“I never could have given you help enough for that, Mr. Wharton; but what does it matter about my poor Cecilia?  She does no harm up here.  No one can see her, and after all it is only her features that are modern!”

“No harm at all, but I wish I were a woman like you.  Perhaps I could have my own way.”

Esther liked to have her own way.  She had the instinct of power, but not the love of responsibility, and now that she found herself allowed to violate Wharton’s orders and derange his plans, she became alarmed, asked no more favors, stuck closely to her work, and kept Catherine always at her side.  She even tried to return on her steps and follow Wharton’s wishes, until she was stopped by Catherine’s outcry.  Then it appeared that Wharton had gone over to her side.  Instead of supporting Esther in giving severity to the figure, he wanted it to be the closest possible likeness of Catherine herself.  Esther began to think that men were excessively queer and variable; the more she tried to please them, the less she seemed to succeed; but Mr. Wharton certainly took more interest in the St. Cecilia as it advanced towards completion, although it was not in the least the kind of work which he liked or respected.

Mr. Hazard took not so much interest in the painting.  His pleasure in visiting their gallery seemed to be of a different sort.  As Esther learned to know him better, she found that he was suffering from over-work and responsibility, and that the painters’ gallery was a sort of refuge, where he escaped from care, for an entire change of atmosphere and thought.  In this light Esther found him a very charming fellow, especially when he was allowed to have his own way without question or argument.  He talked well; drew well; wrote well, and in case of necessity could even sing fairly well.  He had traveled far and wide, and had known many interesting people.  He had a sense of humor, except where his church was concerned.  He was well read, especially in a kind of literature of which Esther had heard nothing, the devotional writings of the church, and the poetry of religious expression.  Esther liked to pick out plums of poetry, without having to search for them on her own account, and as Hazard liked to talk even better than she to listen, they babbled on pleasantly together while Catherine read novels which Hazard chose for her, and which he selected with the idea of carrying her into the life of the past.  There was an atmosphere of romance about her novels, and not about the novels alone.

Chapter V

While this ecclesiastical idyl was painting and singing itself in its own way, blind and deaf to the realities of life, this life moved on in its accustomed course undisturbed by idyls.  The morning’s task was always finished at one o’clock.  At that hour, if the weather was fine, Mr. Dudley commonly stopped at the church door to take them away, and the rest of the day was given up to society.  Esther