Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 3.djvu/117

Rh happy?" Peter added, as Nick now obliged him by arranging half a dozen canvases so that he could look at them.

"Not so much so, doubtless, as the artistic life ought to make one; because all one's people are not so infatuated as one's electors. But little by little I'm learning the beauty of obstinacy."

"Your mother's very bad; I lunched with her the day before yesterday."

"Yes, I know—I know," said Nick hastily; "but it's too late—it's too late. I must just peg away here and not mind. I've after all a great advantage in my life."

Sherringham hesitated. "And that would be?"

"Oh, I mean knowing what I want to do: that's everything, you know."

"It's an advantage however that you've only just come in for, isn't it?"

"Yes, but having waited only makes me prize it the more. I've got it now; and it makes up, for the present, for the absence of some other things."

Again Sherringham was silent awhile. "That sounds a little flat," he remarked at last.

"It depends upon what you compare it with. It's rather more pointed than the House of Commons."

"Oh, I never thought I should like that."

There was another pause, during which Nick moved about the room, turning up old sketches to see if he had anything more to show his visitor, while Sherringham continued to look at the unfinished and in some cases, as it seemed to him, unpromising productions already submitted to his attention.