Nick went to Great Stanhope Street at five o'clock and learned, rather
to his surprise, that Julia was not at home--to his surprise because he
had told her he would come at that hour, and he attributed to her, with
a certain simplicity, an eager state of mind in regard to his
explanation. Apparently she was not eager; the eagerness was his own--he
was eager to explain. He recognised, not without a certain consciousness
of magnanimity in doing so, that there had been some reason for her
quick withdrawal from his studio or at any rate for her extreme
discomposure there. He had a few days before put in a plea for a snatch
of worship in that sanctuary and she had accepted and approved it; but
the worship, when the curtain happened to blow back, showed for that of
a magnificent young woman, an actress with disordered hair, who wore in
a singular degree the appearance of a person settled for many hours. The
explanation was easy: it dwelt in the simple truth that when one was
painting, even very badly and only for a moment, one had to have models.
Nick was impatient to give it with frank, affectionate lips and a full,
pleasant admission that it was natural Julia should have been startled;
and he was the more impatient that, though he would not in the least
have expected her to like finding a strange woman intimately installed
with him, she had disliked it even more than would have seemed probable
or natural. That was because, not having heard from him about the
matter, the impression was for the moment irresistible with her that a
trick had been played her. But three minutes with him alone would make
the difference.
They would indeed have a considerable difference to make, Nick
reflected, as minutes much more numerous elapsed without bringing Mrs.
Dallow home. For he had said to the butler that he would come in and
wait--though it was odd she should not have left a message for him: she
would doubtless return from one moment to the other. He had of course
full licence to wait anywhere he preferred; and he was ushered into
Julia's particular sitting-room and supplied with tea and the evening
papers. After a quarter of an hour, however, he gave little attention to
these beguilements, thanks to his feeling still more acutely that since
she definitely knew he was coming she might have taken the trouble to be
at home. He walked up and down and looked out of the window, took up her
books and dropped them again, and then, as half an hour had elapsed,
became aware he was really sore. What could she be about when, with
London a thankless void, she was of course not paying visits? A footman
came in to attend to the fire, whereupon Nick questioned him as to the
manner in which she was possibly engaged. The man disclosed the fact
that his mistress had gone out but a quarter of an hour before Nick's
arrival, and, as if appreciating the opportunity for a little decorous
conversation, gave him still more information than he invited. From this
it appeared that, as Nick knew, or could surmise, she had the evening
before, from the country, wired for the victoria to meet her in the
morning at Paddington and then gone straight from the station to the
studio, while her maid, with her luggage, proceeded in a cab to Great
Stanhope Street. On leaving the studio, however, she had not come
directly home; she had chosen this unusual season for an hour's drive in
the Park. She had finally re-entered her house, but had remained
upstairs all day, seeing no one and not coming down to luncheon. At four
o'clock she had ordered the brougham for four forty-five, and had got
into it punctually, saying, "To the Park!" as she did so.
Nick, after the footman had left him, made what he could of Julia's
sudden passion for the banks of the Serpentine, forsaken and foggy now,
inasmuch as the afternoon had come on grey and the light was waning. She
usually hated the Park and hated a closed carriage. He had a gruesome
vision of her, shrunken into a corner of her brougham and veiled as if
in consequence of tears, revolving round the solitude of the Drive. She
had of course been deeply displeased and was not herself; the motion of
the carriage soothed her, had an effect on her nerves. Nick remembered
that in the morning, at his door, she had appeared to be going home; so
she had plunged into the drearier resort on second thoughts and as she
noted herself near it. He lingered another half-hour, walked up and down
the room many times and thought of many things. Had she misunderstood
him when he said he would come at five? Couldn't she be sure, even if
she had, that he would come early rather than late, and mightn't she
have left a message for him on the chance? Going out that way a few
minutes before he was to come had even a little the air of a thing done
on purpose to offend him; as if she had been so displeased that she had
taken the nearest occasion of giving him a sign she meant to break with
him. But were these the things Julia did and was that the way she did
them--his fine, proud, delicate, generous Julia?
When six o'clock came poor Nick felt distinctly resentful; but he stayed
ten minutes longer on the possibility that she would in the morning have
understood him to mention that hour. The April dusk began to gather and
the unsociability of her behaviour, especially if she were still
rumbling round the Park, became absurd. Anecdotes came back to him,
vaguely remembered, heard he couldn't have said when or where, of poor
artists for whom life had been rendered difficult by wives who wouldn't
allow them the use of the living female model and who made scenes if
they encountered on the staircase such sources of inspiration. These
ladies struck him as vulgar and odious persons, with whom it seemed
grotesque that Julia should have anything in common. Of course she was
not his wife yet, and of course if she were he should have washed his
hands of every form of activity requiring the services of the sitter;
but even these qualifications left him with a power to wince at the way
in which the woman he was so sure he loved just escaped ranking herself
with the Philistines.
At a quarter past six he rang a bell and told the servant who answered
it that he was going and that Mrs. Dallow was to be informed as soon as
she came in that he had expected to find her and had waited an hour and
a quarter. But he had just reached the doorstep of departure when her
brougham, emerging from the evening mist, stopped in front of the house.
Nick stood there hanging back till she got out, allowing the servants
only to help her. She saw him--she was less veiled than his mental
vision of her; but this didn't prevent her pausing to give an order to
the coachman, a matter apparently requiring some discussion. When she
came to the door her visitor remarked that he had been waiting an
eternity; to which she replied that he must make no grievance of
that--she was too unwell to do him justice. He immediately professed
regret and sympathy, adding, however, that in that case she had much
better not have gone out. She made no answer to this--there were three
servants in the hall who looked as if they might understand at least
what was not said to them; only when he followed her in she asked if his
idea had been to stay longer.
"Certainly, if you're not too ill to see me."
"Come in then," Julia said, turning back after having gone to the foot
of the stairs.
This struck him immediately as a further restriction of his visit: she
wouldn't readmit him to the drawing-room or to her boudoir; she would
receive him in the impersonal apartment downstairs where she saw people
on business. What did she want to do to him? He was prepared by this
time for a scene of jealousy, since he was sure he had learned to read
her character justly in feeling that if she had the appearance of a cold
woman a forked flame in her was liable on occasion to break out. She was
very still, but from time to time she would fire off a pistol. As soon
as he had closed the door she said without sitting down:
"I daresay you saw I didn't like that at all."
"My having a sitter in that professional way? I was very much annoyed at
it myself," Nick answered.
"Why were _you_ annoyed? She's very handsome," Mrs. Dallow perversely
said.
"I didn't know you had looked at her!" Nick laughed.