diff options
Diffstat (limited to '37269.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 37269.txt | 5439 |
1 files changed, 5439 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/37269.txt b/37269.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dd713a2 --- /dev/null +++ b/37269.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5439 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Triumph of Jill, by F.E. Mills Young + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Triumph of Jill + +Author: F.E. Mills Young + +Release Date: August 29, 2011 [EBook #37269] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRIUMPH OF JILL *** + + + + +Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England + + + + +The Triumph of Jill +By F.E. Mills Young +Published by John Long, London. +This edition dated 1903. + +The Triumph of Jill, by F.E. Mills Young. + +________________________________________________________________________ + +________________________________________________________________________ +THE TRIUMPH OF JILL, BY F.E. MILLS YOUNG. + +CHAPTER ONE. + +"Art," said the man, regarding lingeringly a half finished canvas +standing on an easel in the middle of the poorly furnished room, and +then the very insignificant little girl beside him, who had posed for +him ever since she had dispensed with long clothes, and subsequently +taken to them, again, and had always proved an unsatisfactory model from +an artistic point of view, "is the only thing really worth living for, +and yet it's the most bally rotten thing to take up--as a bread winning +profession, you understand. When you've got the bread, and plenty of +it, it's a very fine way of getting butter to it, and in exceptional +cases preserves as well. I'm sorry," with a smothered sigh of regret, +"that I didn't go in for something more satisfactory for your sake; I +should have felt easier in my mind when it came to pegging out." + +But the girl was enthusiastic upon the subject as well as himself. + +"It was your life's work," she answered; "you could not have done +otherwise." + +"Perhaps you are right," he said, turning his head restlessly upon the +cushion. "My life's work! And what a poor thing I have made of it. +What a grind it has been, and what a failure." + +"Don't, dear," she whispered, slipping her hand into his with a +caressing, protecting gesture; "it hurts me to hear you. And after all +there is nothing to regret. We have been very happy together, you and +I; I wouldn't have had it different. If you had been more successful in +a worldly sense we might not have been all in all to one another as we +have been. We have always managed to get along." + +"Yes," he answered with a touch of masculine arrogance, "it was all +right so long as I was well, but I shall never finish that canvas, Jill, +though I've forced myself to work to the last; but I'm pegging out fast +now--two legs in the grave," with a flash of humour and the old light of +mirth in his eyes again, "though I'm hanging on to the upper ground with +both hands like the tenacious beggar I always was; but the sods are +giving way, and I shall suddenly drop out of sight one day, and then-- +and then," the sad look coming back to his face, "you'll be left to +fight the battle of life alone." + +The girl's lip quivered, and she turned away her head to hide her +emotion, fearful that any display of grief would hurt him, and sadden +his last few hours on earth. + +"I shall manage," she answered confidently, "I shall teach; you have +often said I was quite competent of doing that, and occasionally I sell +my own work, you know." + +"Yes," he said, "you have my talent, and I have taught you all I could. +But I wish that I had more to leave you; there will be so little after +all the expenses are paid." + +"There are the models--my art school stocked," she replied with assumed +cheerfulness. "I shall be only awaiting the pupils, and they will come +after a while." + +The speech was a brave one, but her heart sank nevertheless. She was +fairly self-reliant, but she had seen enough of the seamy side of life +to realise how difficult it was, added to which she was devoted to her +father, who was all she had in the world, and the knowledge that he was +leaving her just when she seemed to need him most was very bitter. They +had been comrades ever since she could remember, a bond that had made +the roving, Bohemian life very pleasant, and the severing of which meant +a loss that nothing could ever replace--a void no one else could fill. +And yet she continued cheerful and bright, even gay at times, though +each day found him weaker, and her own heart heavier, and more hopeless. +But she choked down the lump that was always rising in her throat, and +maintained a smiling exterior, despite her grief, until there was no +need to conceal her feelings any longer, and then sorrow had its way, +and found vent in a wild burst of uncontrollable weeping, which after +half an hour exhausted both itself and her, and ended in a kind of +general collapse. But there was very little time in which to indulge +the luxury of grief. There was the future to think about; for it was +necessary to live even if one did not feel greatly inclined to; and so +Jill left her tiny bedroom with its sloping ceiling, and stole into the +studio, bare, save for its model throne, and casts, its easel, table, +and couple of cane-bottomed chairs, its smell of stale tobacco, and +cheese, and the memory of the dear presence that once had sat there +working and would work no more. With eyes blinded by tears, and hands +that trembled she proceeded to dust the models, and put the room to +rights, and as she did so her glance fell upon the still unfinished +picture--her father's last work--and, letting