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Updated: September 18, 2025
Not that he cared in the least for Miss Demolines, or that he would take any steps with the intention of preventing the painting of the picture. Miss Demolines had some battle to fight, and he would leave her to fight it with her own weapons. If his friend chose to paint a picture of Jael, and take Miss Van Siever as a model, it was no business of his.
He told her what he had learned in the City, that Broughton's property had never been great, and that his personal liabilities at the time of his death were supposed to be small. But he had fallen lately altogether into the hands of Musselboro, who, though penniless himself in the way of capital, was backed by the money of Mrs Van Siever.
Clara, as he thought, was not a girl likely to fall into such a settlement without having an opinion of her own. Musselboro was to have the business, and Dobbs Broughton was to be "sold up", and then look for employment in the City. From her husband the wife had not heard a word on the matter, and the above story was simply what had been told to Mrs Broughton by Mrs Van Siever.
"I shall take myself away very shortly," said Mrs Van Siever, "so you needn't trouble Mr Conway about that. Not but that I thought the gentleman's name was Mr something else." "My name is Conway Dalrymple," said the artist. "Then I suppose you must be her brother, or her cousin, or something of that sort?" said Mrs Van Siever. "Take her away," screamed Mrs Dobbs Broughton. "Wait a moment, madam.
If Clara Van Siever were ill-used, she would resent it. I do not doubt that for a moment. I should not like to be the man who would do it." "Nor I, either," said Conway. "But there is plenty of feminine softness in that character, if she were treated with love and kindness. Conway, if you will take my advice you will ask Clara Van Siever to be your wife. But perhaps you have already." "Who; I?"
He did not quite understand the manner in which the affairs of the establishment were worked, though he had been informed that Mrs Van Siever was one of the partners. That Dobbs Broughton was the managing man, who really did the business, he was convinced; and he did not therefore like to be answered peremptorily by such a one as Musselboro. "I should wish to see Mr Broughton," he said.
If she could only be kept in the same dim cloud of sentiment, if the hot rays of the sun of romance could be kept from breaking through the mist till Miss Van Siever should come, it might still be well. He had known her to wander about within the clouds for an hour together, without being able to find her way into the light. "It's all the same with a man when he has got a wife," he said.
"And what has become of the business?" "It belongs to Mrs Van Siever, to her and Musselboro. Poor Broughton had some little money, and it has gone among them. Musselboro, who never had a penny, will be a rich man. Of course you know that he is going to marry Clara?" "Nonsense!" "I always told you that it would be so.
It would sometimes happen, though not frequently, that he returned home early in the day, at four perhaps, or even before that; and should he chance to do so while the picture was going on, he would catch them at their work if the work were postponed till after luncheon. And then again, Mrs Van Siever would often go out in the morning, and when she did so, would always go without her daughter.
"I'm to take the cheque for the five hundred to-night," he said. Jael On the first of March, Conway Dalrymple's easel was put up in Mrs Dobbs Broughton's boudoir upstairs, the canvas was placed upon it on which the outlines of Jael and Sisera had been already drawn, and Mrs Broughton and Clara Van Siever and Conway Dalrymple were assembled with the view of steady art-work.
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