“You have a general out-at-the-elbows look,” he observed. “You’ve gone down hill since I threw you over. You look hungry and desperate!”
“I am both,” was the reply, in a reckless tone. “And I have reason to be. I am starving!”
Mr. Black flung himself into the only easy chair the room afforded, and made a gesture to his son to be seated upon the couch. Rufus obeyed.
“You are in the mood I hoped to find you,” declared the father, with a disagreeable laugh. “Desperate—starving! That is better than I expected. What has become of all your fine anticipations of wealth and fortune achieved with your brush? You do not find it easy to paint famous pictures?”
“I mistook my desires for ability,” cried Rufus, his eyes darkening with the pain of his confession. “I have a liking for painting, and I fancied that liking was genius. I find myself crippled by not knowing how to do anything well. My pictures bring me in fifteen shillings apiece, and cost me three days’ work. I could earn more at brick-making—if I only knew how to make bricks. When you sent me to the university, father, you said I should study a profession. I demand of you the fulfilment of that promise. I want some way to earn my living!”
“Better get a living without work,” said Mr. Black coolly. “I don’t like work, and I don’t believe you do. You want to study law, but your talents are not transcendent, my son—you will never sit upon the woolsack.”
“If I can earn two hundred pounds a year, I will ask nothing more,” said Rufus bitterly. “I have discovered for myself that my abilities are mediocre. I shall never be great as anything—unless as a failure! But if I can only glide along in the great stream of mediocre people, and be nothing above or below them, I shall be content!”
“And you say this at twenty years old?” cried his father mockingly. “You talk like one of double your years. Where have your hopefulness, your bright dreams, your glowing anticipations, gone? You must have had a hard experience in the last three months, to be willing to settle down into a hard-working drudge!”
“My experience has been hard.”
“I believe you. You look beaten out, worn out, discouraged. Now, Rufus, I have sent for you that I may make your fortune as well as mine. There is a grand prospect opening before you, and you can be one of the richest men in England, if you choose to be sensible. But you must obey my orders.”