It is probable that, in the last analysis, what she meant was that Felix should spare her the necessity of stating the case more exactly and should hold himself commissioned to assist her by all honorable means to marry the best fellow in the world.
But in all this it was never discovered what Felix understood.
"Once you have your liberty, what are your objections?" he asked.
"Well, I don't particularly like him."
"Oh, try a little."
"I am trying now," said Eugenia. "I should succeed better if he did n't live here. I could never live here."
"Make him go to Europe," Felix suggested.
"Ah, there you speak of happiness based upon violent effort," the Baroness rejoined. "That is not what I am looking for.
He would never live in Europe."
"He would live anywhere, with you!" said Felix, gallantly.
His sister looked at him still, with a ray of penetration in her charming eyes; then she turned away again. "You see, at all events," she presently went on, "that if it had been said of me that I had come over here to seek my fortune it would have to be added that I have found it!"
"Don't leave it lying!" urged Felix, with smiling solemnity.
"I am much obliged to you for your interest," his sister declared, after a moment. "But promise me one thing: pas de zele!
If Mr. Acton should ask you to plead his cause, excuse yourself."
"I shall certainly have the excuse," said Felix, "that I have a cause of my own to plead."
"If he should talk of me--favorably," Eugenia continued, "warn him against dangerous illusions. I detest importunities;
I want to decide at my leisure, with my eyes open."
"I shall be discreet," said Felix, "except to you.
To you I will say, Accept him outright."
She had advanced to the open door-way, and she stood looking at him.
"I will go and dress and think of it," she said; and he heard her moving slowly to her apartments.
Late in the afternoon the rain stopped, and just afterwards there was a great flaming, flickering, trickling sunset.
Felix sat in his painting-room and did some work; but at last, as the light, which had not been brilliant, began to fade, he laid down his brushes and came out to the little piazza of the cottage.
Here he walked up and down for some time, looking at the splendid blaze of the western sky and saying, as he had often said before, that this was certainly the country of sunsets. There was something in these glorious deeps of fire that quickened his imagination; he always found images and promises in the western sky.
He thought of a good many things--of roaming about the world with Gertrude Wentworth; he seemed to see their possible adventures, in a glowing frieze, between the cloud-bars; then of what Eugenia had just been telling him. He wished very much that Madame M; auunster would make a comfortable and honorable marriage.
Presently, as the sunset expanded and deepened, the fancy took him of making a note of so magnificent a piece of coloring.
He returned to his studio and fetched out a small panel, with his palette and brushes, and, placing the panel against a window-sill, he began to daub with great gusto.
While he was so occupied he saw Mr. Brand, in the distance, slowly come down from Mr. Wentworth's house, nursing a large folded umbrella. He walked with a joyless, meditative tread, and his eyes were bent upon the ground. Felix poised his brush for a moment, watching him; then, by a sudden impulse, as he drew nearer, advanced to the garden-gate and signaled to him--the palette and bunch of brushes contributing to this effect.
Mr. Brand stopped and started; then he appeared to decide to accept Felix's invitation. He came out of Mr. Wentworth's gate and passed along the road; after which he entered the little garden of the cottage.
Felix had gone back to his sunset; but he made his visitor welcome while he rapidly brushed it in.
"I wanted so much to speak to you that I thought I would call you," he said, in the friendliest tone. "All the more that you have been to see me so little. You have come to see my sister; I know that.
But you have n't come to see me--the celebrated artist.
Artists are very sensitive, you know; they notice those things."
And Felix turned round, smiling, with a brush in his mouth.
Mr. Brand stood there with a certain blank, candid majesty, pulling together the large flaps of his umbrella. "Why should I come to see you?" he asked.
"I know nothing of Art."
"It would sound very conceited, I suppose," said Felix, "if I were to say that it would be a good little chance for you to learn something.
You would ask me why you should learn; and I should have no answer to that.
I suppose a minister has no need for Art, eh?"
"He has need for good temper, sir," said Mr. Brand, with decision.
Felix jumped up, with his palette on his thumb and a movement of the liveliest deprecation. "That 's because I keep you standing there while I splash my red paint! I beg a thousand pardons!
You see what bad manners Art gives a man; and how right you are to let it alone. I did n't mean you should stand, either.
The piazza, as you see, is ornamented with rustic chairs; though indeed I ought to warn you that they have nails in the wrong places. I was just making a note of that sunset.
I never saw such a blaze of different reds. It looks as if the Celestial City were in flames, eh? If that were really the case I suppose it would be the business of you theologians to put out the fire. Fancy me--an ungodly artist--quietly sitting down to paint it!"
Mr. Brand had always credited Felix Young with a certain impudence, but it appeared to him that on this occasion his impudence was so great as to make a special explanation--or even an apology--necessary.
And the impression, it must be added, was sufficiently natural.
