the young cattle might do well, and the hay be got in dry—­that their children might prosper—­and they themselves be delivered from rheumatism, or toothache, or indigestion.  Fenwick’s prayer to some ‘magnified non-natural man’ afar off, to come and help him with his picture, was of the same kind.  Only he was no longer whole-hearted and simple about it, as he had been when Phoebe married him, as she was still.

He put on his studio coat and sat down to his work again, in a very tender, repentant mood.  What on earth had possessed him to make that answer to Lord Findon—­to let him and those other fellows take him for unmarried?  He protested, in excuse, that Westmoreland folk are ‘close,’ and don’t like talking about their own affairs.  He came of a secretive, suspicious stock; and had no mind at any time to part with unnecessary facts about himself.  As talkative as you please about art and opinion; of his own concerns not a word!  London had made him all the more cautious and reticent.  No one knew anything about him except as an artist.  He always posted his letters himself; and he believed that neither his landlady nor anybody else suspected him of a wife.

But to-day he had carried things too far—­and a guilty discomfort weighed upon him.  What was to be done?  Should he on the first opportunity set himself right with Lord Findon—­speak easily and unexpectedly of Phoebe and the child?  Clearly what would have been simplicity itself at first was now an awkwardness.  Lord Findon would be puzzled—­chilled.  He would suppose there was something to be ashamed of—­some skeleton in the cupboard.  And especially would he take it ill that Fenwick had allowed him to run on with his diatribes against matrimony as though he were talking to a bachelor.  Then the lie about the picture.  It had been the shy, foolish impulse of a moment.  But how explain it to Lord Findon?

Fenwick stood there tortured by an intense and morbid distress; realising how much this rich and illustrious person had already entered into his day dream.  For all his pride as an artist—­and he was full of it—­his trembling, crude ambition had already seized on Lord Findon as a stepping-stone.  He did not know whether he could stoop to court a patron.  His own temper had to be reckoned with.  But to lose him at the outset by a silly falsehood would be galling.  A man who has to live in the world as a married man must not begin by making a mystery of his wife.  He felt the social stupidity of what he had done, yet could not find in himself the courage to set it right.

Well, well, let him only make a hit in the Academy, sell his picture, and get some commissions.  Then Phoebe should appear, and smile down astonishment.  His gaucherie should be lost in his success.

He tossed about that night, sleepless, and thinking of Cuningham’s two hundred and fifty pounds—­for a picture so cheaply, commonly clever.  It filled him with the thirst to arrive.  He had more brains, more drawing, more execution—­more everything!—­than Cuningham.  No doubt a certain prudence and tact were wanted—­tact in managing yourself and your gifts.