Part 17 (1/2)

Apropos, did you see anything of our friend Philip? His last letter--a long time ago; he is becoming a bad correspondent--struck me as rather _triste_, even for him. I'm afraid he is not well.”

”Yes,” said Eve slowly; ”we went over to Bordighera one day while we were at Cannes, and we stayed a night at the hotel, but we didn't see Mr. Rainham. He had gone over to Monte Carlo.”

”Ah, poor fellow, what an idea! I wonder what dragged him there.”

Eve looked at the old lady questioningly for a minute.

”I think he went with the Dollonds,” she answered gravely.

”Ah, my dear, no wonder his letter was dull! Then you didn't see him? Well, I suppose he will come back soon. You mustn't be jealous of him, you know. He is very much _lie_ with your husband, isn't he?”

”I don't suppose he will see quite so much of him now.”

There seemed to be a trace of weariness in the girl's voice as she answered, and Lady Garnett glanced at her sharply before she let her eyes continue their task of wandering in a kind of absent scrutiny of the sculptured exhibits in the room.

”But of course not.... How terrible all these great plaster figures are, and the busts, too! They are so dreary, they have the air of being made for a cemetery. Don't they make you think of tombstones and mausoleums?”

Eve looked at her a little wonderingly.

”Are they very bad? Do you know, I rather like them. Not so much as the pictures, of course; but still I think some of them are charming, though I am rather glad d.i.c.k isn't a sculptor. Don't you like that? What is it--Bacchus on a panther?”

”My dear, you are quite right,” said the old lady decisively, dropping her tortoise-sh.e.l.l lorgnon into her lap, and suppressing a yawn. ”Only, it is you who are charming! I must go to the Grosvenor as soon as it opens to see if your clever husband, who seems to be able to paint everything and everybody, has done you justice.... But you mustn't sit talking to an old grumbler like me any longer. Go back to your picture; Mr. Dollond will pilot you. And if you encounter Mary on the way, tell her that a certain discontented old lady of her acquaintance wants to be taken home. Au revoir.”

About five minutes later Mary Masters found her aunt half asleep.

The paint had made her stupid, she said. She could understand now why painters did not improve as they grew older; it was the smell of the paint.

”Ah,” she said, as they pa.s.sed out into the busy whirl of Piccadilly, ”how glad I shall be to get back to my Masons and Corots. Though I like that pretty little Mrs. Lightmark.... Poor Philip! Now tell me whom you saw. Charles Sylvester, of course? But no, I am too sleepy now; you shall tell me all about it after dinner.”

It was six o'clock before the Colonel was able to deposit his bulky, military person rather stiffly on a cus.h.i.+oned seat, and to remove his immaculate silk hat, with an expression of weary satisfaction.

He had devoted all the sunny spring afternoon, (when he might have been at Hurlingham, or playing whist at the ”Rag”), to making his way, laboriously and apologetically, from room to room in search of friends and acquaintances, whom, when found, he would convoy strategically into the immediate vicinity of No. 37 in the First Room.

”My nephew's picture,” he explained; ”nice thing! I don't know much about painting” (he called it paintin') ”and art, and all that sort of thing, but I believe it's about as good as they make them.”

He had accepted all the inconsistent, murmured criticism almost as a personal tribute; and for the greater part at least of the afternoon his beaming face had completely belied the discomfort occasioned by his severe frock-coat and tightly-fitting patent-leather boots; and his yearning for a comfortable chair, with a box of cigars and a whisky-and-seltzer at his elbow, had been suppressed, rigidly and heroically.

”I suppose it's devilish good,” he thought, as he sat waiting for the rest of his party. ”People seem to admire those splashes of yellow and black, and all those dirty colours. Personally, I think I prefer the girl in white next door. Hullo, there's Eve!”

”Don't get up, Colonel,” said Mrs. Sylvester; ”we want to sit here for a little and hear what people say about Richard's picture. They make such amusing remarks sometimes! Not always complimentary; but, then, they often don't know anything about art.”

”Yes,” said Eve, seating herself, with a delicate consideration for the new dress, which the occasion had demanded, between the Colonel and her mother; ”we heard someone say that the flesh in that big Roman picture with the temple, you know--I can't p.r.o.nounce the name--was like cotton wool--pink cotton wool! Oh, and that the girl in black, with the yellow fan, whose portrait is in the big room, must be at least eight feet high!”

”Now, how the d.i.c.kens could he tell that!” interposed the Colonel.

”Oh, he was talking very learnedly, about heads and things. How provoking of that old gentleman in the gold spectacles! Standing just in front of d.i.c.k's picture with his back to it. He looks just exactly like a millionaire, and he won't look, and he's preventing other people from looking! Do turn him round, uncle, or move him on, or something!”

”Do you see that man there?” whispered Mrs. Sylvester presently, ”the tall man with the sandy hair and beard? I think he's a painter.

He said just now that Richard's picture was amazingly good, and that he thought he knew where he got the idea from.”

”Why, of course,” said the Colonel carelessly; ”d.i.c.k got the idea from that beggar what's-his-name's dock--and a thundering good idea too! I wonder what time they close? Perhaps----”