“Yes, it occurred to me,” admitted Gabriel, in his unsmiling way. “There are many more disagreeable ways of getting a living. I went so far as to think that the chance savoured of the providential.”
“But, my good friend, supposing for a moment that I were at all fitted for such things”—the touch of depreciation was involuntary—“how would it be possible for me to take over your father’s business? What securities can I give you? What——”
Gabriel checked him with a peculiar look, very nearly a smile.
“You are giving yourself a testimonial. I scarcely credited you with such business faculty.”
“Any man is aware that he cannot take a flourishing concern as a gift,” said Kingcote, with a little annoyance.
“Please to remember,” Gabriel remarked, “that I am an artist, and that you have certain pretensions to culture. I did not imagine that we ever talked on any other basis.”
He painted on.
“Is that man in the shop to be depended on?” was Kingcote’s next question. He had thrust his hands into his trouser-pockets, and was swaying one foot up and down, looking at the ground.
“Entirely. A first-rate man of business, and on the whole a gentleman; I have been at much trouble to get to know him.”
Kingcote rose, and walked about the studio. He smiled frequently, though there was a twitching in his lips to show that his thoughts had their prickly points.