"If one could hope that she was actuated only by respect! But no, I hardly dare to think that. Then, I suppose, she brought her visitor to the Studio."
"Brother Humphrey, we always do the same thing at the same time."
"Mutatis mutandis, my dear Cornelius. I design, you write; I group, you clothe your conceptions in undying words. Perhaps we both shall live. It was on the same day that she drew the sketch of me asleep." Humphrey's mind was still running on the want of respect. "Here it is."
"Forsitan hoc nomen nostrum miscebitur illis," resumed the Poet, looking at the sketch. "The child has a wonderful gift at catching a likeness. If it were not for the annoyance one might feel pleased. The girl is young and pretty. If our years are double what they should be, our hearts are half our years."
"They are. We cannot be angry with her."
"Impossible."
"Dear little Phillis!"—she was a good inch taller than either of the Twins, who, indeed, were exactly the same height, and it was five feet four—"she is charming in spite, perhaps on account, of her faults. Her property is in the Funds, you said Cornelius?"
"Three-per-cents. Fifty thousand pounds—fifteen hundred a year; which is about half what Joseph pays income tax upon. A pleasant income, brother Humphrey."
"Yes, I dare say." Humphrey tossed the question of money aside. "You and I, Cornelius, are among the few who care nothing about three-per-cents. What is money to us? what have we to do with incomes? Art, glorious Art, brother, is our mistress. She pays us, not in sordid gold, but in smiles, in gleams of a haven not to be reached by the common herd, in skies of a radiance visible only to the votary's eye."
Cornelius sighed response. It was thus that the brothers kept up the sacred flame of artistic enthusiasm. Pity that they were compelled to spend their working hours in subjection to sleep, instead of Art. Our actions and our principles are so often at variance that their case is not uncommon.