he were about to speak—yet not speaking. It was one of those moments when a man feels a band about his tongue, woven by shyness or false shame, or social timidity. He knows that he ought to speak; but the moment passes and he has not spoken. And between him and the word unsaid there rises on the instant a tiny streamlet of division, which is to grow and broaden with the nights and days, till it flows, a stream of fate, not to be turned back or crossed; and all the familiar fields of life are ruined and blotted out.
Finally, as the great patron was going, Cuningham whispered a word in his ear. Lord Findon turned to Fenwick.
'You're in this house, too? Have you anything you'd let me see?'
Fenwick, flushed and stammering, begged him to walk upstairs. Cuningham's puzzled impression was that he gave the invitation reluctantly, but could not make up his mind not to give it.
They marched upstairs, Lord Findon and Cuningham behind.
'Does he ever sell?' said Lord Findon, in Cuningham's ear, nodding towards the broad shoulders and black head of Watson just in front.
'Not often,' said Cuningham, after a pause.
'How, then, does he afford himself?' said the other, smiling.
'Oh! he has means—just enough to keep him from starving. He's a dear old fellow! He has too many ideas for this wicked world.'
Cuningham spoke with a pleasant loyalty. Lord Findon shrugged his shoulders.
'The ideas are too lugubrious! And this young fellow—this
Fenwick—where did you pick him up?'
Cuningham explained.
'A character!—perhaps a genius?' said Findon. 'He has a clever, quarrelsome eye. Unmarried? Good Lord, I hope so, after the way I've been going on.'
Cuningham laughed. 'We've seen no sign of a wife. But I really know nothing about him.'
They were entering the upper room, and at sight of the large picture it contained, Lord Findon exclaimed:
'My goodness!—what an ambitious thing!'
The three men gathered in front of the picture. Fenwick lingered nervously behind them.
'What do you call it?' said Lord Findon, putting up his glasses.
'The "Genius Loci,"' said Fenwick, fumbling a little with the words.
It represented a young woman seated on the edge of a Westmoreland ghyll or ravine. Behind her the white water of the beck flowed steeply down from shelf to shelf; beyond the beck rose far-receding walls of mountain, purple on purple, blue on blue. Light, scantily nourished trees, sycamore or mountain-ash, climbed the green sides of the ghyll, and framed the woman's form. She sat on a stone, bending over a frail new-born lamb upon her lap, whereof the mother lay beside her. Against her knee leaned a fair-haired child. The pitiful concern in the woman's lovely eyes was reflected in the soft wonder of the child's. Both, it seemed, were of the people. The drawing was full of rustical suggestion, touched here and there by a harsh realism that did but heighten the general harmony. The woman's grave comeliness flowered naturally, as it were, out of the scene. She was no model posing with a Westmoreland stream for background. She seemed a part of the fells; their silences, their breezes, their pure waters, had passed into her face.
But it was the execution of the picture which perhaps specially arrested the attention of the men examining it.
'Eclectic stuff!' said Watson to himself, presently, as he turned away—'seen with other men's eyes!'
But on Lord Findon and on Cuningham the effect was of another kind. The picture seemed to them also a combination of many things, or rather of attempts at many things—Burne-Jones' mystical colour—the rustic character of a Bastien-Lepage or a Millet—with the jewelled detail of a fourteenth-century Florentine, so wonderful were the harebells in the foreground, the lichened rocks, the dabbled fleece of the lamb: but they realised that it was a combination that only a remarkable talent could have achieved.
'By Jove!' said Findon, turning on the artist with animation, 'where did you learn all this?'
'I've been painting a good many years,' said Fenwick, his cheeks aglow. 'But I've got on a lot this last six months.'
'I suppose, in the country, you couldn't get properly at the model?'
'No. I've had no chances.'
'Let's all pray to have none,' said Cuningham, good-naturedly. 'I had no notion you were such a swell.'
But his light-blue eyes as they rested on Fenwick were less friendly. His Scotch prudence was alarmed. Had he in truth introduced a genius unawares to his only profitable patron?
'Who is the model, if I may ask?' said Lord Findon, still examining the picture.
The reply came haltingly, after a pause.
'Oh!—some one I knew in Westmoreland.'
The speaker had turned red. Naturally no one asked any further questions. Cuningham noticed that the face was certainly from the same original as the face in the sketch-book, but he kept his observation to himself.
Lord Findon, with the eagerness of a Londoner discovering some new thing, fell into quick talk with Fenwick; looked him meanwhile up and down, his features, bearing, clothes; noticed his North-Country accent, and all the other signs of the plebeian. And presently Fenwick, placed at his ease, began for the first time to expand, became argumentative and explosive. In a few minutes he was laying down the law in his Westmoreland manner—attacking the Academy—denouncing certain pictures of the year—with a flushed, confident face and a gesticulating hand. Watson observed him with some astonishment; Lord Findon looked amused—and pulled out his watch.
'Oh, well, everybody kicks the Academy—but it's pretty strong, as you'll find when you have to do with it.'
'Have you been writing those articles in the Mirror?' said Watson, abruptly.
'I'm not a journalist.' The young man's tone was sulky. He got up and his loquacity disappeared.
'Well, I must be off,' said Lord Findon. 'But you're coming to dinner with me to-morrow night, Cuningham, aren't you? Will you excuse a short invitation'—he turned, after a moment's pause, to Fenwick—'and accompany him? Lady Findon would, I'm sure, be glad to make your acquaintance. St. James's Square—102. All right'—as Fenwick, colouring violently, stammered an acceptance—'we shall expect you. Aurevoir! I'm afraid it's no good to ask you!' The last words were addressed smilingly to Watson, as Lord Findon, with outstretched hand, passed through the door, which Cuningham opened for him.
'Thank you,' said Watson, with a grave inclination—'I'm a hermit.'
The door closed on a gay and handsome presence. Lord Findon could not possibly have been accused of anything so ill-mannered as patronage. But there was in his manner a certain consciousness of power—of vantage-ground; a certain breath of autocracy. The face of Watson showed it as he returned to look closely into Fenwick's picture.
A few minutes later Fenwick found himself alone. He stood in front of the picture, staring into Phoebe's eyes. A wave of passionate remorse broke
