Wyndham arrived home, after completing all his business calls, late in the afternoon, and found that the charwoman had finished her work, and was replacing the furniture. A not unpleasant tinge of turpentine permeated the atmosphere. The oak presses, newly polished with beeswax, shone and glowed even in the shadow of the afternoon. For the first time for months the hearth was clear of ashes and cinders, and the stone scoured and whitened.
When the woman had gone he devoted a few minutes to wandering about his domain, enjoying this new sensation of spotlessness, appreciating the professional hand, the skill of which had never before seemed so legitimate a theme for admiration. Then he sat down and wrote to Mary as follows:—
"My dear little Mary,—Your sweet little letter came this morning, and at a moment to be of the greatest service to me. Fortune has already smiled on me again. For the immediate present I have a portrait commission for a couple of hundred guineas! A great fortune—is it not?—after all these seasons of leanness! You will guess that I am now ambitious of getting to grips again with the big picture. I have taken a deep and engrossing look at it again, and I see how to resolve all its difficulties, I daresay, by the spring. I know this letter will make you happy, so, for Heaven's sake, don't give another thought to yesterday afternoon. I have been a great trial to you for so long, and I want to recognise your goodness and kindness in the only way I can, and that is by—succeeding. My heart is in the work, and your belief in me shall find justification.
"I am keeping your money; it will remove my last anxiety and enable me to work at ease. I want you to come here as soon as I have made some headway with the new work, as I should like you to carry away the impression on your next visit of something real that has been accomplished.
"Your loving brother,
"Walter."
VIII
The first sitting was eminently satisfactory. Miss Robinson and her mother were punctual to the very stroke of the clock, the new canvas stood waiting on the smaller easel, and everything was ready for an immediate start. Wyndham had been able to obtain on hire a most lovely Empire chair, with swans' heads for armrests, and exquisitely mounted with chiselled garlands. It did not take him long to find his arrangement, and he saw now how shrewd had been his idea of the Empire chair. It was remarkable how Miss Robinson and the chair composed together: it gave her distinction, heightened her personality, and the profile at once seemed to take precisely the quality which he considered essential to his scheme. Her right arm rested lightly along the swan's neck, and the subtle cat's-eye, with its border of tiny pearls, showed deliciously against the long hand and fingers that emerged from the lace lying loosely about the wrist. Her left hand lay on her lap, and here the ancient green scarab and the aquamarine made important decorative spots amid so great a mass of lace-work. The nankin vase had been sent to the studio during the morning, so that Wyndham was practically able to build up his picture before him. Indeed, so interesting was the result that it promised to lessen by half the labour of creation.
And, now that he had taken the measure of the Robinsons, he was easily master of the situation. They were not merely in his hands as clients who were availing themselves of his skill; but surrendered as to one naturally high above them. In posing Miss Robinson, he had once or twice given utterance to his satisfaction in so spontaneous a way that the tremulous sitter had no easy task to maintain her immobility. And then the kind and condescending explanations with which he accompanied the many little changes and refinements in the arrangement from moment to moment were so clever and penetrating! It was really wonderful how points struck him, and what surprising improvements he accomplished with a wave of the hand and imperceptible subtle shiftings of Miss Robinson's position. At last, after many scrutinisings of his sitter from varying standpoints he suddenly expressed the conviction "Splendid!" Then—"Wait; the left hand slightly forward, I think; so as to soften the bend of the elbow.... Ah, that's better. Now it couldn't possibly be improved upon. Don't you think so, Mrs. Robinson?"