Their hearts were still steadfastly fixed upon the union of this younger brother with Claire Lessing.  She had lately come into a fortune, and there was nothing now to prevent it.  They would have written Frank to urge it, but they both believed that to try to woo him away from his art was but to make him more wayward.  That any woman could have power enough to take him away from this jealous mistress they very much doubted.  But they could hope, and hope made them eager to open every letter that bore the French postmark.  Always it might contain news that he was coming home, or that he had made a great success, or, better, some inquiry after Claire.  A long time they had waited, but found no such tidings in the letters from Paris.

At last, as Maurice Oakley sat in his library one day, the servant brought him a letter more bulky in weight and appearance than any he had yet received.  His eyes glistened with pleasure as he read the postmark.  “A letter from Frank,” he said joyfully, “and an important one, I ’ll wager.”

He smiled as he weighed it in his hand and caressed it.  Mrs. Oakley was out shopping, and as he knew how deep her interest was, he hesitated to break the seal before she returned.  He curbed his natural desire and laid the heavy envelope down on the desk.  But he could not deny himself the pleasure of speculating as to its contents.

It was such a large, interesting-looking package.  What might it not contain?  It simply reeked of possibilities.  Had any one banteringly told Maurice Oakley that he had such a deep vein of sentiment, he would have denied it with scorn and laughter.  But here he found himself sitting with the letter in his hand and weaving stories as to its contents.

First, now, it might be a notice that Frank had received the badge of the Legion of Honour.  No, no, that was too big, and he laughed aloud at his own folly, wondering the next minute, with half shame, why he laughed, for did he, after all, believe anything was too big for that brother of his?  Well, let him begin, anyway, away down.  Let him say, for instance, that the letter told of the completion and sale of a great picture.  Frank had sold small ones.  He would be glad of this, for his brother had written him several times of things that were a-doing, but not yet of anything that was done.  Or, better yet, let the letter say that some picture, long finished, but of which the artist’s pride and anxiety had forbidden him to speak, had made a glowing success, the success it deserved.  This sounded well, and seemed not at all beyond the bounds of possibility.  It was an alluring vision.  He saw the picture already.  It was a scene from life, true in detail to the point of very minuteness, and yet with something spiritual in it that lifted it above the mere copy of the commonplace.  At the Salon it would be hung on the line, and people would stand before it admiring its workmanship and asking who the artist was.