When Katherine came back from the National Gallery she found Ted alone:
he had drawn up the couch in front of his easel, and lay there gazing at
his portrait. The restless, hungry look had gone from his eyes. There
was no triumph there, only an absolute satisfaction and repose. Face and
attitude said plainly, "I have attained my heart's desire. I am young in
years, but old in wisdom. I know what faith and hope and love are, which
is more than you do. I am not in the least excited about them, as you
see; I can afford to wait, for these things last for ever. If you like,
you may come and worship with me before my heavenly lady's image; but if
you do, you must hold your tongue." And Katherine, being a sensible
woman, held her tongue. But she took up a tiny pair of white gloves,
stained with paint and turpentine, that lay folded on the easel's ledge,
and after examining them critically, laid them on Ted's feet without a
word. A faint smile flickered across his lips. That was all their
confession.
After some inward debate, Katherine determined to go over and see
Audrey. She had no very clear notion of what had happened that morning;
but she could only think that the ridiculous boy had proposed to Audrey
and been accepted. The idea seemed preposterous; for though she had been
by no means blind to all that had been going on under her eyes for the
last few months, she had never for a moment taken Audrey seriously, or
supposed that Ted in his sober senses could do so either. This morning a
horrible misgiving had come over her, and she had gone to her work in a
tumult of mixed feelings. For the present she had made Ted's career the
end and aim of her existence. What she most dreaded for him, next to the
pain of a hopeless attachment, was the distraction of a successful one.
A premature engagement is the thing of all others to blast a man's
career at the outset. What good was it, she asked herself passionately,
for her to pinch and save, to put aside her own ambition, to do the
journeyman's work that brings pay, instead of the artist's work that
brings praise, if Ted was going to fling himself away on the first
pretty face that took his fancy? Again the feeling of hatred to Audrey
surged up in her heart, and again it died down at the first sight of its
object.
Audrey was standing at the window singing a little song to herself. She
turned as the door opened, and when she saw Katherine she started ever
so slightly, and stood at gaze like a frightened fawn. She was attracted
by Katherine, as she was by every personality that she felt to be
stronger than her own. Among all artists there is a strain of manhood
in every woman, and of womanhood in every man. Katherine fascinated her
weaker sister by some such super-feminine charm. At the same time,
Audrey was afraid of her, as she had been afraid of Hardy in his
passion, or of Ted in his boisterous mirth. There were moments when she
thought that Katherine's direct unquestioning gaze must have seen what
she hid from her own eyes, must have penetrated the more or less
artistic disguises without which she would not have known herself. Now
her one anxiety was lest Katherine knew or guessed her treatment of
Vincent, and had come to reproach her with it. Owing to some slight
similarity of detail, the events of the morning had brought the
recollection of that last scene with Hardy uppermost in her mind. She
had persuaded herself that her love for Ted was her first experience of
passion, as it was his; but at the touch of one awkward memory the bloom
was somehow brushed off this little romance. For these reasons there was
fear in her grey eyes as she put up her face to Katherine's to be
kissed.
"Do you know?" she half whispered. "Has he told you?"
"No, he has told me nothing; but I know."
There was silence as the two women sat down side by side and looked into
each other's faces. Katherine's instinct was to soothe and protect the
shy creatures that shrank from her, and Audrey in her doubt and timidity
appealed to her more than she had ever done in the self-conscious
triumph of her beauty. She took her hand, caressing it gently as she
spoke.
"Audrey--you won't mind telling me frankly? Are you engaged to Ted?"
True to her imitative instincts, Audrey could be frank with the frank.
"Yes, I am. But it's our own little secret, and we don't want anybody to
know yet."
"Perhaps you are wise." She paused. How could she make Audrey understand
what she had to say? She was not going to ask her to break off her
engagement. In the first place, she had no right to do so; in the second
place, any interference in these cases is generally fatal to its own
ends. But she wanted to make Audrey realise the weight of her
responsibility.
"Audrey," she said at last, "do you remember our first meeting, when you
thought Ted was a baby?"
"Yes, of course I do. That was only six, seven months ago; and to think
that I should be engaged to him now! Isn't it funny?"
"Very funny indeed. But you were perfectly right. He is a baby. He knows
no more than a baby does of the world, and of the men in it. Of the
women he knows rather less than an intelligent baby."
"I wouldn't have him different. He needn't know anything about other
women, so long as he understands _me_."
"Well, the question is, does he understand himself? What's more, are
you sure you understand him? Ted is two people rolled into one, and very
badly rolled too. The human part of him has hardly begun to grow yet;
he's got no practical common-sense to speak of, and only a rudimentary
heart."
"Oh, Katherine!"
