And he all the while unsuspecting of this obscure, loving historian of his existence; of the warm heart that beat for him in these evil days on which he had fallen!
II
For hours the rain had beaten against his windows, and at last, now that a lull had declared itself, Wyndham dragged himself to the door, and looked out into the gray afternoon. His eye took in the familiar vista, but, as it rested on the great bow-windowed house at the corner where the road branched into two, he turned away with a shudder. For years the sight of that house had irritated him: its ugly brick bulk had been symbolic of all Suburbia, of everything in life to which he was instinctively hostile as an artist and a gentleman.
But presently he laughed: it had struck him as comic that he should have preserved in its freshness his full youthful contempt for all this Philistine universe!—he, a half-starved devil of an artist, down in the mouth, with a solitary half-crown in his pocket, speculating with bitter humiliation whether his hard-worked sister had yet a little to spare for him, after all the life-blood which, leech-like, he had sucked out of her! Nay, more, he was conscious that his distaste for this surrounding wilderness of affluent homes, in the midst of which he had so long dwelt as an isolated superior intelligence, had grown more marked in direct proportion as he had become poorer and poorer.
The prosperous figure of the owner of the bow-windowed house rose before him. Immersed in his own existence, Wyndham had deigned to notice very few indeed of his neighbours. But old Mr. Robinson was one of the few, not only because of the regularity with which he passed the studio every day at six o'clock as he came home from business, but also because he invariably bore something in a plaited rush-bag that had a skewer thrust through it, suggesting visits to Leadenhall Market, and purchases of game or salmon for the good wife according to season. But Mr. Robinson's mild aspect, benevolent white beard, and gentle amble had never impressed Wyndham with much of a sense of human fellowship. He might concede that the old man was "a decent sort, no doubt, in his own way"; but they were creatures belonging to different planets.
Still amused at his own disdain, though the corners of his mouth were set a trifle grimly, Wyndham turned back into the studio with the idea of making himself presentable and going to see his sister—since it now seemed possible to get across town without the prospect of an absolute drenching. Happily his wardrobe had substantial resources: in the old days he had kept it well replenished, and his simple life of late here in the studio had made small demands on it. Thus he could still go out faultlessly clad and shod. Nobody need suspect his poverty, he flattered himself, if he ever chose to dip into his own world again. Only he did not choose; there was always so much questioning to face. "We've seen nothing of yours in the last two or three Academies—when are you going to give us another masterpiece?" "Still on the big picture? How is it getting along?" However genially thrown out, such usual interrogation annoyed him beyond measure. It was so long since anything had been "getting along." On all sides he was regarded as a doomed man, and suspected it: suspecting it, he was morbidly sensitive. His life was unnatural and not worth the living. Months and months had been wasted in apathy. Each day he dreamt of a new lease of energy and courage to begin on the morrow; but, after making his bed and clearing away his breakfast and purchasing his food for the day, he would find himself dejected and incapable of a single stroke.
And yet he could not wholly realise the change that had come over the scene. He rubbed his eyes sometimes, as if expecting to awake from an unhappy dream. Was not the flourish of early trumpets still in his ears? The dazzle of admiration still on his retina? The gush of extensive and important family connections still tickling his self-esteem? The sweeter approval of a superior art-clique still flattering his deeper vanity?
He had been born with a silver spoon; his childhood and youth had been ideally happy. From the playing-fields of Eton he had passed to the quadrangles of Oxford. A distinguished student of his college?—not in the ordinary grooves; yet favourably known as an intellect with enthusiasms. Phidias was more of an inspiration to him than Aristotle; Titian more actual than Todhunter. Ruskin, Pater, Turner, had stirred him; left his mind subdued to their colours. From boyhood had been his the swift skill with pencil that ran as easily to grace as to mockery. And, left early arbiter of his own existence, with gold enough for freedom, he had made for the one career that called to him.