"I'm rather s-sick of that subject."
He flung off his clothes and turned out the gas. Jim slipped into bed in the adjoining room. He couldn't sleep for an hour or two, wondering whether Mark would break down when he found himself alone, listening with ears attuned to catch the lightest sigh. To his astonishment, Mark breathed quietly and regularly. He must be—asleep! Jim waited for another ten minutes; then he slipped out of bed. The moon was throwing a soft radiance upon Mark's figure. He lay flat on his back, with his arms straight at his side. He was smiling! But his fists were clenched, and the jaw below the parted lips stood out firm, square, and aggressive....
Jim watched him lying thus for several minutes; then he stole back to bed—no longer a boy, but a man. By many, doubtless, the step between boyhood and manhood is taken at random, and forgotten as soon as taken; or it escapes observation altogether. But Jim was shown, as in a vision, the past and the future: the green playing-fields, the happy lanes of childhood, and beyond—the hurly-burly, the high winds and whirling dust-clouds, the inexorable struggle for and of Life!
CHAPTER VII
THE HUNT BALL
At Harrow, Mark had been told by the drawing-master that he had great talent as a draughtsman, and possibly something more. The vague "something more" kindled possibilities which smouldered, and burst into flame when the doctors at Burlington House pronounced him unfit to serve his sovereign. The Squire suggested the Bar, a bank, or a junior partnership in a brewery. Mark shook his head. Briefs—supposing they came to him—bullion, beer, left fancy cold. But to paint a great picture, to interpret by means of colour a message vital to the world, this indeed would be worth while!
Mrs. Samphire bleated dismay and displeasure; but much to the Squire's surprise, Lady Randolph sustained Mark's choice of art as an avenue to success.
"Fame's temple," she said, "lies in the heart of a maze to which converge a thousand paths—most of 'em blind alleys. Mark may try one path after another, but in the end—in the end, mind you—he will choose the right one."
After a few months' work in South Kensington, Mark went to Paris, where he became a pupil of the famous Saphir at the École des Beaux Arts. Saphir looked at his studies and shook his head. He was of opinion that Mark had better join Julian's for a year; the standard at the Beaux Arts was very high. Mark showed his disappointment.
"Oh, monsieur, I am so anxious to be under you."