The definite figure of Mr. Shanner with his magnificent appropriation of
Miss Robinson merely impelled Wyndham to smash up this rival at once and
have done with the business. The evening had obscured all the repugnance
that lay in the depths of him; had stimulated roseate conceivings of
possible felicity.
On the Tuesday he found his opportunity. Miss Robinson came alone,
explaining that her mother would not appear till the time fixed for the
tea-party. The weather was rigorously wintry now, and a biting wind blew
in as the door was opened. A new layer of snow had fallen during the
last hour, and Miss Robinson had come across wrapped in a big, heavy
cloak. He ushered her through the ante-room with a charming air of
solicitude, to which she vibrated like a struck harp, and gave him the
softest and tenderest intonations of her voice. He helped her off with
the cloak, and hung it away carefully, the whilst she stooped and warmed
her long hands at the lavishly heaped-up fire. Her throat and arms now
showed at their best, and her face had some strange, almost mystic
undertone of happiness. As she bent down there before his eyes, she
completely blotted out the impression of the insignificant plain woman
whom he had suddenly come upon in the streets; of the everyday Miss
Robinson that at one time had almost become an obsession. At that moment
she was well-nigh the idealised figure he had painted. Yet there was
something even subtler in her which he had missed, and knew that he had
missed. But, studying his own work again, he saw that that was just as
well; for the picture existed as a separate creation, a piece of
painting first and foremost, in which he had exhibited the cleverness of
his brush. It was paint--distinguished, intellectual paint--more than it
was human portraiture; in spite of all the significance with which he
had tried to invest it. As this new truth dawned upon him, he kept
glancing from sitter to canvas, and from canvas to sitter, with a
strange, surprised interest. But her hands suddenly arrested his
attention, and he became aware that, for the first time since he had
known her, they were absolutely bare of rings.
"You have no rings to-day," he remarked, his voice showing his surprise.
"I might have wanted to touch up the hands."
Her colour deepened unaccountably. "I thought the hands were finished,"
she breathed, all of a flutter. "Shall I go back for them?"
"What a goose it is!" he said lightly, and she smiled again, as if
pleased they were on so charmingly intimate a footing.
"Shall we not need them?" she asked.
"I think not," he answered, studying the hands a little. "You were
perfectly right; they had best remain as they are."
She took the pose, and for a minute or two he worked silently; she
maintaining the perfect stillness that had at first been her cherished
ambition. He was still pondering about her bare hands and her confusion
at his having observed them, and light came to him. Was it to show him
that no man--not even Mr. Shanner--had any claim on her? After the close
attentions he had witnessed the other evening, was she afraid he might
infer that some understanding existed between herself and Mr.
Shanner?--that one of these rings, even if not a formal pledge, might be
his and worn for his sake? Her neglect of such favourite trinkets to-day
was then to indicate that no one of them had any special sentimental
interest for her!
"You are sitting perfectly to-day," he presently remarked. "It doesn't
tire you?"
"What an unkind suggestion! I thought I had got beyond the amateur stage
long ago."
"I'm sorry. You didn't hear, though, the beginning of my remark."
"I agreed with that," she answered with a sly humour.
"So that it hadn't to be reckoned. Do you know all women are like that?"
She considered. His brush made strokes. "Like what?" she asked at last.
"If you pay them the greatest of tributes, but are incautious enough to
hint the tiniest of qualifications, the tribute dwindles to nothing, and
they remain tremendously annoyed at the suggestion of imperfection."
"Am I like that?"
"You were just now."
"I was such a bother and a hindrance to you when we started," she
explained. "I used to get tired every few minutes. And now at last, just
when I am flattering myself on my improvement----"
"You take me too seriously," he broke in.
"You _were_ serious," she insisted.
"Serious--yes; in so far as I was afraid you were tired. I didn't even
mean it as a qualification of my tribute; it was only genuine concern
for you."
"How stupid of me!" she exclaimed. "I ought to have felt that at once."
