"Please, Ma'am," said Deborah, opening the door, "don't you want the tea?"
"And why should we not want the tea?" asked Miss O'Reilly, giving her a suspicious look,--"can you tell me why, Deborah? Can you give me any reason?--I should like to know why?"
Deborah opened her mouth in mute wonder.
"Bring up the tea-tray," continued her mistress, "and henceforth don't be uppish and make remarks, for you see it won't go down with me."
Deborah endured the reproof with a perplexed air, retired, and returned with the tray. Miss O'Reilly made the tea with a deep sigh. We had eaten little at dinner; but had Cornelius dined at all? He gave us no sign of existence, and Kate did not seem inclined to go near him. When the tea was poured out, she turned to me and said, in a low tone--
"Go and tell Cornelius tea is ready."
I obeyed in silence.
CHAPTER X.
I knocked at the door of Cornelius; he opened it; the landing was dark, I could not see him distinctly. I delivered my message; he did not reply, but quietly followed me downstairs. As he entered the parlour, the look of Kate became riveted on his face; it was pale but perfectly collected.
He sat down and drank his tea in total silence. No sooner was the tray removed, than Miss O'Reilly entered abruptly on the subject, by saying--
"What mean jealousy there is, Cornelius!"
"Yes, Kate, very mean jealousy."
"In this case especially."
"It was not jealousy," he replied, looking annoyed.
"The name then! I said so: a Smith, a Jones, a Jenkins would have got in, but an O'Reilly--"
"Kate," interrupted her brother, reddening, "it was not the name."
"What then?" she asked, with a wistful look.
His lip trembled, but he made an effort, and replied firmly--
"The picture."
"The picture!" echoed Kate, looking disheartened.
"Yes, the picture," resumed Cornelius, inexorable to himself, to his youthful ambition, to his long-cherished dreams; "it is not its being rejected that troubles me, but its having deserved the rejection. Kate, I have committed a bitter mistake, and I found it out, not to-day, but weeks ago. So long as Art was unattempted, faith was in me as a living stream; it has ebbed away, and left the bed where it once flowed, barren and dry."
He sat by the table, his brow resting on his hand, the light of the lamp falling on his pale face, where will vainly sought to control the keen disappointment of a life-long aim. There was a pause, then his sister said--
"What will you do?"
"Seek for some other situation; anything will do."
"The City again! Why not try for work as an artist?"
"And do as a drudge the work I so long hoped to do as a master," replied Cornelius, colouring to the very temples. "No, Kate, that indeed would be degradation!"
"Then you give up painting?"
"Utterly."
She started from her seat, went up to him, laid her hand on his arm, and said warmly--
"Leave the City to drudges, and painting to enthusiasts. You have youth, talent, energy; choose the career of a gentleman, work, and make your way as you can, if you will--I shall find the means."
"I cannot," replied Cornelius, after a pause.
"Then you mean to return to painting," vehemently exclaimed his sister.
"If I cannot paint good pictures, Kate, I will not paint bad ones."
"What will you do?"
"The City--"
"The City! the dirty, smoky City for an Irish gentleman, of pure Milesian blood, without Scotch or Saxon stain, and who calls himself O'Reilly too!
Cornelius, return to painting rather."
"Kate," he replied, with an expression of pain and weariness, "this is not a matter of will; I cannot paint now; my faith is dead. You may lock up the studio; the easel may stand against the wall; pencil or palette your brother will never handle again."
"Nor shall my brother be a clerk," she said resolutely.
Cornelius knit his brow and looked obstinate.
"But why?" she exclaimed, impatiently; "will you just tell me why?"
"You ask!" he replied, tossing on the couch, where he had again thrown himself with listless indolence.
"Ay, and I want to know, too, Cornelius," she said, quietly returning to her chair.
"Kate, when James could not marry his cousin, a plain, silly girl, why did he go to London Bridge and jump over?"
Miss O'Reilly jumped on her chair.
"Nonsense!" she cried, reddening, "you are not going to take that leap because you cannot paint pictures!"
"No, but I'll do like James. I cannot have the girl I like--I'll have no other. I cannot marry painting, a maid as fair as May, as rosy as June, fresh as an eternal spring: and you think, Kate," he added, quite indignantly, "you actually think I would wed surly law, ill-favoured medicine, or any of those old ladies whom men woo for their money--no, 'faith!"
He spoke resolutely, and sank back in his old attitude with great decision.
"James was a fool!" hastily said Kate.