第247章

'Only that I should put him out, I would get up and make a curtsey,' said Clara. No young lady could ever talk of making a curtsey for such a speech if she supposed it to have been made in earnestness. And Clara, no doubt, understood that a man might make a hundred such speeches in the presence of a third person without any danger that they would be taken as meaning anything. All this Dalrymple knew, and began to think that he had better put down his palette and brush, and do the work which he had before him in the most prosaic language that he could use. He could, at any rate, succeed in making Clara acknowledge his intention in this way. He waited still for a minute or two, and it seemed to him that Mrs Broughton had no intention of piling her fagots on the present occasion. It might be that the remembrance of her husband's ruin prevented her from sacrificing herself in the other direction also.

'I am not very good at pretty speeches, but I am good at telling the truth,' said Dalrymple.

'Ha, ha, ha!' laughed Mrs Broughton, still with a touch of hysterical action in her throat. 'Upon my word, Conway, you know how to praise yourself.'

'He dispraises himself most unnecessarily in denying the prettiness of his language,' said Clara. As she spoke she hardly moved her lips, and Dalrymple went on painting from the model. It was clear that Miss Van Siever understood that the painting, and not the pretty speeches, was the important business on hand.

Mrs Broughton had now tucked her feet up on the sofa, and was gazing at the artist as he stood at his work. Dalrymple, remembering how he had offered her his purse--an offer which, in the existing crisis of her affairs, might mean a great deal--felt that she was ill-natured. Had she intended to do him a good turn, she would have gone now; but there she lay, with her feet tucked up, clearly proposing to be present through the whole of the morning's sitting. His anger against her added something to his spirit, and made him determine that he would carry out his purpose. Suddenly, therefore, he prepared himself for action.

He was in the habit of working with a Turkish cap on his head, and with a short apron tied round him. There was something picturesque about the cap, which might not have been incongruous with love-making. It is easy to suppose that Juan wore a Turkish cap when he sat with Haidee in Lambro's island. But we may be quite sure that he did not wear an apron.

Now Dalrymple had thought of all this, and had made up his mind to work today without his apron; but when arranging his easel and his brushes, he had put it on from the force of habit, and was now disgusted with himself as he remembered it. He put down his brush, divested his thumb of his palette, then took off his cap, and after that untied the apron.

'Conway, what are you going to do?' said Mrs Broughton.

'I am going to ask Clara Van Siever to be my wife,' said Dalrymple. At that moment the door was opened, and Mrs Van Siever entered the room.

Clara had not risen from her kneeling posture when Dalrymple began to put off his trappings. She had not seen what he was doing as plainly as Mrs Broughton had done, having her attention naturally drawn towards he Sisera; and, besides this, she understood that she was to remain as she was placed till orders to move were given to her. Dalrymple would occasionally step aside from his easel to look at her in some altered light, and such occasions she would simply hold her hammer somewhat more tightly than before. When, therefore, Mrs Van Siever entered the room Clara was still slaying Sisera, in spite of the artist's speech. the speech, indeed, and her mother both seemed to come to her at the same time. The old woman stood for a moment holding the open door in her hand. 'You fool!' she said, 'what are you doing there, dressed up in that way like a guy?' Then Clara got up from her feet and stood before her mother in Jael's dress and Jael's turban. Dalrymple thought that the dress and turban did not become her badly. Mrs Van Siever apparently thought otherwise. 'Will you have the goodness to tell me, miss, why you are dressed up after that Mad Bess of Bedlam fashion?'

The reader will no doubt bear in mind that Clara had other words of which to think besides those which were addressed to her by her mother.

Dalrymple had asked her to be his wife in the plainest language, and she thought that the very plainness of the language became him well. The very taking off of his apron, almost as he said the words, though to himself the action had been so distressing as almost to overcome his purpose, had in it something to her of direct simple determination which pleased her. When he had spoken of having a nail driven by her right through his heart, she had not been in the least gratified; by the taking off of the apron, and the putting down of the palette, and the downright way in which he had called her Clara Van Siever --attempting to be neither sentimental with Clara, nor polite with Miss Van Siever--did please her. She had often said to herself that she would never give a plain answer to a man who did not ask her a plain question;--to a man who, in asking this question, did not say plainly to her, 'Clara Van Siever, will you become Mrs Jones?'--or Mrs Smith, or Mrs Tomkins, as the case might be. Now Conway Dalrymple had asked her to become Mrs Dalrymple very much after this fashion. In spite of the apparition of her mother, all this had passed through her mind. Not the less, however, was she obliged to answer her mother, before she could give any reply to the other questioner. In the meantime Mrs Dobbs Broughton had untucked her feet.

'Mamma,' said Clara, 'who ever expected to see you here?'

'I daresay nobody did,' said Mrs Van Siever; 'but here I am, nevertheless.'

'Madam,' said Mrs Dobbs Broughton, 'you might at any rate have gone through the ceremony of having yourself announced by the servant.'