There was another spell of silence; he intensely absorbed in his brush,
she obviously considering.
"I am not really like that," she said at last.
He stood away from the canvas, glanced critically at certain points,
levelled his mahl-stick at her, took up a rag, and wiped a bit out.
"Like what?" he asked.
"Like women."
"But you are. You see, it is sticking in your mind." He smiled wickedly.
"You fight too hard," she pleaded.
"I'm sorry," he said remorsefully. "I shall not do it again."
"Oh, I'm not a bit hurt," she protested. "I was only thinking the point
over."
"I want to hear what you were thinking." His smile and tone were
meaningly affectionate, as if they would add "little child."
"I meant that I should never really be hurt by qualifications. I have
never been used to having nice things said to me. I certainly do not
deserve tributes, but I know I deserve all possible qualifications."
"Oh, if you please! I'll not allow even Miss Robinson to say such
slanderous things about so valued a friend of mine."
"So I have been slandering a friend of yours! I'm so sorry. Forgive me."
"I suppose I must--though I find it hard--very hard."
"I do believe you are paying me a tribute," she laughed. "Now for the
qualifications. You shall see how stoical I am."
"Qualifications--none!" He threw down his brushes and palette, as if to
emphasise the declaration. "I'm tired first," he sang out gaily. "Let
us rest."
"There!" she exclaimed. "What a triumph for me!"
"But you say it so gently that it is a pleasure to concede you the
victory. You are an ideal foe."
"Oh, if you please, I don't want to be a foe.... How cold it is!" She
stooped and held her hands again to the fire.
"No, child," he said gently, "of course we aren't foes. We are very good
friends indeed, aren't we?" He held out his hand, as if to clench the
understanding, so clearly and warmly acknowledged.
She was all a-flutter again, though, as was her habit, she covered it up
with a smile. "Very good friends!" she returned, with conviction, and
she put her hand in his, and let it linger there. "I have always lived
reserved and to myself," she added thoughtfully. "You may think it
strange, but I have never had a friend before--not even a woman friend."
"I can well understand your shrinking away from people. No doubt most
people would jar on you."
"It would hurt me if I thought that. I should not like to despise
anybody. I should have loved to have friends: only I have never had the
gift of making them. Sometimes I am thankful that I am not brilliant--I
might so easily have become unendurable and full of self-conceit."
"Ah, you are something better than brilliant," he exclaimed. "It needs
an exceptional spirit to appreciate you. You are so much out of the
ordinary in every way, in looks----"
"No, no," she interrupted in protest. "I have no looks. I have no
illusions about that."
"Look at your own portrait," he insisted. "I say it is the kind of
beauty it needs a gift to appreciate. In beauty--as in everything
else--the crowd runs after the obvious and the commonplace."
"You are the first that ever thought I possessed good looks. You have
given them to me."
"I have not even done you justice. I have omitted more than I have
suggested. My sister thinks you are beautiful; all my artist friends who
have seen the picture share her opinion."
She was silent, almost distressed; she could not meet his gaze, but
turned her eyes away.
"It gave me pleasure to hear you appreciated," he continued. "You are
above conventional compliments. I withdraw what I said before. You are
_not_ like other women."
Her breath came and went as she listened, but she smiled bravely.
"At any rate I am not like _some_ women. I never could take any of the
deeper aspects of life in a merely frivolous spirit. With me it is a
loyal, deep friendship, or nothing."
He took her hand again. "Believe me, dear child, the friendship on my
part is equally loyal and deep. It is for life."
"For life," she murmured, suddenly grown pale.
He dashed in, determined to strike home.
"I prize you at your full worth, since I am one of those who can measure
it. I have the deepest affection for you. I believe I could make you
happy. Don't you understand? I offer you my whole life--that is, if you
think me worthy."
"Worthy!" she echoed, in dazed distress. "How can you think me worthy of
you! I have lived in narrow retirement. I am nothing."