the dusting brush fall +from her hand, she threw her arms about the neck of the Apollo Belvidere +and wept afresh. Her next move, when this new outburst had subsided, +was to take down the bust of Clytie from the shelf on which it stood and +tenderly remove the specks of dust that had been allowed to gather there +through the inevitable neglect of the past sad days. This had been her +father's favourite model. He had liked it on account of a certain +worldliness of expression--a touch of the old Eve, he had been wont to +say--which the others lacked! and so henceforth Clytie would possess an +added attraction, a new interest for her born of pure sentiment. + +When she had arranged the room to her satisfaction she set about writing +out her advertisement, no very lengthy matter, for she had thought about +it so continually of late that she knew exactly how to word it. She had +come to the conclusion that it would be better not to let people know +that she was just starting, so expressed herself in a noncommittal sort +of way as follows:--"Miss Erskine's Art School will re-open on January +15th. Classes, Tuesdays and Fridays 9:30 to 12:30 p.m., and 2:30--4:30 +p.m., Geometry Classes every Wednesday evening from 7:30 to 9 o'clock." +Then followed the address and date, and the advertisement was completed +and ready to appear. So far everything was easy, but Jill herself felt +by no means sanguine of results. For one thing the locality was not +very desirable, and the Art School commanded what many people in house +hunting insist upon, a lofty situation, but in the latter instance, of +course, it has nothing to do with stairs. Miss Erskine's establishment +was four storeys high, and the shape of the ceiling hinted unkindly at +being in close communication with the slates. Would anybody who was +able to pay for tuition be willing to climb those stairs twice a week, +narrow and steep, and dark enough to be dangerous, not to mention the +dust, which the obscurity hid, but which one's olfactory organ detected +unmistakably as one wended one's way wearily up or down? No, it did not +seem very probable, and yet it was just possible enough to leave a +margin of hope in her otherwise despondent reasoning. + +The next day, Jill had the sorry satisfaction of seeing her +advertisement in print. It was stuck away in a corner of one of the +least important columns, and did not look very imposing, but it +occasioned her a little thrill of pride all the same, and gave her fresh +heart to return to work, though she had endeavoured to sell a small +canvas that morning for a proportionally small sum and had failed, a +fact, considering the state of her exchequer, not conducive to great +exhilaration. + +Fortunately, the rent was settled for the next six months, and she had +still some funds in hand, and after that--well, something would turn up. +For the sake of economy Jill sat at work with a jacket on and her back +turned towards the empty grate, but the weather was particularly cold, +and her hands became so numbed, that she could not hold the brushes; and +on the third day she was obliged to give in and indulge in a fire again. +Soon after that, she sold a picture and received a commission for +another, which she set to work on at once; and for the first time since +her father's death she felt almost light hearted. But fortune's wheel +is seldom stationary long, and after she had completed the second canvas +there seemed no further demand upon her energies. This was +discouraging, but still she persevered, painting all morning, and +spending the afternoons trying to sell her work, returning after +nightfall, cold and weary to a dark, cheerless room, and creeping early +to bed for the sake of warmth, and the saving of unnecessary +illumination. + +One morning as she sat at work in a by no means cheerful frame of mind, +having made only a very scant breakfast, and unless she sold something +that day, seeing but small chance of making a more substantial meal +later on, she was interrupted by the sound of a footstep on the stairs, +a blundering heavy footstep, that kicked each stair it mounted, and +finally came down with a stamp at the top, having taken a step too many +in the gloom of a fourth storey landing. It was enough to try anybody's +temper, and the owner of the footstep said "damn!" audibly enough to +reach Miss Erskine's ear as she sat before her easel. She rose as +promptly as though he had knocked and opened the door. She had climbed +those stairs so often herself that she found it easy to make allowances. +Not for one moment did she suppose that the visit was intended for +her,--it was a mistake that had happened before, but not often; as a +rule people preferred to make those mistakes lower down,--neither did it +cross her mind to imagine that it might mean pupils; she had given up +all hope of anything in that line, had almost forgotten the poor little +advertisement that she had felt so proud to read in print; it seemed so +long ago since it had been written; and yet it was not quite three +weeks. A young man stood outside in the narrow passage at the head of +the stairs, a big young man--disproportionately big he appeared to Jill, +but that was only because his surroundings were disproportionately +cramped. He was in reality a very fine young man, with a good deal of +muscular development, and a pair of long legs. He was not seen to +advantage just at that moment for he was looking decidedly out of +humour, and his brows were drawn together over his eyes until he +appeared to scowl. He bowed gravely on seeing Jill, and his face +relaxed a little. + +"I beg your pardon," he began, but Jill cut him short. + +"Don't mention it," she answered promptly. "I wasn't surprised in the +least; I have felt