“I call it abominable of him,” Jill cried hotly. “He seems absolutely heartless.”
St. John looked amused.
“Well, I don’t quite see what else he could have done under the circumstances,” said he. “I don’t blame him for giving me the kick out and all that as I disappointed him, but I do for not bringing me up to some profession; it’s beastly rough luck for me.”
Jill laid one small hand upon his shoulder, ever so light a touch but it carried great comfort with it.
“You don’t make a good poor man, dear,” she said gently. “You should have known my father; he was always cheerful even in his poorest moments; yet no one would have called him careless nor improvident. He was simply brave and self-reliant.”
“Little mentor,” answered her husband gravely, drawing her face down to his. “I accept the rebuke; there shall be no more complaints. I will be ‘up and doing—learn to labour and to wait.’”
Chapter Fifteen.
Notwithstanding her former reluctance Jill eventually undertook the commission for Mr Markham’s portrait, though some time elapsed before she started on the work, Markham, himself, being out of town staying as a guest at a house where Evie Bolton was also visiting, a circumstance that filled St. John with pleasurable anticipation, though Jill, less sanguine as to the result, was more inclined to foresee troubles ahead, and looked forward with no great joy to their friend’s return. Yet his manner, when he did put in an appearance, conveyed absolutely no impression; as St. John afterwards informed his wife he believed that Markham had funked it.