He nodded. “I guess you are right,” he agreed. “Heavens! what a deluge. It will ease up in a minute. Then we can go on.”
It did not ease up, however. Instead, it rained harder than ever. The porch roof began to leak and he raised the umbrella once more. She was obliged to stand close beside him to avoid the drip. It grew dark and the lightning flashes seemed more vivid in consequence. He felt her shiver.
“Not frightened, are you?” he asked.
“No-o, I guess not. But I don’t like it very well. Talk, please. Just— Oh, just say something to keep me from thinking about it.”
He laughed. “Good idea,” he declared. “What shall we talk about? Tell me what you have been doing up there in Boston.”
She told him about her studies at the Conservatory, about Mrs. Carter, about the California trip, of the wonderful happenings of the past two years. He asked questions and she answered them. The lightning and thunder punctuated her narrative and the rain on the roof furnished a steady roar of accompaniment.
“There!” she exclaimed, after a time. “I have said every word I can think of. Now tell me about your painting. You have been studying too. Some one—Uncle Millard, I think—told me you had.”
He shook his head. “I’ve been studying—yes,” he admitted. “I haven’t been climbing ahead the way you have, though. And I haven’t had your encouragement at home. When I told grandfather I had made up my mind to paint pictures for a living I thought he was going to have a fit. He has a relapse every once in a while even yet. I should have done it, though—or tried to do it—if he had ordered me out of the house. It was paint or nothing for me. I had rather do it than eat—and I like to eat pretty well,” he added, with another laugh.
His laugh was infectious. Esther laughed, too. “I must say I think your grandfather is very unreasonable,” she declared, with a return to seriousness. “Why shouldn’t you paint, if you want to—and can? It is a wonderful thing to be an artist.”
“So they say. I am far from being one yet, so I can’t speak from experience. Oh, well! I don’t blame the old gentleman for making a row. He doesn’t know. About the only painter he ever had any experience with was the chap who did grandmother’s portrait. That portrait is enough to sour anybody on the whole profession. Grandfather is a good fellow. I’m strong for him.”