Then: “My father seems to have left no will. But his affairs are in order, and I shall be a good deal better off than I was. In fact, the business has been profitable. No doubt his successor will continue to find it so.”
“Who succeeds him?”
“I don’t know.”
He mixed colours on his pallet.
“The shop, and the house above it, were his freehold property; they belong, of course, to me. There is a good deal of stock, and there is an assistant who has been in the shop nine years. The immediate capital required to carry on the business will be next to nothing.”
Kingcote was silent, and moved uneasily on his chair. The artist worked for a few minutes, then, turning suddenly round: “Well, what do you say?”
“You surely don’t mean——?”
“Certainly not, if it disagrees with you. Let us talk of something else.”
Kingcote’s face was gloomy, but at length he broke into a laugh.
“The idea is amazing!” he exclaimed. “And it really occurred to you that I should be capable of conducting a business?”