"Jean Marie Stine - Future Eves" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stine Jean Marie)

against the impulsive, affectionate girl.
Miss Wormersley had had the care of Bertram since his mother had died when he
was four, and his good-for-nothing father had disappeared. She had trained, clothed,
fed, and educated the boy till he was almost like her own. Then when he had shown
a decided talent for drawing, she had given a reluctant consent for a rich patroness
to pay for his education abroad.
The artistic temperament had been the ruin of the young man's father, and now it had
brought the son to this.
Miss Wormersley had liked Minna from the first, and had invited the girl to pay her a
visit. But if she had done this trick. Wasn't there a story somewhere of a painter's
studio boy, who had finished a great picture of his master's in his absence, and done
it well? She faced Minna suddenly.
"Lisbeth says you were up last night. Bertram has been teaching you some stroke of
his till he said only day before yesterday you got it as well as he did. Is that stroke,
or whatever you call it, in that head that's just been done?"
Minna nodded, then she pushed Miss Wormersley away and threw herself on her
knees at Bertram's feet.
"Bert, Bert," she sobbed, pulling his hands from his face, and making him look at
her. "You know I didn't touch your picture, you know I couldn't, don't you? Why, I
love it just as much as you do, and the Exhibition only five days away."
The artist drew her hand from his face and laid his cheek against it. "I know, Minna,
I know you didn't."
"See?" Minna raised her tearful face to Bertram's aunt, but there was no relenting
there.
"Could she have?" Miss Wormersley's thin body swayed towards the lovers.
Bertram had to answer.
"Why, no тАУ maybe тАУ I don't know. Perhaps you'd better telephone Mr. Brownell."
He slumped dejectedly into the corner of the sofa, and Minna stood as if turned to
stone.
Miss Wormersley went to the telephone. She felt Mr. Brownell was just the one to
appeal to. He was critic at the coming exhibition, and had always been friendly to
Bertram. He would know just what to do. Her voice already showed her relief as she
explained the matter very concisely over the wire, not hesitating to add her
suspicions of Minna.
When she returned to the studio her nephew's face was hidden in his arms but Minna
had not moved.
"Mr. Brownell says he'll be down the first thing in the morning, and if he can he'll
bring Mrs. Beekman-Smythe with him. He says not to touch the picture. You," the
glance she gave Minna hurt, "had better leave Bertram to get over this as best he can.
You'll have to stay here till Mr. Brownell says what you're to do."


III.


The next morning Miss Wormersley looked from the dejected figures before her to
the rain drizzling down outside. In the silences that followed her questions, it beat
monotonously on the skylight above.
The artist was slumped in his usual corner, his high knees on a level with his chin, the
chin resting on a crooked tie.