When St. John left the studio it was with so sore a feeling of
resentment against Miss Erskine that it seemed to him most unlikely that
he would ever re-enter it. It was not that he disliked her; he did not,
but he had an uncomfortable conviction that she disliked him, and felt
aggrieved at his presence even while she suffered it on account of the
fee. He remembered with some vexation that he had almost forced her
into accepting him as a pupil, for poor as she undoubtedly was she had
plainly evinced that she had no desire to instruct him. Never mind, he
would atone for his persistence by sending her his cheque and troubling
the studio no more; that at any rate would show her that he had no wish
to intrude. This decision being final he dismissed the matter from his
mind, and, as a proof of the consistency of human nature, on Friday
morning at the specified hour he stood on the dirty steps outside Miss
Erskine's lodgings knocking with his walking-stick on the knockerless
door. The modest Isobel opened it after a wait of some five minutes--
minutes in which he had time to recall his past determination and to
wonder at himself for having so speedily altered his mind--and having
opened it startled him considerably by firing at him without giving him
time for speech the vague yet all comprehensive information.
"She's hout."
"Miss Erskine?" he queried in very natural astonishment.
"Yus; been gone over 'arf a nour."
"But," remonstrated St. John, "the Art School opens at half past nine,
it is after that now."
"Carnt 'elp it, she's hout."
"It is a very strange procedure," he exclaimed in visible annoyance. "I
come to the Art School at the hour it should open and Miss Erskine is
out."
"Well!" snapped the damsel waxing impatient in her turn, "wot of that?
The Art School aint hout, is it? You can go up if yer want to."
The permission was not very gracious but St. John accepted it
nevertheless, and striding past her into the narrow passage began the
ascent. He had not mounted two stairs however, before the slipshod
Isobel called him back, and he noticed with surprise that her manner was
altogether different, her tone softer, and in the obscurity of the dingy
passage she looked less dirty and untidy.
"Ere's the key," she said, holding it towards him. He advanced his hand
but immediately her own was withdrawn and thrust behind her.
"Wouldn't yer like to git it?" she said.
He mildly answered that he would and stood waiting expectantly, but she
made no move unless a facial contortion could come under such heading.
"Then take if," she returned with arch playfulness, and a broad grin,
but still she kept her hand behind her and stared up in his face with
impudent meaning, and a leer that was evidently intended to be
captivating. He understood her perfectly but his mood did not fit in
with hers; to do Mr St. John bare justice he was rather above that sort
of thing, and he remained stationary with one hand grasping the greasy
banister, and one foot on the lowest stair. The girl gave it up then,
and with another grimace, and a little scornful giggle approached him
with the key held at arm's length between a grimy finger and thumb.
"'Ere greeny," she said, then laughed again as he took it from her with
a word of thanks and turned to go upstairs, "I don't wonder Miss
Herskine went out," she said.
But St. John went on feigning not to hear though a flush of annoyance
dyed his cheek, and he had rather the appearance of a man who with
difficulty restrained a swear.
When he opened the studio door the first thing that struck him was its
untidiness, the next, that the fire was out, two facts which filled him
with an irritating sense of discomfort and half inclined him to return
whence he came; but for the desire to occasion Miss Erskine some slight
embarrassment and thwart her plans by remaining, he assuredly would have
done so. That the fire had been lighted that morning was evident, he
discovered on closer inspection, by a thin line of smoke still issuing
from the seemingly dead embers; it had not been purposely omitted then
but had gone out for want of attention. The knowledge appeased his
wrath somewhat, and feeling more disposed to remain he drew a chair up
to the table and looked round for his drawing-board with the intention
of commencing work before Miss Erskine returned. The board stood
against the wall with a fresh sheet of paper stretched ready for use,
but there was no copy, so going over to the shelf from which Jill had
taken the former one he commenced turning it over in search of another.
