Presently he started violently, on hearing the old pensioner who kept the gardens, say in answer to somebody's question: "You will find Mr. Walter in the shell-gallery. I scarcely think he means to leave his work to-day, so long as the light lasts."
His knees shook as he got up; and all his self-possession left him at the thought that he was about to see his father for the first time, consciously.
Only it was not the heavy uneven gait he expected that he heard coming up the steps, though the eyes that looked up through the tall windows in search of him upon his scaffolding were not less familiar to him.
"Helen!" he cried. "What brings you here?" and running down the steps, he was by her side in a moment.
Never had he seen her look so charming. A rose on her cheek with the air and exercise--her dark hair blown back in slight disorder under her little hat; her eyes radiant with gaiety, a crimson handkerchief loosely tied about her throat, and on her arm, a basket carefully closed.
"No, no;" she said, as Walter attempted to take it from her; "that is to come afterwards, and is only to be considered as an appendix to my real mission. So first of all I must deliver myself of that: know therefore, Claude Lorraine and his temple and his sunrise are all to be thrown over, and your laudable labours of the morning wasted. It will all have to be rubbed out and done over again. The Burgermeister has just sent to say that he has other projects wherewith to astonish the weak minds of his admiring friends. They are to have Naples and the Mediterranean above their heads, and Vesuvius spouting lava over them. Of coarse the Meister was indignant at any man's presuming to meddle with his business; but you know his worship has his peculiar ideas about the fine arts, and a not so peculiar intolerance of contradiction. And then a most impudent letter from Peter Lars came to make the measure full; and this shock seems to have fallen on the Meister's limbs, so that he is quite unable to walk, or to come himself to look after you, as he proposed; so I said I would come instead, and tell you what I could--and, to-night, he will tell you the rest.
"So there is a truce for you, meanwhile; that is, as far as regards the ceiling. But I don't see, young sir, that you have been so very busy all this time--one or two of those Cupids I see over there have scarcely a leg to stand on, and there are many gaps among the shells and wreaths."
While her bright eyes were roving over the walls, he stood mute before her, lost in contemplation.
"You are not communicative this morning; I rather think curiosity concerning the contents of my little basket must have struck you dumb. Know then, that my sense of my maternal duties was too strong to let me set out on my diplomatic mission without having made a previous raid into the store-room; for though art may profess to live on bread and water, I never saw that it had any particular objection to meat and wine. And as I don't deny that my walk has made me hungry, we will proceed to explore our basket without farther ado. Only you must find a breakfast-table for us--where it does not smell of plaster and fresh paint, but rather, more seasonably, of spring violets. Let us walk through the gardens till we find a shady spot and a bench. Every other essential of an idyll is here already."
He laughed, though he did not seem to have heard; he answered half shyly, half absently, in monosyllables.