CHAPTER XV.

CECILIA PHILOSOPHIZES.

The courtship of Cecilia Collumpton and Clement Fildew progressed as such affairs generally do progress. Each of their meetings was looked forward to as an event of immense importance, for the time being quite dwarfing into insignificance all other occupations and engagements. Between times they seemed to think of little or nothing but what they had said to each other at their last meeting, and what might possibly be said at their next. They met twice a week, sometimes for an hour only, sometimes for a whole delicious evening. Oftener than that Cecilia could not have got away from home without exciting her aunt's suspicions. Miss Browne was now back at Cadogan Place. She usually accompanied her friend to the trysting-place, which was the corner of a quiet street leading out of a certain crescent, and then, after walking with the pair of lovers for a short distance, she would leave them and go back home. Clement, of course, still believed that Cecilia was Mora and Mora Cecilia. Miss Browne often implored her friend to undeceive Mr. Fildew, but Cecilia had gone too far to retreat. "Not till the very day he goes to Doctors' Commons will I tell him," she said; "it is too sweet to me to feel that I am loved for myself and not for my money to allow of my undeceiving him till the last moment. He believes that I have not twenty sovereigns in the world, and when I'm with him I try to fancy that I haven't. I make believe to myself that I am as poor as a church mouse."

"Ah, it may be pleasant to play at being poor, just as children play at being soldiers," said Mora, "but there's nothing pleasant about the reality."

The two portraits were finished by this time, as were also the two Academy pictures--Clem's and Tony Macer's--and the pair of them sent in. Then ensued a period of suspense before it was known what their fate would be.

It was about this time that Lord Loughton's first visit to his wife took place. Clem forbore to say anything to his father about his love-affairs, and also begged his mother to keep her own counsel in the matter. He did not want to provoke any opposition from his father, which a knowledge of his engagement probably would have done. Silence was best till the wedding should be close at hand. Meanwhile Cecilia took tea with Mrs. Fildew once a week.

Clem knew nothing about the long talks and discussions that took place in his absence, chiefly concerning housewifery and the best mode of making a small income go as far as possible. He did not know, and he would have blushed if he had known, how often he himself formed the topic of conversation on such occasions. To both these loving hearts, one young and one old, he was the dearest object on earth; why, then, should they not talk about him? All Clem knew was that they seemed to agree together remarkably well. His mother sometimes told him jokingly that Cecilia was far too good for him, far beyond his deserts; and Cecilia often asseverated that she only tolerated him for the sake of darling Mrs. Fildew.

By and by came pleasant news. Both Mr. Macer's picture and Clem's were accepted at the Academy. As soon as Cecilia heard this she went to a dealer with whom she had had some previous transactions, and instructed him to go on the private-view day and buy the two pictures for her in his own name. Clem pressed her to go with him on the opening-day, but, knowing that her aunt would almost certainly be there, as well as a number of her acquaintances, she put her lover off till later in the week. Clem resolutely refused to go without her. He heard that his picture was sold, for news of that kind soon finds its way to the studios; but thinking to afford Cecilia a pleasant surprise, he said nothing to her about it. On the fourth day they went together. Cecilia, feeling sure there would be several people there whom she knew, was very plainly dressed and wore a veil. She would fain have hurried off to the picture the moment she entered the building, but Clem, catalogue in hand, persisted in going to work in the orthodox way.

When, at length, they did reach it, they found quite a little crowd of people in front of it. Cecilia pressed her lover's arm. "Whether the critics appreciate your picture or not, it is quite evident that the general public do," she whispered.

"It would be the general public who would appreciate me if I were to grin through a horse-collar at a fair," whispered Clem in return.

"Is not _that_ the truest test of appreciation?" asked Cecilia, pointing with brightened eyes and glowing cheeks to the tiny ticket stuck in the frame. For the first time since entering the building she had now thrown back her veil. Clem thought he had never seen her look so lovely as at that moment.

