[IV.—OTHER CASTS FOLLOWING THE CAST IN THE WAGGON.]
Clary and Dulcie were slightly censured for their officiousness in the affairs of these painter fellows: but it is in the nature of women not to take well with contradiction: it is in the nature of good women to fly furiously in the face of whatever crosses their generosity, or thwarts their magnanimity.
The crisis came about in this way: Will Locke had finished his work long before Sam; not that Will was more industrious, but he had not got half the commissions at only half the price, and that was about the usual division of labour between them. The two men were born to it. Sam's art took the lucrative shape of portrait-painting; Will's the side of flower and fruit and landscape painting, which was vilely unremunerative then, and allegorical painting, which no one will be at the pains to understand, or, what is more to the purpose, to buy, in this enlightened nineteenth century. Sam, who was thriving already, fell in love with Clarissa Gage, with her six thousand pounds fortune: there was no premeditation, or expediency, or cunning, in the matter; it was the luck of the man. But Will Locke could never have done it: he, who could never make a clear subsistence for himself, must attach himself to a penniless, cheery, quick little girl like Dulcie; and where he could not well maintain one, must provide for two at the lowest estimate. Will Locke was going, and there was no talk of his return; Dulcie was helping him to put up his sketches with her orderly, ready, and respectful hands.
"When we are parted for good, I shall miss you," he said, simply.
Her tender heart throbbed with gratitude, but she only answered, "Are we to be parted for good? Will you never come back to Redwater?"
"I cannot come back like Sam," he affirmed, sadly, not bitterly; "I am not a rising man, Dulcie, though I may paint for future ages."
A bright thought struck Dulcie, softening and warming her girlish face, till it was like one of those faces which look out of Fra Angelico's pictures, and express what we are fond of talking about—adoration and beneficence: "Could I paint for the potteries, Master Locke?" For, in his noble thriftless way, he had initiated her into some of the very secrets of his tinting, and Dulcie was made bold by the feats she had achieved.
"What should set you labouring on paltry porringers?—you are provided with your bit and sup, Mistress Dulcie."