With scarcely less curiosity she waited for her uncle’s comment on the news. It came promptly, and if brief and rather conventional, was kindly. One sentence stung her. “So you have given up exploding and decided to be a good girl.”
She flung the note down irritably. “I believe he would have liked it better if I had told him I was going to marry Erard.” She felt that the old man was bored, if not disappointed, in finding that all her rebellion had come to this decorous end.
Walter Anthon wrote their mother at great length. The substance of his remarks was the relief which they must all feel that Adela, if she had not done the brilliant thing, at least had ended safely and properly; if it were safe, that is if Wilbur were really sound financially, and that, he supposed his mother and uncle had taken pains to find out. Beyond that he was sorry that her life was inevitably to be so divided from his. “We shall be country cousins,” she explained to Wilbur, “and he hopes that we shall not put him in the awkward position of ever visiting London.”
Wilbur left for Chicago, after a week in Paris. The portrait came off while the Anthons were waiting for the trousseau. The sittings were full of ennui to the subject, for Mrs. Anthon insisted defiantly on attending every one. She persisted in regarding this portrait as an instalment of Erard’s debt to the Anthons, although her daughter explained elaborately that it was an act of mere friendship. While he painted, Erard talked merrily of the coming life in Chicago, advising and exhorting her on matters of taste.
“Of course you will build a house—a palace I should say. Do induce Mr. Wilbur to have a good architect, if there is one to be had over there. Bad architecture has such a subtle influence for deterioration on the person, and bad architecture has been the order of the day pretty generally in your new home. Tell Mr. Wilbur that he will distinguish himself in the best way by putting up a house that is more than ‘elegant,’ and ‘big,’ and ‘costly.’”
“We may live in a hotel for a time,” Miss Anthon answered shortly.
Erard lifted his eyebrows deprecatingly and dropped his glass. “No, you mustn’t live in a hotel—an American hotel above all!—it is so degenerating. I haven’t painted the portrait with that view.”
“Why? Would you have made me into a kind of barmaid, or grass-widow?”
“I should have sprinkled in diamonds a little more freely.”
Another time he continued the same vein. “Of course you will have the furnishing and all that on your hands. Do have Lemerre design the chairs. I will write him myself, if you want me to. He is rather dear: you couldn’t have him do the whole place at once—that would take a duke’s fortune. But get a little at a time, one or two chairs and a table. You can’t think how much good you will do your neighbours, when they come to call or to dine. And the stuffs,—there is only one place for good colours—Maron. You ought to have some artist design the whole for you at the same time. When you come to pictures, that will be so difficult. Do, dear Miss Anthon, go slow. Don’t let Mr. Wilbur buy old masters, because there aren’t any, or ’way beyond a millionaire’s purse. You could start in with some good etchings and old engravings. Then I could get you a Degas for a thousand pounds, an early Degas. It is a great find, I assure you, and one Degas would go a great way towards furnishing your house.”