Book 6 - Chapter 8

Wakem in a New Light

Before three days had passed after the conversation you have just
overheard between Lucy and her father she had contrived to have a
private interview with Philip during a visit of Maggie's to her aunt
Glegg. For a day and a night Philip turned over in his mind with
restless agitation all that Lucy had told him in that interview, till
he had thoroughly resolved on a course of action. He thought he saw
before him now a possibility of altering his position with respect to
Maggie, and removing at least one obstacle between them. He laid his
plan and calculated all his moves with the fervid deliberation of a
chess-player in the days of his first ardor, and was amazed himself at
his sudden genius as a tactician. His plan was as bold as it was
thoroughly calculated. Having watched for a moment when his father had
nothing more urgent on his hands than the newspaper, he went behind
him, laid a hand on his shoulder, and said,--

"Father, will you come up into my sanctum, and look at my new
sketches? I've arranged them now."

"I'm getting terrible stiff in the joints, Phil, for climbing those
stairs of yours," said Wakem, looking kindly at his son as he laid
down his paper. "But come along, then."

"This is a nice place for you, isn't it, Phil?--a capital light that
from the roof, eh?" was, as usual, the first thing he said on entering
the painting-room. He liked to remind himself and his son too that his
fatherly indulgence had provided the accommodation. He had been a good
father. Emily would have nothing to reproach him with there, if she
came back again from her grave.

"Come, come," he said, putting his double eye-glass over his nose, and
seating himself to take a general view while he rested, "you've got a
famous show here. Upon my word, I don't see that your things aren't as
good as that London artist's--what's his name--that Leyburn gave so
much money for."

Philip shook his head and smiled. He had seated himself on his
painting-stool, and had taken a lead pencil in his hand, with which he
was making strong marks to counteract the sense of tremulousness. He
watched his father get up, and walk slowly round, good-naturedly
dwelling on the pictures much longer than his amount of genuine taste
for landscape would have prompted, till he stopped before a stand on
which two pictures were placed,--one much larger than the other, the
smaller one in a leather case.

"Bless me! what have you here?" said Wakem, startled by a sudden
transition from landscape to portrait. "I thought you'd left off
figures. Who are these?"

"They are the same person," said Philip, with calm promptness, "at
different ages."

"And what person?" said Wakem, sharply