The blush deepened to crimson, and she rose with a nervous laugh. “It _was_ ungenerous,” she conceded. “I suppose I’m jealous for you. I hate these competitions!”
Her son smiled reassuringly. “You needn’t. I’m not afraid: I think I shall pull it off this time. In fact, Paul’s the only man I’m afraid of--I’m always afraid of Paul--but the mere fact that he’s in the thing is a tremendous stimulus.”
His mother continued to study him with an anxious tenderness. “Have you worked out the whole scheme? Do you _see_ it yet?”
“Oh, broadly, yes. There’s a gap here and there--a hazy bit, rather--it’s the hardest problem I’ve ever had to tackle; but then it’s my biggest opportunity, and I’ve simply _got_ to pull it off!”
Mrs. Peyton sat silent, considering his flushed face and illumined eye, which were rather those of the victor nearing the goal than of the runner just beginning the race. She remembered something that Darrow had once said of him: “Dick always sees the end too soon.”
“You haven’t too much time left,” she murmured.
“Just a week. But I shan’t go anywhere after this. I shall renounce the world.” He glanced smilingly at the festal tea-table and the embowered desk. “When I next appear, it will either be with my heel on Paul’s neck--poor old Paul--or else--or else--being dragged lifeless from the arena!”
His mother nervously took up the laugh with which he ended. “Oh, not lifeless,” she said.
His face clouded. “Well, maimed for life, then,” he muttered.
Mrs. Peyton made no answer. She knew how much hung on the possibility of his winning the competition which for weeks past had engrossed him. It was a design for the new museum of sculpture, for which the city had recently voted half a million. Dick’s taste ran naturally to the grandiose, and the erection of public buildings had always been the object of his ambition. Here was an unmatched opportunity, and he knew that, in a competition of the kind, the newest man had as much chance of success as the firm of most established reputation, since every competitor entered on his own merits, the designs being submitted to a jury of architects who voted on them without knowing the names of the contestants. Dick, characteristically, was not afraid of the older firms; indeed, as he had told his mother, Paul Darrow was the only rival he feared. Mrs. Peyton knew that, to a certain point, self-confidence was a good sign; but somehow her son’s did not strike her as being of the right substance--it seemed to have no dimension but extent. Her fears were complicated by a suspicion that, under his professional eagerness for success, lay the knowledge that Miss Verney’s favour hung on the victory. It was that, perhaps, which gave a feverish touch to his ambition; and Mrs. Peyton, surveying the future from the height of her material apprehensions, divined that the situation depended mainly on the girl’s view of it. She would have given a great deal to know Clemence Verney’s conception of success.