As he sat musing, _The Art World_ still in his hand, Warburton could
hear his friend's voice ring out that audacious vow. He could remember,
too, the odd little pang with which he heard it, a half spasm of
altogether absurd jealousy. Of course the feeling did not last. There
was no recurrence of it when he heard that Franks had again seen Miss
Elvan before she left Ashtead; nor when he learnt that the artist had
been spending a day or two at Bath. Less than a month after their first
meeting, Franks won Rosamund's consent. He was frantic with exultation.
Arriving with the news at ten o'clock one night, he shouted and
maddened about Warburton's room until finally turned out at two in the
morning. His circumstances being what they were, he could not hope for
marriage yet awhile; he must work and wait. Never mind; see what work
he would produce! Yet it appeared to his friend that all through the
next twelvemonth he merely wasted time, such work as he did finish
being of very slight value. He talked and talked, now of Rosamund, now
of what he was _going_ to do, until Warburton, losing patience, would
cut him short with "Oh, go to Bath!"--an old cant phrase revived for
its special appropriateness in this connection. Franks went to Bath far
oftener than he could afford, money for his journey being generally
borrowed from his long-enduring friend.
Rosamund herself had nothing, and but the smallest expectations should
her father die. Two years before this, it had occurred to her that she
should like to study art, and might possibly find in it a means of
self-support. She was allowed to attend classes at South Kensington,
but little came of this except a close friendship with a girl of her
own age, by name Bertha Cross, who was following the art course with
more serious purpose. When she had been betrothed for about a year,
Rosamund chanced to spend a week in London at her friend's house, and
this led to acquaintance between Franks and the Crosses. For a time,
Warburton saw and heard less of the artist, who made confidantes of
Mrs. Cross and her daughter, and spent many an evening with them
talking, talking, talking about Rosamund; but this intimacy did not
endure very long, Mrs. Cross being a person of marked peculiarities,
which in the end overtried Norbert's temper. Only on the fourth story
flat by Chelsea Bridge could the lover find that sort of sympathy which
he really needed, solacing yet tonic. But for Warburton he would have
worked even less. To Will it seemed an odd result of fortunate love
that the artist, though in every other respect a better man than
before, should have become, to all appearances, less zealous, less
efficient, in his art. Had Rosamund Elvan the right influence on her
lover; in spite of Norbert's lyric eulogy, had she served merely to
confuse his aims, perhaps to bring him down to a lower level of thought?
There was his picture, "Sanctuary." Before he knew Rosamund, Franks
would have scoffed at such a subject, would have howled at such
treatment of it. There was notable distance between this and what
Norbert was painting in that summer sunrise four years ago, with his
portable easel in the gutter. And Miss Elvan admired "Sanctuary"--at
least, Franks said she did. True, she also admired the picture of the
pawnshop and the public-house; Will had himself heard her speak of it
with high praise, and with impatient wonder that no purchaser could be
found for it. Most likely she approved of everything Norbert did, and
had no more serious criterion. Unless, indeed, her private test of
artistic value were the financial result.
Warburton could not altogether believe that. Annoyance with the artist
now and then inclined him to slighting thought of Rosamund; yet, on the
whole, his view of her was not depreciatory. The disadvantage to his
mind was her remarkable comeliness. He could not but fear that so much
beauty must be inconsistent with the sterling qualities which make a
good wife.
Will's eye fell on Sherwood's note, and he went to bed wondering what
the project might be which was to make their fortune.