"Thank you. That is unnecessary. I prefer a black or dark-brown coat, such as you are wearing."
"All right Shall I come to-morrow, then?"
"Certainly." He pulled out a card. "You will find me at this address as early as you can make it convenient to be over."
Alaric returned to Mentone, well satisfied with his chance—as he deemed it—which had procured for him exactly the sort of order he most desired. He could not be said to have cast a net into those turbid waters—this big fish had leapt, unsolicited, into his arms. He saw, in his mind's eye, how Moretto or Morone would have offered a presentation of the splendidly coloured Jew's head, purged of its vulgarity, but retaining all its keenness and vigilance of outlook. It would be his own fault, Alaric felt, if he did not produce a very striking portrait—one which should raise him in public estimation.
He had sore need of this just now, for the future looked dark enough. Hatty might live for years, he said to himself; but it might be necessary for her to move from one health-resort to another; and how were funds for all this to be provided unless the public showed greater avidity to secure his work, and thus enable him to ask higher terms? As to that other possibility, the thought of which had of late been forcing its way from the heart upwards to the brain, and insisting on being entertained—the possibility that Elizabeth Shaw might grow to love him—the possibility that he might one day be in a position to ask her to be his—he put it away from him, as often and as resolutely as he could. For was not the accomplishment of such a daydream wholly dependent on this