He did not find what he wanted, however, because before doing so he
tumbled accidentally upon what he was not looking for, what he had never
dreamed of finding there, and what, when he had found it, caused him
anything but pleasure. It was, in short, a very clever, and considering
the length of the acquaintance a very impertinent sketch of himself. He
had not seen her doing it, but there could be no doubt who was
responsible for the thing, besides he knew the writing at the bottom of
the sketch--small legible writing that he had seen on one other occasion
in the curt little note which had refused him as a pupil. She must have
drawn him while he sat working, and had achieved an admirable likeness,
indeed as a specimen of artistic skill the caricature--for such it was--
was perfect. The whole thing was not larger than a cabinet photograph,
just the head as far as the shoulders with eyes downcast, and an
absurdly exaggerated rapture of expression on the face. The height of
his collar had also been exaggerated and above the bent head encircling
his brow was a nimbus. Beneath the drawing Miss Erskine had scribbled,
`Saint John the Beloved,' and St. John looked at it, and failing to
appreciate the unmistakable talent it betrayed stood scowling at his own
portrait. How long he remained thus he knew not, but the next thing he
was aware of was the opening of the studio door, and Miss Erskine
herself appeared while he still stood there with the drawing in his
hand. She looked pale and hurried, and was panting a little as if she
had been walking very fast. She bowed to St. John, and glanced from him
to the drawing-board, and then back again to the paper in his hand.
"I am so sorry that you should have found me out," she exclaimed; "I
started early with the intention of being back in time, but--well
accidents will happen, won't they? It was unfortunate but I am glad to
see that you were going to begin without me. Have you found a copy?"
"Yes," he answered coolly, keeping his glance fixed full upon her face,
"a Biblical one; but I am afraid it is rather beyond me."
He held it towards her, and, all unconscious of what it was, she took it
from him, glanced at it, then bent her head lower to conceal her
features and the vivid blush which overspread her face.
"It's--it's decidedly beyond you," she said, and there was a note of
defiance in her voice, he even fancied that he detected a ring of
laughter in it also, but that might have been his imagination.
"Yes," he agreed, "so I thought."
"It's very strange but it seems to me to be a little--a little like--
you," she continued, and then she raised her eyes to scan his face
looking from him to the sketch and back again with her head on one side
and a gleam of mischievous amusement in her glance. Evidently she
intended braving it out; though it was easily seen that she was feeling
both awkward and uncomfortable.
"Not a little," he corrected, "but _very much_ like me."
"Ah! so you perceive it also? Yes, it _is_ very much like you.
Strange! I wonder how it got there?"
"So do I," he answered dryly. "It is also a case for speculation how
your handwriting got on the bottom of the paper."
"Why, so it is, `Saint John the Beloved,' whose beloved, I wonder,
that's a case for speculation also."
She tossed the sketch on to the table and stood facing him with such an
assured, audacious air that he could find nothing to say, so fell to
scowling again in lieu of any verbal expression of his opinion
concerning her. She had perfect control of herself now, and meant to
give him no further satisfaction, indeed she was vexed to know that he
had managed to confuse her at all; but it had been such an altogether
unexpected contretemps and had taken her so entirely aback. She smiled
at the angry young man, and began slowly pulling off her gloves.
"If you wish to copy that, Mr St. John," she began, "you are welcome to
make the attempt, but it is rather advanced. I should advise you to
give your attention to something simpler."
As she finished speaking she turned to a portfolio against the wall and
abstracted thence a series of heads in outline, showing the method of
working. These she placed on the table before him and ran through a
brief explanation of the method, and how he should follow it, while he
watched her in gloomy silence, and reluctantly admired the easy mastery
with which she sketched in the first head for him to see.
"There," she exclaimed, "now you know how to go on so I will leave you
for a moment while I go and take off my outdoor things."
