Pretty Sue Clayton with her ringlets and rosy cheeks had not been Oliver's only listener.
His mother had been sitting inside the drawing-room, just beside the open window. She had spoken to Sue and Oliver when they first mounted the steps, and had begged them both to come in, but they had forgotten her presence. Unintentionally, therefore, she had heard every word of the conversation. Her old fears rushed over her again with renewed force.
She had never for a moment supposed that Oliver wanted to be a painter--like Mr. Crocker! Now at last she understood his real object in talking to Lavinia the night of the musical.
"Richard," she called softly to her husband sitting in the adjoining room, in the chair that Malachi, in accordance with the old custom, had with his sweeping bow made ready for him. The inventor had been there since tea was over, lying back in his seat, his head resting on his hand. He had had one of his thoughtful days, worrying over some detail of his machine, still incomplete. The new device of which he had told her with such glee had failed, as had the others. The motor was still incomplete.
"Richard," she repeated.
"Yes, my dear," he answered, in his gentle voice.
He had not heard her at first.
"Bring your chair over here."
The inventor rose instantly and, crossing the room, took a seat beside her, his hand finding hers in the dark.
"What is this you have been saying to Oliver about artists being great men?" she asked. "He's got a new idea in his head now--he wants to be a painter. I've thought for some time that Mr. Crocker was not a proper person for him to be so much with. He has evidently worked on the boy's imagination until he has determined to give up the law and study art."
"How do you know?"
"I've just heard him tell Sue Clayton so. All he wants now is my consent--he says he has yours."
The inventor paused, and gently smoothed his wife's fingers with his own.
"And you would not give it?" he inquired.
"How could I? It would ruin him--don't you know it?" There was a slight tinge of annoyance in her voice--not one of fault-finding, but rather of anxiety.
"That depends, my dear, on how well he could succeed," he answered, gently.
"Why, Richard!" She withdrew her hand quickly from his caressing touch, and looked at him in undisguised astonishment. "What has his SUCCEEDING to do with it? Surely you cannot be in earnest? I am willing he should do anything to make his living, but not that. No one we know has ever been a painter. It is neither respectable nor profitable.
You see what a dreadful existence Mr. Crocker leads --hardly an associate in town, and no acquaintances for his daughter, and he's been painting ever since he was a boy. Oliver could not earn a penny at such work."
"Money is not everything, my dear, nor social recognition. There are many things I would value more."
"What are they?" She was facing him now, her brows knit, a marked antagonism in her voice.
"Good manners and good taste, Sallie, and kindly consideration for another's feelings," he answered.
He spoke calmly and kindly, as was his custom. He had lived almost all his life with this high-strung Sallie Horn, whose eyes flashed now and then as they had done in the old days when he won her hand.
He knew every side of her temperament. "Good manners, and good taste"--he repeated, as if wishing to emphasize his thoughts--"Oliver has all of these, and he has, besides, loyalty to his friends. He never speaks of Mr. Crocker but with affection, and I love to hear him. That man is an artist of great talent, and yet it seems to be the fashion in this town to ridicule him. If Ollie has any gifts which would fit him to be a painter, I should be delighted to see him a painter. It is a profession despised now, as are many others, but it is the profession of a gentleman, for all they say, and a noble one!" Then he stopped and said, thoughtfully, as if communing with himself--"I wish he could be a painter. Since Gilbert Stuart's time we have had so few men of whom we can boast. This country will one day be proud to honor her artists."
Mrs. Horn sank back in her chair. She felt the hopelessness of all further discussion with her husband.
"He would not have talked this way ten years ago," she said to herself. "Everything has gone wrong since he left the law." But to her husband she said:
"You always measure everything by your hopes, Richard, and you never look at the practical side of anything. Ollie is old enough to begin to think how he will earn his bread. I see now how hopeless it is for us to try and make a lawyer of him--his heart is not in it. I have come little by little to the conclusion that what he wants most is hard work, and he wants it right away, just as soon as we can find something for him to do--something with his hands, if necessary, not something full of dreams and imaginings," and her voice rose in its earnestness. "I am getting more and more anxious about him every day," she added, suddenly controlling herself, "and when you encourage him in foolish vagaries you only make it harder for me, dear," and her voice softened and broke with emotion.
"He ought to have gone into the laboratory, Sallie,"
Richard added quickly, in a reflective tone--laying his hand on her shoulder as he noticed the change of voice--" just as I wanted him to do when he left school. There is a future for scientific men in this country which you do not see--a future which few around me seem to see. Great changes are coming, not only in science, but in the arts and in all useful knowledge. If Ollie can add to the brilliancy of this future by becoming a brilliant painter, able to help educate those about him, there could be no higher calling for him. Three things are coming, my dear --perhaps four." The inventor had risen from his seat and stood beside her, his eyes turned away into the dark as if he were addressing some unseen person.
