Clarissa's heart gave a little throb. The picture was like one she had seen on the easel in the Rue du Chevalier Bayard.
"Mais c'est charmant!" exclaimed the ambassador; and the adjective was echoed in every key by the rest of the little coterie.
"I expect him here this evening," said Madame; "and I shall be very much gratified if you will permit me to present him to your excellency."
The ambassador bowed. "Any protégée of Madame's," he said, and so on.
Mr. Granger, who was really a judge of art, fastened on to the picture immediately.
"There's something fresh in the style, Clary," he said. "I should like this man to paint your portrait. What's the signature? Austin! That's hardly a French name, I should think—eh, Madame Caballero?"
"No," replied Madame; "Mr. Austin is an Englishman. I shall be charmed if you will allow him to paint Mrs. Granger; and I'm sure he will be delighted to have such a subject."
There was a good deal of talk about Mr. Austin's painting, and art in general. There were some half dozen pictures of the modern French school in this inner room, which helped to sustain the conversation. Mr. Granger talked very fair French, of a soundly grammatical order; and Clarissa's tongue ran almost as gaily as in her schoolgirl days at Belforêt. She was going to see her brother—to see him shining in good society, and not in the pernicious "set" of which George Fairfax had spoken. The thought was rapture to her. They might have a few minutes' talk to themselves, perhaps, before the evening was over. That interview in the Rue du Chevalier Bayard had been so sadly brief, and her heart too full for many words.
Austin Lovel came in presently, looking his handsomest, in his careful evening-dress, with a brilliant light in his eyes, and that appearance of false brightness which is apt to distinguish the man who is burning the candle of life at both ends. Only by just the faintest elevation of his eyebrows did he betray his surprise as he looked at his sister; and his air, on being presented to her a few moments afterwards, was perfect in its serene unconsciousness.
Mr. Granger talked to him of his picture pleasantly enough, but very much as he would have talked to his architect, or to one of his clerks in the great Bradford establishment. There was a marked difference between the tone of the rich English trader and the German ambassador, when he expressed himself on the subject of Mr. Austin's talent; but then the Englishman intended to give the painter a commission, and the German did not.