CHAPTER XI.

GATHERING CLOUDS.

SPRING ripened to full summer, and summer wore away, and the Everards and the Mostyns began to wonder-audibly amongst themselves, but not in Clemaine's hearing-for how many more seasons Clemaine's engagement was going to drag its slow length along, and when Val would consider that his prospects warranted him in talking of marriage?

With that kind interest which people are apt to display in the matrimonial arrangements of their friends and connections, and for which the latter are not always grateful-an interest in this case purely unselfish, as Clemaine was no burthen upon her relatives, and her bright and sympathetic companionship would be sincerely missed and regretted by both the Everards and Mostyns-the two families also kindly suggested among themselves various plans in regard to the possible establishment of the young people.

Mrs. Mostyn thought they might live with Mrs Charteris at Grays Court; by Clemaine's description of the place, there must be plenty of spare rooms there; and Mrs. Charteris, poor thing, must be lonely sometimes, and dear Clemaine would be such a nice companion for her. Aunt Amelia's suggestion, however, was received with demur by Aunt Maria, who thought Val might not care to settle permanently with "his aunt"-it would have seemed curious both to Val and Clemaine to hear of Una as "Val's aunt!" There were some nice little houses, very cheap, in the further parts of Notting Hill and North Kensington, which would suit a young married couple with small means, excellently! Milly thought a dear little cottage in the country, with a garden where they could grow their own fruit and vegetables, would be the ideal home for true lovers! Or if it was necessary for Val's career that he should be in London, they might take some pretty, cosy lodgings, without saddling themselves with a house on lease. Finally, Aunts Amelia and Maria agreed that an unfurnished drawing-room floor, "with attendance," somewhat near the Regent's Park, might, under dear

Clemaine's clever management, so agreeably combine elegance and economy, as to be perhaps the very most desirable start in life for the young couple.

Then Milly remembered that Val would require a studio, and that a studio ought to have a north-light. This opened a fresh field of suggestion-from the utilisation of a presumed "large back kitchen" or "north attic with a good sky-light," attached to the drawing-room apartments, to the sharing of a studio "in town" with some artist friend. They were all so interested and excited in surmounting the studio difficulty, that an outside listener would have been inclined to wonder irreverently whether Mr. Charteris was going to get up an establishment on Mormon principles, and whether all these three sympathetic ladies were going to marry him?

The Everards took less rose-coloured views than the Mostyns of the possibilities of the united future of the lovers. "He's a sweet fellow, certainly," observed Mrs. Everard, who had grown very fond of Val. "But his prospects don't seem a bit better this year than they did last year! I hope, Edith, you won't go falling in love with an attractive and impecunious poet!"

"I don't seem likely to have the chance," answered Edith. "A curate would be as bad," rejoined her mother quickly, in warning tones. "Quite as bad, or worse;"

"There isn't even a curate-for me," said Edith, with a rather depressed accent.

No, and I hope there won't be," Mrs. Everard retorted. "Bide your time, Edith. I see you think it's very nice to be engaged and it's all roses and honey for Clemaine! So it may be-now!-but wait a bit, she'll find the thorns in the roses and stings in the honey! and you'll see the poor girl worried enough yet, when the butcher's bill comes in, and the picture isn't sold, and Val grumbles at the cold mutton! Braiding caps and braces for him is all very well; but she hasn't had yet to darn his socks and sew on his shirt-buttons."

Mr. Everard did not manifest as much solicitude concerning his niece's matrimonial prospects as the rest of the family. This, not because of any lack of affection for his only brother's only child, but for one thing his life was chiefly spent in his study, his thoughts centred in his books and his beetles, leaving all departments of life outside his entomological cabinet and his

historical dictionary to his wife's able management; besides, he held that young women who had arrived at years of discretion ought to be able to settle their own love affairs-provided, of course, that it was made clear to them what they were doing. Clemaine knew perfectly well what she was doing; and if she had made up her mind to fight the battle of life in partnership with Val Charteris, having once informed his niece that it would be a hard, and might turn out a life-long fight for her, he had done his duty.

Had it been his daughter Edith's case, it is possible he might not have taken quite the same tranquil view of the situation. But Clemaine was older, steadier, clearer-headed than Edith; and he never interfered with her.

An alarming idea, however, occurred to him one day, and he observed to his wife with an air of apprehension :

"You don't think they'll want to come and live here, do you?"

"My dear John! no!" exclaimed Mrs. Everard, astonished and emphatic.

"I wouldn't for the world seem unkind to Clemaine," he continued, "I should wish to help her in every way possible; but I couldn't sanction her and Charteris setting up house-keeping with us! I think a double establishment is always a great mistake!"

