"I could hear every word," he repeated, and then his eyes twinkled; but he was honourable enough not to repeat the little conversation.
"Father, Monsieur Blackie is upstairs!" and here Mollie giggled. "His real name is Ingram, but Ann calls him Mr. Ink-pen."
"All right, my pet; so I suppose I had better go upstairs;" but Waveney pulled him back.
"Wait a moment, father dear. What a hurry you are in! And your hair is so rough, and your coat is dusty. Give me the brush, Mollie. We must put him tidy. Dad, such a wonderful thing has happened. Mr. Ingram wants to buy King Canute 'for a rich friend who has a picture-gallery,' and he will pay you five-and-twenty guineas."
"Nonsense, child!" But from his tone Mr. Ward was becoming excited too. "Let me pass, Mollie; you are forgetting your manners, children, leaving a visitor alone;" and Everard Ward marched into the studio, with his head unusually high.
"The 'golden apple,' alias Ward père, was a shabby, fair little man with a face like a Greek god," continued Ingram. "He must have been a perfect Adonis in his youth. He had brown pathetic eyes, rather like a spaniel's—you know what I mean, eyes that seemed always to be saying, 'I am a good fellow, though I am down on my luck, and I should like to be friends with you.'"
It was evident that the two men took to each other at once. Ingram's pleasant manners and undisguised cordiality put Mr. Ward at his ease, and in a few minutes they were talking as though they were old friends.
The subject of 'King Canute' was soon brought forward again, and Ingram explained matters with a good deal of tact and finesse.
Everard Ward reddened, and then he said bluntly, "You are very good, Mr. Ingram, to offer me such a handsome price, but sheer honesty compels me to say the picture is not worth more than ten pounds. I have not worked out the subject as well as I could wish." And then he added, a little sadly, "It is a poor thing, but my own."
"My dear sir," returned Ingram, airily, "we artists are bad critics of our own work. My friends regard me as an optimist, but I call myself an Idealist. I am a moral Sisyphus, for ever rolling my poor stone up the hill difficulty." Then, as he noticed Mollie's puzzled look, he continued blandly, "Sisyphus was a fraudulent and avaricious king of Corinth, whose task in the world of shades is to roll a large stone to the top of a hill and fix it there. The unpleasant part of the business is that the stone no sooner reaches the hill-top than it bounds down again. Excuse this lengthy description, which reminds me a little of Sandford and Merton. But, revenons à nos moutons, I am ready, Mr. Ward, to take the picture for my friend at the price I mentioned to your daughters; and as I have the money about me"—and here he produced a Russian leather pocket-book—"I think we had better settle our business at once."