Page:What Will He Do With It? - Routledge - Volume 2.djvu/115

 left a son, poorer than himself, who married Frank Vance's sister."

"You don't say so. The Branthwaites were of good old family; what is Mr. Vance's?"

"Respectable enough. Vance's father was one of those clever men who have too many strings to their bow. He, too, was a painter; but he was also a man of letters, in a sort of a way--had a share in a journal, in which he wrote Criticisms on the Fine Arts. A musical composer, too.

"Rather a fine gentleman, I suspect, with a wife who was rather a fine lady. Their house was much frequented by artists and literary men: old Vance, in short, was hospitable--his wife extravagant. Believing that posterity would do that justice to his pictures which his contemporaries refused, Vance left to his family no other provision. After selling his pictures and paying his debts, there was just enough left to bury him. Fortunately, Sir, the great painter of that day, had already conceived a liking to Frank Vance--then a mere boy--who had shown genius from an infant, as all true artists do. Sir took him into his studio and gave him lessons. It would have been unlike Sir , who was open-hearted but close-fisted, to give anything else. But the boy contrived to support his mother and sister. That fellow, who is now as arrogant a stickler for the dignity of art as you or my Lord Chancellor may be for that of the bar, stooped then to deal clandestinely with fancy shops, and imitate Watteau on fans. I have two hand-screens that he painted for a shop in Rathbone Place. I suppose he may have got ten shillings for them, and now any admirer of Frank's would give L100 apiece for them."

"That is the true soul in which genius lodges, and out of which fire springs," cried Darrell cordially. "Give me the fire that lurks in the flint, and answers by light the stroke of the hard steel. I'm glad Lionel has won a friend in such a man. Sidney Branthwaite's son married Vance's sister--after Vance had won reputation?"

"No; while Vance was still a boy. Young Arthur Branthwaite was an orphan. If he had any living relations, they were too poor to assist him. He wrote poetry much praised by the critics (they deserve to be hanged, those critics!)--scribbled, I suppose, in old Vance's journal; saw Mary Vance a little before her father died; fell in