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Updated: June 14, 2025
Lord Findon sat alone in his study on the ground-floor, balancing a paper-knife on one finger, fidgeting with a newspaper of which he never read a word, and otherwise beguiling the time until the sound of Welby's step on the stairs should tell him that the interview upstairs was over. His mind was full of disagreeable thoughts.
Whereupon she sprang up, came down from her pedestal to look at the picture, called mademoiselle to see praised laughed and all was calm again. Only Fenwick was left once more reflecting that she was Welby's champion through thick and thin. And this ruffled him. 'Did Mr. Welby study mostly in Italy? he asked her presently, as he fetched a hand-glass, in which to examine his morning's work.
"Oh!" said Sir Peter, "that's all?" "All I remember at ten years old," replied Kenelm. "And at Mr. Welby's or at college," proceeded Sir Peter, timorously, "was your acquaintance with females of the same kind?" Kenelm shook his head. "Much worse: they were very naughty indeed at college." "I should think so, with such a lot of young fellows running after them."
Never since Welby's marriage, either in thought or act, had she given Arthur's wife the smallest just cause of offence. Eugénie's was often an anxious and a troubled conscience; but not here, not in this respect. She knew herself true. But from Elsie's point of view? Had she in truth sacrificed an ignorant child to her impetuous wish for Arthur's happiness, a too scrupulous care for her own peace?
Why was it that Welby's presence always had this effect upon him: setting him on edge, and making a bear of him? No! it was not allowed to be so handsome, so able, so ingratiating. Yet he knew very well that Welby made no enemies, and that in his grudging jealousy of a delightful artist he, Fenwick, stood alone. He walked to the window.
Sometimes his day's work left him exultant, sometimes in a hell of despair. 'I went to see Mr. Welby's studio yesterday, he said, hastily, after another minute or two, seeing her droop with fatigue. Her face changed and lit up. 'Well, what did you see? 'The two Academy pictures several portraits and a lot of studies. 'Isn't it fine the "Polyxena"? Fenwick twisted his mouth in a trick he had.
All this winter the change in him, the silent evidences of a shock all the more tragic to her because of its mystery, had given him a kind of sacredness in her eyes. She fell thinking, besides, of the times lately he had been to church with her. Ah, she was glad he had heard that sermon, that beautiful sermon of Canon Welby's in Passion Week!
He was exceedingly gentle in voice and manner, and had all his father's placidity of temper: children and dogs took to him as by instinct. On leaving Mr. Welby's, Kenelm carried to Cambridge a mind largely stocked with the new ideas that were budding into leaf. He certainly astonished the other freshmen, and occasionally puzzled the mighty Fellows of Trinity and St. John's.
But our host, I presume, is also practical; his place is a much higher one than Welby's, and yet he is surely not without belief?" "He was born before the new ideas came into practical force; but in proportion as they have done so, his beliefs have necessarily disappeared.
Welby's increasing stoop, which of late had marred his natural dignity of gait; the slight touches of affectation, of the petit-maître, which were now often perceptible; the occasional note of littleness, or malice, such as his youth had never known: all these defects, physical and moral, had been burnt out of the man, as he spoke these words, by the flame of his only, his inextinguishable passion.
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