"I know it; and my mind is relieved. Brother, shall we split another soda? It is only eleven."
Joseph took up his paper. He neither smoked nor drank brandy-and-soda, finding in his work occupation which left him no time for either. To-night, however, he could not bring his mind to bear upon the words before him.
He to marry? And to marry Phillis? The thought was new and startling. He put it from him; but it came back. And why not? he asked himself. Why should not he, as well as the rest of mankind, have his share of love and beauty? To be sure, it would be a breach of confidence as he told Humphrey. But Colquhoun was coming; he was a young man—his own age—only forty; he would not care to have a girl to look after; he would—again he thought behind him.
But all night long Joseph Jagenal dreamed a strange dream, in which soft voices whispered things in his ears, and he thrilled in his sleep at the rustle of a woman's dress. He could not see her face,—dreams are always so absurdly imperfect—but he recognised her figure, and it was that of Phillis Fleming.
CHAPTER XIII.
"She never yet was foolish that was fair."
The days sped on; but each day, as it vanished, made Phillis's heart sadder, because it brought her guardian nearer, and the second great change in her life, she thought, was inevitable. Think of a girl, brought up a cloistered nun, finding her liberty for a few short weeks, and then ordered back to her whitewashed cell. Phillis's feelings as regards Lawrence Colquhoun's return were coloured by this fear. It seemed as if, argument and probability notwithstanding, she might be suddenly and peremptorily carried back to prison, without the consolations of a maid, because Antoinette, as we know, would refuse to accompany her, or the kindly society of the poor old Abraham Dyson, now lying in a synonymous bosom.
A short three weeks since her departure from Highgate; a short six weeks since Mr. Dyson's death; and the world was all so different. She looked back on herself, with her old ideas, contemptuously. "Poor Phillis!" she thought, "she knew so little." And as happens to every one of us, in every successive stage of life, she seemed to herself now to know everything. Life without the sublime conceit of being uplifted, by reason of superior inward light and greater outward experience, above other men, would be but a poor thing. Phillis thought she had the Key to Universal Knowledge, and that she was on the high-road to make that part of her life which should begin in two years' time easy, happy, and clear of pitfalls. From the Archbishop of Canterbury to Joe the crossing-sweeper, we all think in exactly the same way. And when the ages bring experience, and experience does not blot out memory, we recall our old selves with a kind of shame—wonder that we did not drop into the snare, and perish miserably; and presently fall to thanking God that we are rid of a Fool.
A fortnight. Phillis counted the days, and drew a historical record of every one. Jack came three times: once after Mrs. Cassilis's dinner; once when he took her to the Tower of London; and once—I have been obliged to omit this third visit—when he sat for his portrait, and Phillis drew him full length, leaning against the mantelshelf, with his hands in his pockets—not a graceful attitude, but an easy one, and new to Phillis, who thought it characteristic. She caught Jack's cheerful spirit too, and fixed it by a touch in the gleam of his eye. Mrs. Cassilis came four times, and on each occasion took the girl for a drive, bought something for her, and sent the bill to Joseph Jagenal. On each occasion, also, she asked particularly for Lawrence Colquhoun. There were the little events with the Twins which we have recorded; and there were walks with Cæsar about the square. Once Joseph Jagenal took her to a picture-gallery, where she wanted to stay and copy everything; it was her first introduction to the higher Art, and she was half delighted, half confused. If Art critics were not such humbugs, and did not pretend to feel what they do not, they might help the world to a better understanding of the glories of painters. As it is, they are the only people, except preachers, to whom unreal gush is allowed by gods and men. After all, as no Art critic of the modern unintelligible gush-and-conceit school can paint or draw, perhaps if they were not to gush and pile up Alpine heaps of words they would be found out for shallow-bags. The ideal critic in Art is the great Master who sits above the fear of rivalry or the imputation of envy; in Literature it is the great writer from whom praise is honoured and dispraise the admonition of a teacher; in the Drama, a man who himself has moved the House with his words, and can afford to look on a new rising playwright with kindliness.
Phillis in the Art Gallery was the next best critic to the calm and impartial Master. She was herself artist enough to understand the difficulties of art; she had that intense and real feeling for form and colour which Humphrey Jagenal affected; and her taste in Art was good enough to overmaster her sympathy with the subject. Some people are ready to weep at a tragical subject, however coarse the daub, just as they weep at the fustian of an Adelphi melodrama; Phillis was ready to weep when the treatment and the subject together were worthy of her tears. It seems as if she must have had her nature chilled; but it is not so.