"But you

And I

"The greatest!" his wife assented cordially. needn't be afraid. There's not the faintest chance of the young couple even thinking of such a thing. If they thought of living under anybody else's roof, it would be at Grays Court. wouldn't be in Clemaine's shoes for a trifle in that case." "Why not, mamma?" asked Edith. "Mrs. Charteris seems very good and nice."

"But fancy

Oh, so she is, very good," replied Mrs. Everard. having to live up to her! Why, blue china would be nothing to it! I would as soon live up in a balloon-it would be just the same sort of rarefied air."

"Clemaine seems very fond of her," observed Edith. "It is always Una—and Una-everything is Una now!"

"Well, it's very fortunate they are good friends," said her mother. "The better they get on together, the better for Clemaine, in all ways. They read their poetry and ghost-stories

together; I believe they sing hymns together—and Clemaine likes it all! Rather she than I!”

Neither the Everards nor the Mostyns, thoroughly as they were acquainted with the much-discussed fact that Val Charteris. was not well off, had any idea how deeply involved he was in difficulties, out of which he could see no way clear. He had borrowed money right and left to keep his head above water at all. Unless "something turned up "-even in the security of soliloquy he did not generally particularise what might "turn up" he felt that it would be madness for him to undertake such a step as a plunge into matrimony, which would in all probability bring a very hornets' nest of creditors about his ears. He was as fond of Clemaine as ever; but love in a cottage-or, still worse, love in stuffy lodgings, or in a stuccoed band-box of a house in an unmade road, flanked by vacant "building lots," in the dreary respectability of a suburb in the hands of the jerry. builder-love under such circumstances had never-except in the romance of poctry, which he kept well apart from the prose of real life-possessed the slightest charm for Val Charteris.

He wanted Clemaine-but Clemaine plus all the purple and fine linen, the roses and champagne of life, in which he took more delight than he would ever own to her. Altogether, there were many irritating crumples in Val's rose-leaves at this season; and now and then across the tranquil heaven of Clemaine's hope and happiness there drifted a little cloud-the shadow of some troubled mood of Val's.

Sometimes he thought that he would take to portrait-painting -that he had hitherto devoted too much time and attention to landscape. Portraiture was the true line of success; let a man once achieve a hit with a portrait of some notability, and his fortune was made!

He began the new departure of course by a portrait of Clemaine. It turned out a beautiful picture; exactly like her in feature and colour; he had faithfully and lovingly portrayed every line and tint, and curve and dimple; but somehow he had not exactly seized the full spirit of her expression. It was what Clemaine might have been if her body had been animated by another ego. It never struck her nor any one of those who vaguely realised that there was something lacking in it, that what was missing was just what Val did not see. All that he did

see he had conscientiously portrayed; he had even idealised the beauty of the girl he loved, and made her fair and harmonious features lovelier still than life; but yet the very physical beauty which his brush had touched up to perfection, somehow in this his rendering of it missed Clemaine's essential charm. Soul was

wanting there!

He also thought he would try his hand at a "metrical romance." He had arrived at the conclusion that the public would appreciate a story more if it came to them in the form of a poem-a poem if it appealed to their sympathies with the interest of a story. He set to work with enthusiasm accordingly on a romance in verse; but he found that he could not induce publishers to share his views with regard to its certain success, and to manifest their confidence beforehand in the practical manner he desired.

Some people were now beginning to say that Val Charteris had too much all-round talent, and diffused his energies in too many channels to attain to greatness along any line. If genius were the power of concentration, then Charteris would never win and wear the laurel-crown.

The reviews of his last poem too were forcing him to realise how much easier it is to take up a post than to hold it. He had made an easy and even triumphant entry into the field of literature. But now some of the very critics who had hailed his earlier works with a chorus of praise were changing their attitude from the admiring to the judicial. They no longer merely applauded; they criticised. They observed that Mr. Charteris wrote from the imagination rather than from the heart; that he conceived of deep feeling from the outside. The white light of imagination played over his pages, not the red glow of passion. His creations were graceful, but bloodless; they did not stand out from the canvas-and so on. Then his historical poems were lacking in life-likeness. In truth Val never could take an episode of history just as he found it; he must always add, pose, embellish. One critic unkindly observed that he would turn a coloured light on the Falls of Niagaratint the Venus of Milo, and supply her missing arms.

Clemaine of course found nothing wanting in her lover's poems; their pure melody and faultless flow of rhythm charmed her ear; and even if she dimly recognised that there were