Mr. Granger looked as if he were rather doubtful upon this point, but it was evidently wisest not to push the discussion too far.
"Will you be so kind as to show us your portfolio, Miss Lovel?" he asked.
"Of course she will," answered her father promptly; "she will only be too happy to exhibit her humble performances to Miss Granger. Bring your drawing-book, Clary."
Clarissa would have given the world to refuse. A drawing-book is in some measure a silent confidante—almost a journal. She did not know how far her random sketches—some of them mere vagabondage of the pencil, jotted down half unconsciously—might betray the secrets of her inner life to the cold eyes of Miss Granger.
"I'd better bring down my finished drawings, papa; those that were mounted for you at Belforêt," she said.
"Nonsense, child; Mr. Granger wants to see your rough sketches, not those stiff schoolgirl things, which I suppose were finished by your drawing-master. Bring that book you are always scribbling in. The girl has a kind of passion for art," said Mr. Lovel, rather fretfully; "she is seldom without a pencil in her hand. What are you looking for, Clarissa, in that owlish way? There's your book on that table."
He pointed to the volume—Clarissa's other self and perpetual companion—the very book she had been sketching in when George Fairfax surprised her by the churchyard wall. There was no help for it, no disobeying that imperious finger of her father's; so she brought the book meekly and laid it open before Sophia Granger.
The father and daughter turned over the leaves together. It was book of "bits:" masses of foliage, bramble, and bird's-nest; here the head of an animal, there the profile of a friend; anon a bit of still life; a vase of flowers, with the arabesqued drapery of a curtain for a background; everywhere the evidence of artistic feeling and a practised hand, everywhere a something much above a schoolgirl's art.
Miss Granger looked through the leaves with an icy air. She was obliged to say, "Very pretty," or "Very clever," once in a way; but this cold praise evidently cost her an effort. Not so her father. He was interested in every page, and criticised everything with a real knowledge of what he was talking about, which made Clarissa feel that he was at least no pretender in his love of art; that he was not a man who bought pictures merely because he was rich and picture-buying was the right thing to do.
They came presently to the pages Clarissa had covered at Hale Castle—bits of familiar landscape, glimpses of still life in the Castle rooms, and lightly-touched portraits of the Castle guests. There was one head that appeared very much oftener than others, and Clarissa felt herself blushing a deeper red every time Mr. Granger paused to contemplate this particular likeness.