"You see, dear, there are still a few people in the world with more money than brains," he said, quietly. "What would become of us poor painters if Providence had not kindly arranged matters so?"

"I wonder what your secret admirer would say if he could hear you giving utterance to such heresies."

"Were my secret admirer here I would thank him for one thing, if for no other."

"May I ask what the one thing is that you would thank him for?"

"For enabling me, by the purchase of my picture, to get married at midsummer. Bless him for a good man!"

As Cecilia said afterwards to Mora, "I was struck dumb. All that I could do was to let my veil drop and move on. When I instructed Checkly to buy the pictures for me, I never dreamed that from a cause so simple an event so dire would spring. Perhaps it is fortunate for us that we can so rarely foresee all the consequences of our actions."

"Supposing for a moment," said Mora, slyly, "that the gift of foreknowledge had been yours in this case, would you or would you not have bought the picture?"

Cecilia gazed silently out of the window for a few moments. "I don't know what I should have done," she said at last. "I certainly object to being married at midsummer, but, on the other hand, if Clem's picture had not been sold, what a disappointment it would have been to him."

"But what a surprise when he finds out who the purchaser is!"

"That he shall never find out till we are married, not if it's a dozen years first. Well, we went next and looked at Mr. Macer's picture. I verily believe that Clement was far better pleased that his friend's work should have found a purchaser than that his own had. Anyhow, he was in such high spirits that when we left the Academy he insisted on our having a hansom and going to look at two empty houses that he had seen advertised in one of the newspapers. One of the houses was at Haverstock Hill, the other at Camden Town suburbs of London, both of them, hitherto known to me only by name.

"The rent of both houses was the same--sixty pounds a year. I told Clement that I thought we could do with a house at a much less rent than that, and begged of him not to go beyond his means."

"Gracious me, Cecilia, how could you?"

"Oh, it was great fun. After seeing the houses we drove to a furniture emporium, and there, after due deliberation, I chose a pattern for our drawing-room suite: a pale-blue figured silk, with a narrow black stripe running through it, my dear Mora, and the price twenty-five guineas."

"How could you let Mr. Fildew go to such an expense?"

"Shall I not make it up to him a thousandfold one of these days? The day before yesterday we bought a lot more things--carpets, china, what not. I can't tell you how delightful it is to go about in this way, and not finally fix on anything till you feel sure that you can really afford it. Poor people must value their homes far more than rich people can. They have had to work and think and contrive, and get their things together an article or two at a time, as they could spare the money. We well-to-do people give _carte blanche_ to a firm, and our mansion is fitted up from garret to basement almost without our having a voice in the matter. In many ways it is better to be poor than rich, and this is one of them."

"What a pity it is, my dear Cis, that Providence did not make you a governess at sixty guineas a year, or a curate's wife at a hundred and fifty."

"In either case I should have led a much more useful existence than I do now. Which reminds me that as I was parting from Clement last evening he put a sealed envelope into my hands, with a request that I would not open it till I was alone. You would never guess what was inside: a twenty-pound note towards my wedding outfit."

"Oh, Cecilia!"

"Of course there were a few words with it. He said he felt sure that out of my small income it was impossible for me to have saved more than a trifle, and, as I had no parents, to fall back upon, would I make him happy by accepting the enclosure to buy my wedding dress with. What a dear fellow he is! I hope to be able to keep that note unchanged as long as I live. Perhaps you think I ought not to have accepted it?"

"I hardly know what to think," answered Miss Browne. "Certainly, to accept money, even from the gentleman to whom one is engaged, seems--"

"Very shocking, does it not, to us, with our petty conventional notions? If the money were offered in the shape of a bracelet, that would make all the difference. But here am I, a poor girl about to be married, who cannot afford to buy her wedding-gown. My sweetheart offers me money to buy it with. Am I to be so nonsensical, so stuffed up with silly pride, as to refuse his offer, and say, 'If you can't marry me in my old dress, you sha'n't marry me at all'? I think I have acted as a sensible girl would act under such circumstances. Anyhow, I mean to keep that note."