She disappeared behind the old green curtain partitioning off a part of
the room that had served her father for a sleeping apartment, and was
now kept as a dressing-room but seldom used, and from thence into the
tiny chamber which she called her bedroom. When she returned, in the
big studio apron that he had first seen her in, she found St. John very
deeply engrossed; he did not even glance up as she appeared, but bending
his head lower over his board went diligently on with his work. The
sketch of himself, she noticed, had vanished but hardly had she time to
regret this fact before her attention was caught by the fireless grate
which on her first entry, heated with her rapid walk, and enveloped in a
thick jacket had escaped her observation. Seeing it now she turned to
him with a very injured air.
"Why, you've let the fire out," she said reproachfully.
"I beg your pardon," he answered stiffly, "it was out when I arrived."
Jill bit her lip and walked swiftly across the room to the fireplace.
There were sticks and paper in a cupboard beside it, and, getting some
out, she knelt down before the hearth and commenced laying the fire
anew.
"I beg _your_ pardon," she said somewhat crestfallen. "It happened, I
suppose, through my being out so much longer than I intended; but that
was quite an accident, and not my fault at all. I hope you will excuse
all this inconvenience."
"Don't mention it," he exclaimed, "the inconvenience is greater for you
than for me."
He glanced round as he spoke and watched her while she began to arrange
the sticks.
Something struck him as unusual about her, and after a time he
discovered what it was, she was working with one hand, the right one,
and on the left wrist was a very neat and very new looking bandage. In
a moment all his resentment against her vanished, the caricature was
forgotten, and with it her former ungraciousness of manner. He recalled
how pale and weary she had looked on entering, and how he had
endeavoured to embarrass her by showing her what he had found. He rose
and joined her where she knelt upon the hearth.
"Excuse me," he began in a slightly apologetic tone, "I see that you
have hurt your wrist; won't you let me do that for you?"
"Thank you," she answered, "but I can manage very well; it is nothing--
much."
The much was a concession to conscience, and was thrown in with an
unwilling jerk at the end. Then he did a very bold thing; he went down
on his knees beside her and took the sticks out of her hand.
"I'm a don hand at building up fires," he said; "there's never any
difficulty about my fires burning."
"I should think not," replied Jill, watching the reckless way in which
he threw on the sticks; "a fire that wouldn't burn with all that wood
ought to be ashamed of itself. Mr St. John, please; you'll ruin me."
St. John desisted then and put on coals instead, piling them up with an
equally lavish hand; then he struck a match and set light to the
erection which was soon blazing and cracking merrily.
"I told you so," he cried triumphantly looking up at her as she stood a
little behind him regarding with a somewhat rueful smile the very
unnecessary extravagance. "That will be as hot as blazes before long.
Come a little nearer; you look cold."
He fetched her a chair and Jill sat down and held her hands to the
warmth. She was cold--cold, and tired, and shaken. Her head ached
badly too, and all the fight seemed taken out of her; she could only sit
there enjoying the rest, experiencing the pleasurable novelty of being
waited upon, and of having someone to talk to again.
"And now," exclaimed St. John, taking his stand before her with his
grimy hands held at awkward angles from his clothes, "tell me how you
managed to hurt yourself. Is it a sprain?"
"I don't know what it is, a mere scratch, I think," she answered. "It
happened when I was out this morning."
"Indeed! an accident then?" His tone was sympathetic and interested.
Jill expanded further.
"Yes," she replied, sinking her chin in the palm of her right hand and
resting her elbow on her knee. "A female horror on wheels rode over
me."
"What, a cyclist?" Jill nodded.
"You don't approve of biking then?"
"Oh! I don't know," she answered. "I suppose I should if I had one of
my own. It isn't the machine that I'm disparaging now but the rider.
Some people seem to think that the metropolis belongs to them, and that
you ought to apply to them for the privilege of residing in it. She was
one of that sort."
"But it was not purposely done?"
"No, I suppose not, as it occasioned her the great inconvenience of
stepping off into the mud, but it was sheer carelessness all the same.
I was crossing the road, and it was a case of being run over by a
hansom, or biked over; I preferred the latter."
