Fairfax passed his boarding-house and walked on, and as he walked he recalled what Cedersholm had said the day he engaged him: "Courage, patience, humility." These words had cooled his anger as nothing else could have done, and laid their salutary touch on his flushed face.
"These qualities are the attributes of genius. Mediocrity is incapable of possessing them." He would have them all, every one, every one! Courage, he was full of it. Patience he didn't know by sight. Humility he had despised—the poor fellow did not know that its hand touched him as he strode.
"I ought to be thankful that he didn't kick me out," he thought. "I daresay he was laughing in his sleeve at my abortions!"
Then he remembered his design for the ceiling, and at the Carews' doorstep he paused. Cedersholm had told him to draw it on the Field ceiling. This meant that he had another chance.
"It's perfectly ripping of the old boy," he thought, enthusiastically, as he rang the door-bell. "I'll begin to-morrow."
Bella opened the door to him.
CHAPTER XVII
The following year—in January—lying on his back on the scaffolding, Fairfax drew in his designs for the millionaire's ceiling, freely, boldly, convincingly, and it is doubtful if the eye of the proprietor—he was a fat, practical, easy-going millionaire, who had made money out of hog's lard—it is doubtful that Mr. Field's eyes, when gazing upward, saw the things that Fairfax thought he drew.