Dr. Crossways was so sure that had he only been consulted in reasonable time neither cremation nor burial would now be under discussion at all, that he declined to offer the least suggestion of any sort. As to the vicar and the curate, they called together on a visit of combined sympathy and expostulation. Both seemed convinced that a case of cremation must prove a serious inconvenience to the Almighty on the Judgment Day—even if it did not place Him in an absolute dilemma.
Into this general confusion and misery, Morris Kenyon—summoned by Mrs. Jarman—descended with all the eclat of the God in the Machine. He arrived at the very moment when the two rival dressmakers of Heatherington, having appeared simultaneously armed with yard measures and black patterns, were quarrelling in stage whispers in the porch.
This weighty matter settled, he proceeded to take all the arrangements into his capable hands. Finally, he sat down to a quiet conversation with the grateful Evarne, the more beautiful for the pallor and distress, concerning her future.
He learnt that her great ambition was to become an artist. She possessed decided talent, combined with an ardent appreciation of the beautiful, but she was absolutely without training, and had evidently no idea of the long years of steady labour—to say nothing of the "filthy lucre"—that must be offered at the shrine of Art by would-be disciples. Looking at Morris, her big eyes filled with a wistful anxiety, she inquired if the little money her father had left could, by the strictest economy, be made to last out until she was able to thus keep herself. If not—and she had evidently come to this conference with her ideas fully formed—could she not learn shorthand and typewriting? Even then she hoped that, by rising early and working at her painting after office hours and on Sundays, she might ultimately earn her living by Art.
Kenyon smiled inwardly at the life she thus proposed for herself. If he knew aught of the world, the sons of Adam would see to it soon enough that this particular daughter of Eve did not spend her days simply and solely divided between banging the keys of a typewriter and daubing sticky colours on a canvas. It was merely his luck that he happened to be first in the field.
To Evarne he appeared kindliness itself. Certainly she could and she should study Art; and this brought him round to a suggestion that he hoped would give her pleasure. He possessed a delightful villa in balmy Naples, where Mrs. Kenyon was now staying to escape the rigours of the English winter. Evarne must come out and stop awhile with his wife. On the journey through Italy, she should behold all its Art treasures. That alone, he assured her, would form a splendid foundation for her later artistic training.
Despite her sorrows, Evarne's face lit up with a sudden brilliant light of happiness at this altogether delightful prospect, both for the near and distant future. Her brightened expression thanked her guardian more ardently than did her softly-spoken words, and so it was settled.