“Oh, my dear, don’t say that. I am not good.”
“You are, Mother,” shouted the boy indignantly. “You’re just as good as God.”
“Hush, dear, hush! Don’t speak like that. God is perfect, you know. No! No! Don’t say that again.”
“All right, Mother, but I know all the same. Anyway, seventy times seven is four hundred and ninety.”
“Yes, my boy, always remember that as long as you live. And whatever you do or whatever happens, remember that.”
“Sure thing! Certainly, I mean, Mother,” cried the boy, hastily correcting his form of speech at the look in his mother’s face. “Seventy times seven is four hundred and ninety, anyway.”
The man in the living room picked up the tobacco pouch and retreated softly to his studio. “Seventy times seven—sure thing.” The words rang like a bell in his soul. Even if she did come to know, perhaps she too would forgive. He found himself passionately agreeing with the boy. “You’re just as good as God,” in spite of the blasphemy of it. He went at his work again, closing the door behind him. Somehow the colours were brighter, the light effects more striking, though well he knew that in the background of his mind, as in his picture, there were those deep shadows that no light could pierce. He knew there was hell. He had had a look into its lurid depths within the last twenty-four hours, and he was haunted by the terror that he might know something more of it before long. But “four hundred and ninety times! Seventy times seven! A thousand million times!” Yes, for her innocent little boy. But for him? Still, seventy times seven was four hundred and ninety. He must finish that picture today, and at his work he went with furious zeal. He had never done such good work, and he had come to the finishing touches. He heard Paul planning with his mother for a ride down the valley, perhaps the following day. His heart rose in new hope. She would be well again. But at the very earliest moment he would take her away to the best doctor at Home that money could command. Could she bear the long journey—nearly four thousand miles by land and three thousand by sea? There was that very clever Old Country surgeon in Vancouver everybody was speaking of. Why had he never thought of him? His mind had always gone to the great surgeons of the homeland. But that young McPhail! Why not consult him? He would take her to Vancouver at once. Hour after hour he spent, re-touching the canvas here and there, prancing back and forward with light, eager steps. In his absorption he forgot all but the wonderful scene before him. The door opened softly and his wife entered. He heard nothing.
“Oh, Hugh! how wonderful!” she breathed in ecstasy.
He flung down his brush. “It is finished!” he muttered in an undertone. “And it is good. My best!” He sat looking at it with a detached and critical eye. “Yes, it really is not half bad.”
“Half bad!” returned his wife, with indignant scorn. “It ought to be in the Academy!”