“Well, you know, my dear Caroline, that hand of yours is uncommonly heavy. And although no one deplores the young fellow’s conduct for his own sake more deeply than I do, he acted precisely as his profoundly rash and hot-headed father would have done in the circumstances.”
“I am not in the least interested in such a person, or in his father either,” said Caroline Crewkerne. “But I have made up my mind that that canvas shall be destroyed.”
CHAPTER XV
DIPLOMACY IS CALLED FOR
CHERITON’S gravity was of a kind he seldom displayed.
“Caroline,” said he, firmly, “if you behaved in that way no right-minded person could possibly forgive you. The lad is very poor, and his history is a sad one. He is the son of Lascelles, V.C., as rash yet generous-hearted a fellow as ever lived. Had it not been for a dishonest broker the young chap would be a man of wealth and position.”
“I am prepared to hear nothing further upon the subject,” said Caroline Crewkerne. “I have made up my mind. Cheriton, have the goodness to ring the bell.”
The affair must have had a tragic termination there and then had not the God who watches over poor painters—whatever their own private and personal doubts in regard to that Deity, it is only right for laymen like ourselves to assume that there is one—seen fit to enact a little providence of His own. At that crucial moment there came to Cheriton’s aid no less a person than George Betterton. And as if that opportune arrival was not in itself sufficient, Providence took the trouble to play a double coup. Mr. Marchbanks made the announcement immediately afterwards that luncheon was ready.
While Caroline enlarged upon her grievances to George Betterton and outlined the extreme course she proposed to take as soon as luncheon was over, Cheriton scribbled hastily in pencil on the back of a card, “Remove picture from No. — Hill Street immediately, to the Acacias, Hawthorn Road, Balham.”
This accomplished, he proceeded to take John into his confidence. He placed the card, together with a sovereign, in the palm of that functionary.
“Go down at once,” said he, “to the people at the Bond Street Galleries and give them this card. They are to remove that half-finished picture in the blue drawing-room to that address. By the time luncheon is over it must be out of the house. Is that clear?”