'
I looked in his face; the expression of solemn earnestness was quite
unmistakable.
'It is not you,' I said, 'it is Heaven, or else it is the blind
jester Circumstance, that is playing this joke upon me!'
'To your honoured father,' he continued, taking not the slightest
notice of my interjection, 'I owe everything. From his grave he
supports my soul; from his grave he gives me ideas; from his grave
he makes my fame. How should I fail to honour his son, even though
he--'
Of course he was going to add--'even though he be a vagabond
associating with vagabonds,'--but he left the sentence unfinished.
'I confess, Mr. Wilderspin,' said I, 'that you speak in such enigmas
that it would be folly for me to attempt to answer you.'
'I wish,' said Wilderspin, 'that all enigmas were as soluble as this.
Let me ask you a question, sir. When you stood before my picture,
"Faith and Love," in Bond Street, did you not perceive that both it
and the predella were inspired entirely by your father's great work,
_The Veiled Queen_, or rather that they are mere pictorial
renderings and illustrations of that grand effort of man's soul in
its loftiest development?'
I had never heard of the picture in question.
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