"I should like to see you!"
"I was going to say," resumed Stubbs, "that a fellow may be a clerk
and paint almost as much as he likes. I know a fellow in a bank
who makes capital water-colour sketches; he even sold one for
seven-and-six."
To both the women this seemed a plank of safety; each hopefully
interrogated the countenance of her lord; even Elvira, an artist
herself! - but indeed there must be something permanently
mercantile in the female nature. The two men exchanged a glance;
it was tragic; not otherwise might two philosophers salute, as at
the end of a laborious life each recognised that he was still a
mystery to his disciples.
Leon arose.
"Art is Art," he repeated sadly. "It is not water-colour sketches,
nor practising on a piano. It is a life to be lived."
"And in the meantime people starve!" observed the woman of the
house. "If that's a life, it is not one for me."
"I'll tell you what," burst forth Leon; "you, Madame, go into
another room and talk it over with my wife; and I'll stay here and
talk it over with your husband. It may come to nothing, but let's
try."
"I am very willing," replied the young woman; and she proceeded to
light a candle. "This way if you please." And she led Elvira
upstairs into a bedroom. "The fact is," said she, sitting down,
"that my husband cannot paint."
"No more can mine act," replied Elvira.
"I should have thought he could," returned the other; "he seems
clever.
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