"Did you find out who she was?" he asked.
"Yes," replied Jill, feeling in her pocket. "I have her card. She was
very gracious, and wished me to apply to her if I wanted money, hinting
delicately at a doctor's fee, or something of the sort. I took her card
out of curiosity, and walked into the nearest chemists', having the
satisfaction of hearing her say to someone as I went, that she would see
that I had compensation, poor girl! so stupid to have run right in front
of her wheel."
"Prig!" muttered St. John.
"There's the card. You can throw it into the fire when you've done with
it; I shall make no application."
He took it from her, glanced at it, and then gave vent to an involuntary
exclamation of surprise. Jill looked up.
"You know the name?" she questioned.
"Rather!"
"A friend of yours?"
"Well--yes, I suppose so; she's a sort of connection."
Jill compressed her mouth, and stared fixedly at the fire; the situation
was a little awkward.
"Being a relation of yours," she began in a slightly strained voice,
"I'm sorry that I said what I did, but--well, you yourself, called her a
prig, didn't you?"
"Yes," he admitted, and then he tore the card in two, angrily, and threw
it into the flames.
"She couldn't, perhaps, have avoided the accident," Jill went on, "and
she meant to kind, but she doesn't possess much tact."
"No," he agreed, "she doesn't. You must allow me to apologise for her.
After all there is some slight excuse for her gaucherie; she has been
spoilt with a superabundance of this world's goods--quarter of a million
of money is rather inclined to blunt the finer sensibilities."
"Quarter of a million!" gasped Jill. "Oh, dear me, I would like the
chance of having my finer sensibilities blunted."
She laughed a little, but St. John was looking so gloomy that her mirth
died away almost as soon as it had risen.
"Come!" she said, jumping up. "I will get you some water to wash your
hands, and then we must go to work; it will never do to waste a whole
morning like this."
He allowed her to go without hindrance, and when quite alone stood
glaring at the charred embers of Miss Bolton's card.
"Just like Evie," he soliloquised. "That girl is always making a
blithering idiot of herself, though I--H'm! I wonder what little Miss
Erskine would say if she knew that I--"
He broke off abruptly and kicked savagely at an inoffensive lump of coal
lying near to his boot left there by his own carelessness when making
the fire.
"Oh, hang it!" he mentally ejaculated, "what a confounded ass I am."
"The water and soap are on the table," said Jill's voice at his elbow,
such a small friendly voice, so very different from her former tone--the
tone that was always associated in his mind in connection with her--that
he turned and faced her involuntarily, looking down at her with a smile.
"It is awfully good of you to trouble," he said. "I am afraid that I
and my relations are putting you to a lot of bother."
"By no means," she answered, with a return to her former distance of
voice and manner. "When a student of mine soils his hands in my
service, the least I can do is to provide him with the means of
cleansing them again."
St. John immediately retreated within himself, and taking the towel
which she offered him, walked over to the table. When he had finished
his ablutions, Miss Erskine removed the basin, while he took his former
seat and quietly resumed work. The rest of the time passed pretty well
in silence, Miss Erskine's manner continuing as distant as ever. In all
likelihood she would have bowed him out as before, had he not boldly put
hesitation on one side, and marching straight up to her held out his
hand. Jill, in unwilling acquiescence, placed hers in it.
"You mustn't treat me altogether as a stranger," he said. "Because we
are teacher and pupil it doesn't follow that we need be enemies also.
Good morning, Miss Erskine; believe me, I am sincerely sorry for the
injury that you have received."
Jill smiled and a gleam of mischief shone in her eyes.
"I seem to have received so many this morning that I hardly know which
you mean," she said. "Do you allude to the hurt wrist or the very
ungenerous manner in which you greeted me on my return?"
He coloured a little. Then he laughed.
"I was rather wild," he admitted. "Saint John with my face, twentieth
century get-up, and a nimbus, was a bit too much."