"Quite true,--it's all I had at his age. But the ideal, the artistic
side of him is all but full-grown. That means that it's just at the
critical stage now."
"Of course, I suppose it would be." Audrey always said "Of course" when
she especially failed to see the drift of what was said to her.
"Yes; but do you realise all that the next few years will do for him?
That they will either make or ruin his career as an artist? They ought
to be years of downright hard work, of solitary hard work; he ought to
have them all to himself. Do you mean to let him have them?"
Audrey lowered her eyes, and sat silent, playing with the ribbons of her
dress, while Katherine went on as if to herself--
"He is so young, so dreadfully young. It would have been soon enough in
another ten years' time. Oh, Audrey, why did you let it come to this?"
"Well, really, Katherine, I couldn't help it. Besides, one has one's
feelings. You talk as if I was going to stand in Ted's way--as if I
didn't care a straw. Surely his career must mean more to his wife than
it can to his sister? I know you think that because I haven't been
trained like you, because I've lived a different life from yours, that I
can't love art as you do. You're mistaken. To begin with, I made up my
mind ten years ago that whatever I did when I grew up, I wouldn't marry
a nonentity. What do you suppose Ted's fascination was, if it wasn't his
genius, and his utter unlikeness to anybody else?"
"Geniuses are common enough nowadays; there are plenty more where he
came from."
"How cynical you are! You haven't met many people like Ted, have you?"
"No, I haven't. Oh, Audrey, do you _really_ care like that? I wonder how
I should feel if I were you, and knew that Ted's future lay in my hands,
as it lies in yours."
Audrey's cheeks reddened with pleasure. "It does! It does!" She clasped
her little hands passionately, as if they were holding Ted and his
future tight. "I know it. All I want is to inspire him, to keep him true
to himself. Haven't I done it? You know what his work was like before he
loved me. Can you say that he ever painted better than he does now, or
even one-half as well?"
Katherine could not honestly say that he had; but she smiled as she
answered, "No; but for the last six months he has done nothing from
anybody but yourself. You make a very charming picture, Audrey, but you
can hardly want people to say that your husband can only paint one
type."
"My husband can paint as many types as he pleases." Katherine still
looked dubious. "Anything more?"
"Yes, one thing. You say you want to keep Ted true to himself, as you
put it. He made up his mind this morning to go to Paris to study hard
for six months. It means a lot of self-sacrifice for you both, to be
separated so soon; but it will be the making of him. You won't let him
change his mind? You won't say anything to keep him back, will you?"
Audrey's face had suddenly grown hard, and she looked away from
Katherine as she answered, "You're not very consistent, I must say. You
can't think Ted such an utter baby if you trust him to go off to Paris
all by himself. As to his making up his mind this morning, our
engagement alters all that. After all, how can it affect Ted's career if
he goes now or three years hence?"
"It makes all the difference."
"I can't see it. And yet--and yet--I wouldn't spoil Ted's chances for
worlds." She rose and walked a few paces to and fro. "Let me think, let
me think!" She stood still, an image of abstract Justice, with one hand
folded over her eyes, and the other clenched as if it held the invisible
scales of destiny, weighing her present, overcharged with agreeable
sensations, against her lover's future. Apparently, after some shifting
of the weights, she had made the two balance, for she clapped her hands
suddenly, and exclaimed, with an emphasis on every other word--
"Katherine! An inspiration! We'll go to Paris for our honeymoon, and Ted
shall stay there six months--a year--for ever, if he likes. Paris is the
place I adore above all others. I shall simply live in that dear
Louvre!" She added in more matter-of-fact tones, "And I needn't order my
trousseau till I get there. That'll save no end of bother on this side.
I hate the way we do things here. For weeks before your wedding-day to
have to think of nothing but clothes, clothes, clothes--could anything
be more revolting?"
"Yes," said Katherine, "to think of them before a funeral."
Audrey looked offended. Death, like religion, is one of those subjects
which it is very bad taste to mention under some circumstances.
Katherine went away more disheartened than ever, and more especially
weighed down by the consciousness that she had made a fool of herself.
She knew Audrey to be vain, she divined that she was selfish, but at
least she had believed that she could be generous. By letting her feel
that she held Ted's future in her hands, she had roused all her woman's
vague cupidity and passion for power, and henceforth any appeal to her
generosity would be worse than useless. With a little of her old
artistic egoism, Katherine valued her brother's career very much as a
thing of her own making, and the idea of another woman meddling with it
and spoiling it was insupportable. It was as if some reckless colourist
had taken the Witch of Atlas and daubed her all over with frightful
scarlet and magenta. But the trouble at her heart of hearts was the
certainty that Audrey, that creature of dubious intellect and fitful
emotions, would never be able to love Ted as his wife should love him.