'I suppose he did not describe it in that way,' Mabel could not help interrupting.
'I am so sick of it all, that I don't know what to do with myself,' Wilfred went on, without taking any notice of her remark.
'What led to the talk on the subject? Something, I suppose.'
'The fact that another picture has been refused admission. It's quite bad enough never to get any success, without his incessantly throwing it in my teeth. I declare I get so discouraged sometimes, I haven't the heart to work at all; and then that makes another trouble.'
'But you can't expect to meet with much success yet; you haven't had time. Almost everybody who has succeeded in the world has been unsuccessful at first.'
'Of course; I know that. But then it's so much easier to bear the fact that other people were disappointed, than it is to bear disappointment one's self. It is so much pleasanter to remember some great artist who wasn't appreciated at first, than it is to have one's own paintings perpetually refused admission everywhere. I feel so sure too that I have got the ability in me.'
'The greater reason for hoping and steadily persevering. But you know you have such a dreadful disadvantage to fight against in being so nearly self-taught as you are: you haven't started fair.'
'Of course not. I told my father so to-day when he was pitching into me; and it seemed to open up quite a new idea to him. He thought a little, and then said that he did not want to be responsible for my failing in the profession I had persisted in choosing—you see he takes my failing quite for granted,' Wilfred added bitterly—'and that if I intended working, he would send me to Paris for a year and pay for my studying there.'
'Wilfred! And are you going?'
'Really I hardly know. I think it is not knowing how to make up my mind about that, added to the bother of my father's everlasting grumbling, that has made me down so this morning. Of course I should very much like the advantage it would give me; but then comes the pang of parting from you, and particularly just now.'