“You may well look blank, sir. It is how Dick Wilson is feeling. Upon my soul, lad, I think Lot Hardacre did well when he slapped my silly face.”
Jeffray, who had recovered himself, put his foot upon the burning spill, took another from the pot, held it over the fire, and lit his pipe. He puffed steadily for some moments, lying back in his chair with a peculiar calmness upon his face, and then turned again to Wilson.
“Tell me all about it, Dick,” he said.
“Shall I?”
“It is better that I should know.”
Wilson settled himself irritably in his chair and stared at the fire.
“Ten years ago,” he said, “when I was a better-looking fellow than I am now, and when I was making money with my portraits, I painted Sir Peter Hardacre and his daughter. They had a house in town, sir, then, and Miss Jilian was as pretty a young lady as ever charmed the beaux of St. James’s. Well, sir, I fell in love with the girl while I was painting her, and a mighty long time I took over that picture, and a mighty fine portrait I thought it. ‘Did not Hogarth marry old Sir James Thornhill’s daughter,’ said I, ‘and why should I not win this goddess myself?’ She bribed her maid, sir, and used to come to my studio to see me paint. I don’t think it was quite honorable of me, Richard Jeffray, I know now that it was not wise. Well, some old hag who had a grudge against Sir Peter got hold of our secret, and put it about town that there was an intrigue between us. Egad, sir, what an infernal pother there was! Sir Peter sent his own son and some young bullies to bludgeon me in my own studio. I still have the mark of one of their sticks on my asinine pate. It was a bad business, Richard, though we were both of us innocent as lambs.”
Jeffray sat and watched the painter’s face. He had never hinted to Wilson that he himself was on the verge of a betrothal with this very Miss Hardacre, nor had the Lady Letitia dropped a syllable upon the subject. The revelation had come as something of a shock to Jeffray’s sensitive nature. He began to suspect that certain of his aunt’s scandals might be true, and that the sweet Jilian had lost much of the bloom of her unkissed maidenhood. Wilson professed to deal with a romance that had blossomed ten years ago, and Jeffray seemed to see of a sudden a whole ghastly array of subsequent gallants rising before him to impeach Miss Hardacre’s unsophisticated soul.
“I am sorry, Dick,” he said, “that we persuaded you to go to Hardacre. If you had warned me—this might have been prevented.”
Wilson sat with his chin upon his chest, smoking vigorously, and staring at the fire.