"I am doing something in paint now, just to feed this terrible ambition of mine. The pen-and-ink work is all very-well, and it does bring the bread and butter, but it is not what I want for ever and ever. And I think I am going to have for my subject just such a scene as I wrote of a moment ago: the moment before the carriages drive away through the rain, with everybody in gala attire and scintillant with brightness and insincerity. For the town is insincere, mother, and cruel. Some day, perhaps I, too, will become insincere. I do not know. I pray it may not be so. But I am alarming you causelessly. I am only a little tired and unnerved tonight. I have been to the opera, and it was just a little affecting. So don't mind what I said just now. * * * * I am getting rather tired and will say good-night. * * *"
[CHAPTER VI]
In the early dawn there had been a slight shower of rain, but by the time the sun was high enough to shine over the town's highest buildings, the clouds parted, and presently drifted away altogether, leaving the golden disc full freedom in giving a brilliant look to the clean-washed streets. By noon everything was as bright as a newly-scoured kitchen.
It was at that time of the year when spring is kissing a greeting to summer. There was not too much heat. Growth and activity were not yet subdued by the later lassitude of midsummer. In the parks the trees were full of blossoms, the flowers were spelling out the runes that the gardners had contrived for the Sunday sight-seers, and the roadways were alive with well-equipped traps of every sort. The avenue was colorful and kaleidoscopic. Dog-carts, driven by smartly-gowned, square-sitting girls, bowled along noiselessly, the footmen looking as stolid as if carved in wood. Landaus, with elderly women leaning far back into the cushions, and shading their complexions under lace-decked parasols, went by with an occasional rattling of chains. The careful observer might have noticed that the number of smart vehicles was a trifle larger than usual; there were more coaches out, and the air resounded more often to the various military and hunting-calls that the English grooms were executing on their horns.
It was Derby Day.
Dick was walking along the avenue watching, with his artist eyes open for all the picturesque effect of the whole—the yellow haze of the sun that filled the atmosphere in and out of which all these rapid color-effects flashed swiftly, the thin strip of sky-reflecting water to the east, the line of grass and the sky-touching horizon of huge buildings—when he heard someone calling out his name.
"Lancaster!" It was Stanley, driving a dog-cart and a neat bay cob. "The very man! Jump in, won't you? Going down to the Derby. Thing you shouldn't miss; lots of color and all that sort of thing! Asked Vanstruther to go down with me, but one of his dime-novel heroes is ill or something of that sort, and he's off the list. That's good of you. Look how you're stepping. This brute has been eating his head off all week, and isn't really fit for a Christian to drive. That's it! Now." They went spinning along the avenue.
In the instant or two before he climbed into the dog-cart, Dick had reflected that while he was not over-fond of Stanley in a good many ways, the man was undeniably a clever fellow, always to be depended on for bright talk; besides he did feel very much like studying the scene of a Derby Day with its many-colored facets.
Watching the rapid, shifting beauties of the boulevard, Dick burst into a little sigh of admiration. "Ah," he said, "this is good! This is living!"