“Certainly. Perhaps you can get Williamson to play with you,” said Georgie, pulling the bell. (Williamson was my lord’s confidential valet.) “I beg your pardon. I believe I have already asked you to perform that function, Lady Breton.” “And I believe that I have already refused,” said Georgie, regaining her coolness in proportion as her husband grew more irate. At this moment, Williamson appeared, & Lord Breton ordered him to bring up the chess-board. When he was gone, Georgie saw that matters had gone too far for trifling. She had set her whole, strong will against playing the game, & she resolved that Lord Breton should know it at once. “I do not suppose,” she said, looking him directly in the face, “that you mean to drive me into obeying by force. Once for all, I cannot & I will not, do as you ask me. You have insulted me by speaking to me as if I were a perverse child, & not the head of your house; but I don’t mean to lose my temper. I know that gout is very trying.” With this Parthian shot, she turned & left the room. Lord Breton, boiling with rage, called after her—but what can a man tied to his chair with the gout do against a quick-witted strategist in petticoats? Lord Breton began to think that this wife-training was, after all, not mere child’s play. This was the first declaration of open war; but it put Lord Breton on the alert, & spurred Georgie into continual opposition. After all, she said to herself, quarrelling was better than [the] heavy monotony of peace; Lord Breton was perhaps not quite such a bore when worked into a genuine passion, as when trying to be ponderously gallant. Poor Georgie! When she appeared on her husband’s arm at the county balls & dinners in the flash of her diamonds & the rustle of her velvet & lace, it seemed a grand thing to be Lady Breton of Lowood; but often, after those very balls & dinners, when she had sent her hundred-eyed maid away, & stood before the mirror taking off her jewels, she felt that, like Cinderella, after one of those brief triumphs, she was going back to the ashes & rags of reality.

Chapter VI

At Rome

“I & he, Brothers in art.” Tennyson.

A large studio on the third floor of a Roman palazzo; a room littered & crowded & picturesque in its disorderliness, as only a studio can be. A white cast of Aphrodite relieved by a dull tapestry background representing a wan Susannah dipping her foot in the water, while two muddy-coloured elders glare through a time-eaten bough; an Italian stove surmounted by a coloured sporting print, a Toledo blade & a smashed Tyrolean hat; in one corner a lay-figure with the costumes of a nun, a brigand, a sultana & a Greek girl piled on indiscriminately; in another an easel holding a large canvas on which was roughly sketched the head of a handsome contadina. Such was the first mixed impression which the odd furnishing of the room gave to a newcomer; although a thousand lesser oddities, hung up, artist-fashion, everywhere, made a background of bright colours for these larger objects. It was a soft February day, & the window by which Guy Hastings sat (he was lounging on its broad, uncushioned sill) was opened; so that the draught blew the puffs from his cigarette hither & thither before his face. Jack Egerton, who shared the studio with him, was painting before a small easel, adding the last crimson touches to a wild Campagna sunset, & of course they kept the ball flying between them pretty steadily, as the one worked & the other watched. “That will be a success,” observed Guy, critically. “For whom did you say it was painted?” “A fellow named Graham, an English merchant, with about as much knowledge of art as you & I have of roadmaking. But it is such a delightful rarity to sell a picture, that I don’t care who gets it.” “How did he happen to be trapped?” Jack laughed. “Why, I met him at your handsome Marchese’s the other day, & she made a little speech about my superhuman genius, which led him to take some gracious notice of me. I hinted that he might have seen one of my pictures (that confounded thing that Vianelli’s had for a month) in a shopwindow on the Corso, & he remembered it, & enquired the price. ‘Very sorry’ said I, ‘but the thing is sold. To an English Earl, an amateur, whose name I am not at liberty to mention.’ He gobbled the bait at once, ordered this at a splendid price, & I ran down to Vianelli’s, let him into my little game, told him to send the picture home at once, & then sent some flowers to the Marchese!” Guy laughed heartily at his friend’s ruse, & then observed, “I wish you had mentioned that I had some pictures which I would part with as a favour.” “By degrees, my boy, by degrees. He will come to the studio, to see this chef-d’oeuvre, & then you shall be introduced as a painter of whose fame he has of course etc., etc. By the way, I shouldn’t wonder if he came today.” Guy knocked the ashes off his cigarette & got up from his seat. “I thought Teresina would have come this morning,” he said, “but I hope she won’t. She gets so confoundedly frightened when anybody comes in, & one feels like such a fool.” “Guy!” said Egerton, suddenly, laying down his brush.