Our only other guest was Wensley, dragged reluctantly from Chelsea. His year has had some of its usual disappointments. His big work wasn't finished in time for the Academy, and is still in his studio. But though the Chantrey trustees passed over the very beautiful bronze that he did send, he has sold this to the National Gallery at Copenhagen for six hundred pounds, and has spent, in consequence, a fortnight at Whitby—his first holiday, I believe, in three years, since his invalid aunt and sister absorb most of his usual earnings. He always looks odd and uncomfortable in evening dress. But our very informal table generally sets him at his ease. And he is an extreme favourite with both Tom and Claire. To-night he remembered one of Tom's songs, and persuaded him, after dinner, to deliver it—with a little hesitation at first (for the poor boy has still got some scruples, I think), but ultimately to his saving grace. He left us at ten o'clock, for the invalids' sake, by which time Tom and Claire announced themselves to be feeling rather sleepy, without, as I observed, any notable protest from Jeanie and Horace. So they have both gone upstairs to bed; or at least I had thought so. But a tentative whisper at my door-handle has aroused my suspicions. I am busy writing to Mr. Pontrex, so that I shall be sure not to hear anything; and slowly the crack widens between the door-edge and the architrave. Across the blackness disclosed, flashes the gleam of a white-frocked arm, like a turning trout in a pool; and presently a brown hand, desperately silent, begins feeling for my key. I look at it apprehensively (for I have become a little nervous on this point lately) and am happily relieved to find it ringless. I must be very quick.
And yet, as you will have noticed, even Claire is growing up, still faithful to a more boisterous March, but now and then holding out her finger-tips to May. She reposes, as you may remember, in the little room next to ours. And yesterday morning Esther called me from my shaving-glass. For she had opened the door between, to discover that Claire had flown. Whither we could guess very easily, as she was even then hammering Tom with her pillow. But there, balanced face downwards on the edge of the bolster, lay a momentarily forgotten photograph. Esther touched it with a smile.
"D'you think we ought to?" she asked. And then she drew back. But at that moment a rather more vehement bump than its predecessors shook the wall and floor so thoroughly that the photo slid down upon the sheets, poised itself for a second upon its edge, and then dropped over, to reveal the very debonair figure of Mr. George Alexander as the gallant Rudolf Rassendyll. We looked at one another, and laughed—but only a little. And then Esther restored the picture to its resting-place.
Some day we shall meet him in the Park, and Claire will behold a very genial, middle-aged gentleman, a little inclined to be plump. But he won't be Rudolf Rassendyll. And what will happen to his likeness?
"She'll put it in her bottom drawer," smiles Esther, leaning over me as I write, "and it'll become part of somebody else."
She drops a kiss upon my occiput.
"And now you must come to bed," she adds, "or perhaps to-morrow morning you'll be tired."