“And we start to-night! Jove, it’s unbelievable!” he said, exultantly, as he dropped the rug corner and stood up, straight and slender and tall, a handsome boy with his black hair a trifle long, his blue eyes aglow, his delicate features alight with enthusiasm as he drew in a long breath of satisfaction.
There was a touch of the romantic in his attire—in the loosely hanging, dark gray velveteen suit that was almost black, and the soft cravat that had the color of pigeon’s blood.
He was young enough to like that sort of thing, dandy enough to order those dull gray suits by the half dozen, with long, crimson lined cloaks and marvelous soft felt hats; and handsome enough to make Velantour vow he would immortalize him in them. “Le nouveau Van Dyck,” he whispered to himself, for he loved the boy as much as he believed in his future, and he believed in that with the intensity and concentrated fervor of a man who permits himself few beliefs.
“To have a son like that!” he would murmur—little, squat, short-legged, gray-headed, lonely old, famous Velantour; and the words wrenched his lips into the dry twist of an old grief.
For Velantour’s scapegrace son had rested many years in Père-la-Chaise.
* * * * *
Velantour was coming this afternoon to the informal little reunion of the half dozen friends whom Carrington had summoned to wish him God-speed.
With the warning swish of the curtains Carrington turned to see if it was he even now. But he saw instead a young fellow of his own age, a youth whose brown hair curled obstinately, whose mouth was wide and mobile, and who had the kind of snub nose one inevitably associates with jollity.
“My dear Ned, you’re most disappointing,” the newcomer stated, with burlesque complaint and a gesture that sent his hands far apart. “You ought to be putting the last touch to a tuft of grass in the foreground. It’s a poor foreground that won’t stand a few extra tufts here and there, and it’s an immensely effective proceeding. Or else you ought to be on your knees to the gods. You’re neither posing piously to please Providence, nor patently to please Paris. I’m afraid we’ve overrated your genius. You’ll never make a Whistler.”
He laughed good-humoredly as he grasped Carrington’s outstretched hand. Robert Parker, yclept Bobbins, took life easily.