"Your mother too," said Frank. "Why, it's the kid seething its mother in its own vitriol. I haven't seen it yet, I was too occupied. Libellous fellow! What does she say to it all?"
Mrs. Lathom turned to him.
"She doesn't say much, Mr. Frank," she said. "But—but she's having rather a happy morning."
"Well, then take me to have a look at you, and I'll take you to have a look at me. After that, Charles' brass band which I've ordered will be ready. 'See the conquering,' you know."
Charles lingered with Craddock.
"Now tell me really," he said, "without chaff I mean, like Lady Crowborough and Frank."
"They have told you really," he said. "If you want it in other words, say that your price for a full-length is a thousand pounds. That's practical, isn't it?"
Charles shook his head.
"But I still don't understand," he said.
Then all the boyish spirits surged high, high too surged all his true artistic ambitions and passions, rising to that splendid point of humility which must always accompany triumphant achievement and its recognition. The utter surprise and the shock of this last quarter of an hour which had unsteadied and bewildered him cleared away: what had happened began to be real.