"I leave you to-morrow. There is no time to be lost."
"You are going back to art, George?"
"No! Never!"
Frances grew pale. She thought she had torn open his
gaping wound.
"I did not mean to remind you of--of----"
"No, it isn't that!"
He scowled at the fire. Art meant for him his own
countless daubs, and the sickening smell of oily paints
and musk, and soiled silk tea gowns, and the whole
slovenly, disreputable scramble of Bohemian life in
Paris.
"I loathe art!" he said, with a furious blow at the
smouldering log in the fireplace, as if he struck these
things all down into the ashes with it.
"Will you go back into the Church, dear?" his mother
ventured timidly.
"Most certainly, no!" he said vehemently. "Of all mean
frauds the perfunctory priest is the meanest. If I
could be like one of the old holy gospellers--then indeed!"
He was silent a moment, and then began to stride up and
down the long hall, his head thrown back, his chest
inflated.
"I have a message for the world, mother."
"I am sure of it," she interrupted eagerly.
"But I must deliver it in my own way. I have lost two
years. I am going to put in big strokes of work now. In
the next two years I intend to take my proper place in my
own country. I will find standing room for George
Waldeaux," with a complacent smile. "And in the
meantime, of course, I must make money enough to support
you and the boy handsomely. So you see, mother," he
ended, laughing, "I have no time to lose.
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