Lucas painted, but not so fiercely as before; and again from the
deck-chair Hillary watched him. He rented the studio next door, and
having a comfortable private income of L80 a year, generally spent his
afternoons encouraging his friend. Occasionally, however, he considered
it advisable to supply chastening reflections.
"I don't like it," he observed.
"Don't like what?"
"If he really meant to buy those pictures, I can't help thinking you
would have heard from him again."
The artist turned abruptly.
"It was only three days ago. I don't expect to hear yet."
"Dear old Lucas, I don't want to discourage you, but I call it fishy.
Supposing he has met some one since who really knew something about
pictures?"
His friend resumed work in silence.
"There is also another possibility," continued Hillary in his gentle
voice. "He struck me as suspiciously extravagant--supposing he has
gone bankrupt? I noticed, too, that his complexion was somewhat
rubicund--supposing he has had an apoplectic fit? In that case, would
his executors be bound by his verbal promise? Honestly, Lucas, I don't
think so."
There came a sharp rap on the door.
"It will relax the strain on your intellect if you go and see who that
is," suggested the painter.
"A telegram," said Hillary, strolling back from the door.
"Good heavens!" cried Lucas. "Read that."
Hillary read--
"Come immediately. Unfortunate complication here. Require you to
explain fully.--HERIOT WALKINGSHAW."
He looked considerably sobered.
"Of course I didn't really mean what I was saying--"
Lucas interrupted him brusquely.
"I'm off. Look after things here. What the devil--"
He strode down the lane, hailed a cab, and drove off to an
accompaniment of the most anxious speculations.
"This way, sir," said the attendant at the Hotel Gigantique.
Lucas followed him, still racking his brains for some explanation not
too disastrous to his hopes. The man opened the door of a sitting-room
and closed it quietly behind him. In the room there was only one person,
a girl with the sunniest hair and the straightest little nose and the
most delightfully astonished face imaginable.
"Jean!" he cried.
He took a quick step towards her and then remembered the gravity of the
summons.
"What's the matter?" he demanded.
"Then it was you!" she exclaimed.
"Me?"
"Father only told me that some one--a man--"
He held out the telegram abruptly.
"What do you make of that?"
She read it, and then read it again, and her bewilderment seemed to
change into another emotion.
"What did your father tell you to do?" asked Lucas.
She gave him the queerest look.
"Get rid of the man if I could," she said.
He ran his fingers through his mop of brown hair.
"But I don't understand--what's the 'complication'?"
She began to smile shyly--
"Lucas, don't you think--don't you see--there's nothing else. _I_ must
be the complication here."
* * * * *
"Ahem!" coughed Mr. Walkingshaw.
The lovers endeavored to look as though the artist had been merely
posing his patron's daughter.
"Well?" inquired that patron genially.
Lucas had not altogether lost his ready audacity.
"I came at once, sir," he replied, "and I have explained fully. The
complication has been cleared up."
Laughing gleefully, chattering away much more like the prospective best
man than the future father-in-law, he led them (an arm thrown about
each) towards the sofa, where they sat together, crowded but happy.
"What would you put your income at now, Lucas?" he inquired
mischievously.
Lucas looked a little rueful.
"The same fluctuating figures, I'm afraid," he confessed.
"My dear fellow, don't worry," said Heriot kindly. "Money isn't
everything in this world. Youth and love and pluck are the main things.
Hang it, what if you do get into debt occasionally? You've got a
pretty oofy father-in-law. Of course, my dear chap, I don't encourage
extravagance; far from it"--he glanced complacently at the chaste
upholstery of the Hotel Gigantique. "I believe in paying your way, and
laying by for a rainy day, and all that kind of thing, just as much as
ever I did--in theory, anyhow. But in practice I may just as well tell
you at once, to ease your mind, that Jean will have three hundred a year
to keep the pot boiling."
He pooh-poohed their gratitude with the most genial air.
"Don't mention it, my dear young people, don't mention it. It comes out
of Andrew's share, so it's all right."
"But I couldn't dream of robbing Andrew!" cried Jean warmly.
"He spends his days in robbing our clients," chuckled the senior
partner, "so you needn't worry about him. Besides, he doesn't know
how to spend money even when he has got it." He lowered his voice
confidentially. "Andrew hasn't a spark of the sportsman in him; he's all
very well as a partner--one wants 'em tough; but as a son--good Lord!"
And then the good gentleman tactfully retired to the billiard-room,
leaving behind him the two happiest people in London.