"Indeed! I thought it rather clever," Jill modestly remarked.
"Clever, yes; so it was, no doubt. If it hadn't been so clever, it
wouldn't have been so annoying."
"It has gone!" she cried, glancing at the table, though she knew already
that it was not there. "You are not taking it with you?"
"Yes," he answered coolly, "I am."
"But, Mr St. John," she remonstrated, "I think that I have some claim
to my own work."
"But, Miss Erskine," he retorted, "I think that I have some claim to my
own portrait."
"Well, never mind," said Jill. "I can sketch it again if I want to."
"Yes," he replied, "but I don't think you will."
"Perhaps not. I am not fond of wasting my time; it is too precious."
St. John laughed and took up his hat.
"Good-bye again," he said. "I hope by the next time I come that the
hand will be quite well."
"Thank you," she answered. "I hope it will."
He had not been gone half an hour when a most unusual thing occurred--
unusual, that is, for number 144. It was, indeed, an unprecedented
event within the memory of the present owners of the establishment, and
quite a shock to the slovenly Isobel who opened the door to the very
peremptory knock. It was, in short, a florist's messenger with a large
and magnificent basket of hot-house flowers for Miss Erskine. Not being
the locality for such dainty gifts, it was not surprising that, to quote
Isobel verbatim, it struck her all of a heap. She carried the basket up
to the studio, another unusual event; on the very rare occasions when a
parcel arrived for Miss Erskine it was left on the dirty hall table
until she descended in quest of it. But Isobel's femininity detected
sentiment amid the fragrant scent of the delicate blossoms, and the
vulgar side of her nature was all on the alert. No doubt she expected
Miss Erskine to be equally excited and curious with herself, but Miss
Erskine was not in the habit of gratifying other people at her own
expense. She was standing in front of her easel roughly sketching with
a piece of charcoal when Isobel bounced into the room, and only paused
in her occupation to give a very casual glance at the flowers, and to
evince some surprise at sight of them, and still more at having them
brought up.
"One would think that I was a first floor lodger," she exclaimed,
turning back to her work again, "instead of merely the attics. You'll
be charging me for attendance soon, Isobel, if it goes on at this rate.
Put it down on the table, please."
Isobel looked distinctly disappointed.
"But you ain't looked at 'em yet," she said.
"I've seen flowers before," Jill answered.
"They look very pretty and smell nice; but they'll soon die in this
turpentine atmosphere."
"Then you can keep the barskit," giggled the other. "I expect 'e
thought o' that; 'e aint so green as I took 'im to be. Fancy you 'avin'
a young man, Miss Herskine!"
Jill did look round then, and her glance was withering in the extreme.
"Explain your meaning, please," she said. "I don't understand jests
like those."
"It aint no jest," replied Isobel somewhat abashed but grinning still
despite the snub. "I didn't mean no 'arm neither, only," edging toward
the door and preparing for flight, "when a gent takes to sendin' flowers
it's like when the lodgers begins complainin' o' the charges--the
beginnin' of the hend, so to speak."
The studio door slammed on her retreating figure, and her footsteps
could be heard asserting themselves triumphantly in her descent--verily
some people are born to make a noise in the world! Jill listened to
them until they reached the next landing, then she laid down her
charcoal and approached the table. For a minute she stood motionless
regarding the flowers, then she smiled a little and bending forward drew
out from among them a card though she hardly needed that to tell her
from whom they came. "With Saint John's compliments," she read, and the
smile on her lips widened until it broadened into a laugh.
"If all your relations possessed the same amount of tact," she
soliloquised, "what a model family yours would be."
She laid her face against the flowers and laughed again, a soft quiet
laugh full of enjoyment.
"What a bright patch of sunshine in the old studio," she continued,
smilingly caressing the blossoms, "and what a bright patch of sunshine
in somebody's heart, my dear saint, what a warm, brilliant, altogether
delightful patch to be sure."