Uncle Robert got up and stretched himself, yawning noisily.
“Of course you will paint her!” he said to Dan, “and get a thumping sum for the work too. Old Alvin is as rich as a Jew.”
“I would not take one penny for that picture,” affirmed Dan. “Mrs. Barrimore knows why; and the picture is to be mine, if, indeed, Miss Le Breton will consent to sit to me. Oh, why should I make a secret of it? I want to give it to a church.”
“I understand,” said Uncle Robert, who really did not understand at all.
But Philip understood, and, oddly enough, sympathized.
“I’ll work it for you,” he said to Dan. “Old Alvin seems to have taken a fancy to me. Would Wednesday evening suit you to dine at the White House? You could sleep at the bungalow, you know. There is a spare room.”
“Delighted, old man!” exclaimed Dan. “Are we to dress?”
“Oh, no, I think not,” said Philip. “You see, Alvin is a rough and ready Colonial. I doubt if he has ever possessed a dress-suit. His brother was quite different. He liked to pose as the fine gentleman.”
How easily Philip seemed able to allude to that past! To Uncle Robert there was something nauseating in the fact. If his wound were healed, he at least need not advertise the fact quite so much. Uncle Robert did not take Mrs. Barrimore’s view of the case. She believed Philip talked as he did to hide his wound. But the uncle remembered that at the time of Eweretta’s supposed death Philip had shouted his grief from the house-tops. He had rushed off to Canada to see the grave, and had talked loudly about the monastic life he should henceforth lead.
Sudden changes of front are usually resented by the onlooker.