"After all the trouble I took in coaching you! It's really too bad!

You've ruined your own career, and no one but yourself to thank for it!

Why, the scholarship was as good as gained! You'd so easily have pa.s.sed the exam. It was all arranged with Miss Halden, and you've spoilt the whole thing with your carelessness. You might at least have the grace to say that you're sorry!"

"I'm very sorry, Miss Janet," said Claudia in an apathetic voice.

The mistress glanced at her keenly.

"I doubt if you really are! I can't make you out! I'm disgusted with the whole affair. One gets very little thanks for trying to help people!"

Claudia, in terrible disgrace, retired sobbing. Later on, however, she poured confidences into Lorraine's ear.

"I'm sorry of course to disappoint Miss Janet, but I can't tell you how relieved I am, really! I never wanted to go, and that's the fact. I'd have _hated_ to be a kindergarten teacher! I'd rather go on the land if I leave home at all, but--but----"

"Claudia!" began Lorraine, with sudden enlightenment, "were you going to be _home-sick_?"

"I suppose so. I'm fond of the children, you know, though I get fed up with them sometimes. It would take a very strong magnet to draw me away.

Perhaps if something really _fascinating_ offered, I'd want to go--but not for Kindergarten! No thanks! Some other girl may get the scholarship instead of me, and she's welcome to it. After all, home is a very nice place."

"It certainly is. I don't want to leave mine just at present," agreed Lorraine reflectively.

CHAPTER XV

An Academy Picture

With the beginning of a new term two very important events happened in Lorraine's little world. Mervyn was sent to Redfern College, and Morland went into training. Mervyn's exodus was really somewhat of a relief, for he had been getting rather out of hand lately, and had waxed so obstreperous on occasion that his father had decided to pack him off at once for a taste of the discipline of a public school. Morland, who was now eighteen, went away in high spirits. On the whole he was tired of lounging about at home. He had reached the age when the boy is pa.s.sing into manhood, and begins to think of making his own way in the world.

All kinds of shadowy pictures of the future were floating in his mental vision, day dreams of brave deeds and great achievements, and laurel wreaths to be won by hands that had the luck to pluck them. His eyes were shining as he bade Lorraine good-bye.

"You must have thought me rather a slacker sometimes," he said. "But really there wasn't anything to urge a fellow on at home. Perhaps I'll tumble into my own niche some day. Who knows? Would you be glad, Lorraine, if you saw me doing decently?"

"Glad? Of course I should!"

"I didn't know whether you'd worry your head one way or another about it, or care twopence whether I went to the dogs or not!"

"Don't be silly! You're not going to the dogs."

"I might--if n.o.body was sufficiently interested in me to mind."

"Heaps of people are interested!"

"One doesn't want people in heaps--I prefer interest singly. By the by, if you've any time to spare, you might write to a fellow now and again.

I'll want letters in camp."

"All serene! I'll send you one sometimes."

"Just to remind me of home."

"Morland! I believe you've got home-sickness as badly as Claudia. You'll be back at Porthkeverne before long, unless I'm greatly mistaken!"

"With my first leave, certainly," twinkled Morland.

As the weeks pa.s.sed by in April, the artistic world of Porthkeverne reached a high pitch of antic.i.p.ation and excitement. Practically every painter there had submitted something to the Academy, and the burning question was which among them would be lucky enough to have their work accepted. They looked out eagerly for the post, awaiting either a welcome varnishing ticket or a printed notice regretting that for lack of s.p.a.ce their contributions could not be included in the exhibition, and requesting them to remove their pictures as speedily as possible.

In the studio down by the harbour expectation ran rife. Margaret Lindsay had finished her painting of "Kilmeny"--if not altogether to her own satisfaction, at any rate to that of most of her friends--and had dispatched it to the Academy.

"I don't believe for a moment that it will get in," she a.s.sured Lorraine. "I never seem to have any luck, somehow. I'm not a lucky person."

"Perhaps you will have this time," said Lorraine, who was washing out oil paint brushes for her friend, a messy task which she sometimes undertook. "Let's _will_ that you shall be accepted. You _shall_ be!"

"All the 'willing' in the world won't do the deed if the judges 'will'

the other way, and their will tugs harder than ours!" laughed Margaret.

"It depends so much on the taste of the judges. There's a fashion in pictures as in other things, and it's constantly changing."

"Is there? Why?"

"That I can't tell you, except that people tire of one style and like another. First the cla.s.sical school was the favourite, then pre-Raphaelitism had its innings, then impressionism came up. Each period in painting is generally boomed by some celebrated art critic who deprecates the old-fashioned methods and cracks up the new. The public are rather like sheep. They buy what the critics tell them to admire.

_Punch_ had a delightful skit on that once. Ruskin had been pitching into the commonplace artist's style of picture rather freely, so _Punch_ evolved a dejected brother of the brush giving vent to this despairing wail:

'I takes and paints, Hears no complaints, And sells before I'm dry; Then savage Ruskin He sticks his tusk in, And n.o.body will buy!'"

"I love _Punch_!" cackled Lorraine, drying the brushes on a clean paint-rag. "Tell me some more artistic t.i.tbits."

"Do you know the one about the old lady in the train who overheard the two artists talking? One said to the other:

"'Anything doing in children nowadays?'

"And his friend answered: 'A feller I know knocked off seven little girls' heads--nasty raw things they were too!--and a chap came in and carried them off just as they were--wet on the stretcher--and said he could do with a few more.'

"The poor old lady, who knew nothing of artists' lingo, imagined that she had surprised details of a ghastly murder, instead of a satisfactory sale to an enterprising dealer. But to come back to the Academy, Lorraine; I know I shan't get in! I've sent five times before, and always had the same disappointment, if you can call it a disappointment when you don't expect anything. The last time it happened I was in town, and I went to the Academy myself to fetch away my pictures. As I walked down the court-yard and out into Piccadilly with my parcel under my arm, I felt pretty blue, and I suppose I looked it, for a wretched little street arab stared at me with mock sympathy, and piped out: 'Have they rejected you too, poor darling?' He said it so funnily that I couldn't help laughing in spite of my blues."

"When are you likely to hear your luck?" asked Lorraine.

"Any day now; but it will be bad luck."

"Then I shall call every day on my way home from school to see if you've had a letter."

Lorraine kept her word, and each afternoon took the path by the harbour instead of the direct road up the hill. Day after day pa.s.sed, and the post-woman had not yet delivered the longed-for official communication.

"No news is good news!" cheered Lorraine. "Mr. Saunders had his rejection last week, so Claudia told me. Mr. Castleton only heard this morning."

"How many has he in?"

"Three--the view of Tangy Point from the beach, Madox wheeling Perugia in the barrow, and the portrait of Madame Bertier. Claudia says they're immensely relieved, because even Mr. Gilbertson is 'out' this year. Here comes the second post! Is there anything for you? I'm going to see!"

Lorraine, in her impatience, tore down the wooden steps of the studio, and waylaid the post-woman. She came back like a triumphant whirlwind, waving a letter.