Leslie's Loyalty. Charles Garvice
Go and get the cigars, Grey; I'll look after his——."
The duke cut in quickly before the word "grace."
"Nothing of the sort," he said. "You get home and change your things. Fell off the breakwater!" He stared at him incredulously.
Mr. Lisle, too, gazed at him with blank astonishment, as if he were surprised to find that it was a man and not a little boy in knickerbockers, who might not unnaturally be expected to tumble off the breakwater.
Leslie meanwhile stood with downcast eyes, then suddenly she said, addressing her father and carefully avoiding the other two:
"This gentleman swam in to save Dick, papa; that is why he is wet."
The duke scanned her face keenly, and smiled curiously.
"That sounds more probable than your account, Yorke. It is a strange thing," he turned his head to Lisle, "that a man is more often ashamed of committing a good or generous action than a bad one. How do you account for it?"
Mr. Lisle looked at him helplessly, as if he had been asked a conundrum which no one could be expected to answer.
"Because there is always such a thundering fuss about it," said Yorke, stalking off.
The duke looked after him for a minute or two, apparently lost in thought, then he turned to Lisle again.
"You are an artist, sir?" he said.
Mr. Lisle flushed.
"I am, at least, an humble worshiper at the throne," he replied, in the low, nervous voice with which he always addressed strangers, and he resumed his painting.
The duke signed to Grey to help him to get out of the chair, which was so placed that he could not see the canvas.
Grey came round, and in opening the apron let the duke's stick fall. Leslie hesitated a moment, then stepped forward and picked it up. The duke took it from her with a faint flush on his pale, hollow cheeks.
"Thank you," he said. "I am afraid I could not get on without it. At one time I could not walk even with its aid. Please don't say you are sorry or pity me," he added, with an air of levity that barely concealed his sensitive dread of any expression of sympathy. "Everybody says that, you know."
"I was not going to say so," said Leslie, looking him full in the face, and with a sweet, gentle smile.
He looked at her with his unnaturally keen eyes.
"No," he said, quietly. "I don't think you were. And this is the picture——." He stopped as he looked at the awful monstrosity, then caught Leslie's eyes gazing at him with anxious, pleading deprecation, and went on, "Singular effect. You have taken great pains with your subject, Mr. ——."
"Lisle—my name is Lisle," he said, hurriedly. "Yes, yes, I have not spared pains! I have put my heart into my work."
"That is quite evident," said the duke, with perfect gravity, and still regarding the picture. "And that which a man puts his heart in will reward him some day; does, indeed, reward him even while he works."
"True, true!" assented the dreamer, with a gratified glance at the speaker and at Leslie, who stood with downcast eyes, to which the brows were dangerously near. "It is with that hope, that heart, that we artists continue to labor in face of difficulties which to the careless and irreverent seem insurmountable. You think the picture a—a good one, sir; that it is promising?"
The duke was floored for a moment, then he said:
"I think it evidences the painter's love for his art, and his complete devotion to it, Mr. Lisle."
The poor dreamer's face had fallen during the pause, but it brightened at the diplomatic response when it did come, and Leslie, casting a grateful glance at the pale face of the cripple, murmured in his ear:
"Thank you!"
The duke looked at her with a glow of sympathy in his eyes.
"This is your daughter, I presume, Mr. Lisle?" he said.
Lisle nodded.
"Yes," he said. "My only child. All that is left me in the world—excepting my art. You are not an artist also, sir? Pardon me, but your criticism showed such discrimination and appreciation that I was led to conclude you might be a fellow-student."
The duke hesitated a moment.
"No," he said, quietly. "I am not an artist, though I am fond of a good picture——," poor Lisle gazed at the daub, and nodded with a gratified smile. "I am what is called—I was going to say a gentleman at ease, but I am very seldom at ease. My name is Temple, and I am traveling for the benefit of my health."
Lisle nodded again.
"You will find this an extremely salubrious spot," he said. "My daughter and I are very well here."
The duke glanced at Leslie's tall, graceful figure, and smiled grimly.
"But then she is not a cripple," he said.
"A cripple!" Mr. Lisle looked startled and bewildered. "Oh, no; oh, no."
The duke smiled, and leaning upon his stick, seemed to be watching the painter at his work, but his eyes wandered now and again covertly to the beautiful girl beside him. He noticed that her dress, though admirably fitting, was by no means new or of costly material, that her gloves were well worn and carefully mended in places, that her father, if not shabby, had that peculiar look about his clothes which tells so plainly of narrow means; and when Leslie, becoming conscious of his wandering glance, moved away and stood at a little distance on the edge of the quay, the duke said:
"Have you disposed of your picture, Mr. Lisle?"
Francis Lisle started and flushed.
"N-o," he replied. "That is, not yet."
"I am glad of that," said the duke. "I should like to become its purchaser, if you are disposed to sell it."
Lisle's breath came fast. He had never sold a "picture" in his life, had long and ardently looked forward to doing so, and—and, oh! had the time arrived?
"Certainly, certainly," he said, nervously, and his brush shook. "You like it so much? But perhaps you would like some others of mine better. I—I have several at the cottage. Will you come and look at them?"
"With pleasure," said the duke. "Meanwhile, what shall I give you for this?"
Lisle gazed at the picture with pitiable agitation; he was in mortal terror lest he should scare his customer away by asking too much.
"Really," he faltered, "I—I don't know its value, I have never——," he laughed. "What should you think it was worth?"
The duke ought, if he had answered truthfully, to have replied, "Rather less than nothing," but he feigned to meditate severely, then said:
"If fifty pounds——."
Poor Lisle gasped.
"You—you think—I was going to say twenty."
"We will say fifty," said the duke, as if he were making an excellent bargain. "You have not finished it yet."
"No, no," assented Lisle, eagerly. "I will do so carefully, most carefully. It—it shall be the most finished picture I have ever painted."
"I am sure you will do your best," said the duke. "I will accept your kind invitation to see your other pictures, and now I must be getting back. Good-morning."
"Yes, yes! Good-morning! What did you say your name was?"
"Temple," said the duke.
He glanced at Leslie, raised his hat, was helped into his chair by Grey, who had stood immovable and impassive just out of hearing, and was wheeled away.
Lisle stood all of a quiver for a moment, then beckoned