Morrison's astonishment increased. The decision and self-confidence with which Fenwick spoke had never yet shown themselves so plainly in the harassed and humbly born painter of Miss Bella's portrait.
'And you intend to do the finest work in the world?' said the patron, in a voice of banter.
'I shall do good work,' he said, doggedly, after a pause. Then, suddenly raising his head, he added, 'And if I weren't sure of it, I'd never let you lend me money.'
'That's all right.--And now what will Mrs. Fenwick say to us?'
Fenwick turned away. He repossessed himself of the envelope, and buttoned his coat over it, before he replied.
'I shall, of course, consult her immediately. What shall I do with this picture?' He pointed to the portrait on the easel.
'Take it home with you, and see if you can't beautify it a little,' said Morrison, in a tone of good-humour. 'You've got a lot of worldly wisdom to learn yet, my dear Fenwick. The women _must_ be flattered.'
Fenwick repeated that he was sorry if Miss Bella was disappointed, but the tone was no less perfunctory than before. After stooping and looking sharply for a moment into the picture--which was a strong, ugly thing, with some passages of remarkable technique--he put it aside, saving that he would send for it in the evening. Then, having packed up and shouldered the rest of his painter's gear, he stood ready to depart.
'I'm awfully obliged to you!' he said, holding out his hand.
Morrison looked at the handsome young fellow, the vivacity of the eyes, the slight agitation of the lip.
'Don't mention it,' he said, with redoubled urbanity. 'It's my way--only my way! When'll you be off?'
'Probably next week. I'll come and say good-bye.'
'I _must_ have a year! But Phoebe will take it hard.' John Fenwick had paused on his way home, and was leaning over a gate beside a stream, now thinking anxiously of his domestic affairs, and now steeped in waves of delight--vague, sensuous, thrilling--that flowed from the colours and forms around him. He found himself in an intricate and lovely valley, through which lay his path to Langdale. On either side of the stream, wooded or craggy fells, gashed with stone-quarries, accompanied the windings of the water, now leaving room for a scanty field or two, and now hemming in the river with close-piled rock and tree. Before him rose a white Westmoreland farm, with its gabled porch and moss-grown roof, its traditional yews and sycamores; while to his left, and above the farm, hung a mountain-face, dark with rock, and purple under the evening shadows--a rich and noble shape, lost above in dim heights of cloud, and, below, cleft to the heart by one deep ghyll, whence the golden trees--in the glittering green of May--descended single or in groups, from shelf to shelf, till their separate brilliance was lost in the dense wood which girdled the white farmhouse.