, when consulted, confirmed. In fact, these very fruitful discussions on the subject of sixteenth century art sometimes rather narrowed down to the point as to where a particular picture was rather than what were its merits when it was there.