that way myself sometimes--just at first, you know." + +He stared rather. Not being acquainted with the quality and thickness +of the lath and plaster of that locality, he did not connect her speech +with the mild ejaculation that had apprised her of the fact that he had +reached the top, and had mounted those stairs for the first time, and he +rather inclined to the belief that he had chanced upon a lunatic. + +"I was informed that Miss Erskine lives here," he continued, glancing at +the palette and mhalstick in her hand, which in her haste she had +forgotten to put down. Instantly she perceived that he had not followed +her train of thought, and regretted her former speech. Then she said +"Oh!" because she did not know what else to say, and felt glad that she +had a fire. + +"Won't you come inside?" she asked. + +He took her for one of Miss Erskine's pupils, and followed her in +silence. She shut the door behind him, and then he saw that there was +no one else in the room. + +"The--the servant,"--he had narrowly escaped saying `slavey'--"told me +to come straight up," he went on explanatorily, "she said Miss Erskine +was in. Can I see her if she is not engaged?" + +Jill smiled a little bitterly. Engaged! + +"I am Miss Erskine," she answered with a touch of dignity that sat very +quaintly on her, for she was small, and, in her black dress with the big +white painting apron falling straight from the yoke like a child's +pinafore, looked ridiculously school-girlish and young; in addition to +which she wore her hair in a plait, the end doubled underneath and tied +with a black velvet bow. No wonder that he had taken her for a pupil. + +The information seemed to surprise him, and he regarded her somewhat +dubiously for a moment. Then he bowed. + +"I am fortunate to find you disengaged," he said. + +"_I_ should be fortunate if you had found me otherwise," Jill answered +ruefully, but he did not smile; probably he considered her flippant. + +"I read your advertisement in the paper a short while since," he +continued gravely, "and came to--" he hesitated, and glanced round the +room till his eye fell upon the canvas on which she was engaged, and the +sight of it seemed to decide him, "to enquire your terms. I wish to +study act." + +Jill gasped. She had never connected him for a moment with the +advertisement; this was not the sort of applicant that she had expected +at all; the mere idea of teaching this dreadfully big young man appalled +her. Apparently the incongruity of the situation did not appeal to him, +or perhaps he was too much engrossed with the main object to think of +anything else; for he went on quite coolly as though her acceptance of +him as a pupil were a foregone conclusion. + +"I have long wanted to take up art as a hobby for leisure moments, but I +have never had the pluck to go to one of the big studios as I know +absolutely nothing, and I'm not quite sure, dubiously, whether I have +much talent that way." + +"That is soon proved," she answered. "But you will never do anything at +it if you intend only to make a `hobby' of it." + +He smiled. + +"You think the term ill-advised?" he said. + +"I think it inapplicable." + +"And when shall I come?" he asked. "To-morrow?" + +"Good gracious, no!" she exclaimed vehemently; then checked herself and +continued in a slightly apologetic tone, "That is I mean if you will +leave your address I will write. I must have a little while in which to +decide." + +"Certainly," he replied, and he took out a card and laid it on the +table, and the next thing Miss Erskine knew was, that she was bowing her +visitor out, and keeping the studio door obligingly open to light him +down to the next landing. There was no more work for her that morning; +she sat in front of the fire with his card in her hand, and went over +the interview in her mind till she laughed aloud. On the card was +engraved in neat copper plate, "Mr John St. John, 13 Bedford Square," +and below that again was another address at Henley. Evidently Mr St. +John was fairly well to do. And he wished to dabble in art. Well, why +shouldn't he? Jill could see no reason why he shouldn't, but she saw a +great many why she should not be his instructress. It was a great +temptation nevertheless; she was badly in want of money for one thing, +but on the other hand he was so tremendously big that the thought of +undertaking him as a pupil filled her with a strange shyness. She felt +that she could not do it, and determined to write and tell him so. As +luck would have it that afternoon she sold three canvasses. They did +not fetch much it is true, still it was something, and the dealer +further intimated that he would be glad of more work from her in the +future. This was encouraging, and Jill went home in the best of +spirits. That night she wrote to Mr St. John stating as briefly as +possible that she regretted any inconvenience to which he had been put, +but on consideration she discovered that she could not possibly take any +fresh pupils just at present. Then she tossed his card into the fire +with a sigh of relief, and, watching it consume, saw the last, as she +supposed, of Mr John St. John. + +The next day she did not go out at all, but sat at home working busily, +and endeavouring her hardest not to think with regret of last night's +now irrevocable decision. What a pity it was that instead of Mr St. +John it had not been some lanky school girl with short dresses and a +pigtail; it would have been so nice to have someone to talk to +occasionally. At present her conversation was restricted to the man who +bought her pictures, and the hard-worked, lodging-house slavey on the +not too numerous occasions when she brought up the coals. The following +afternoon she went out as usual to try and get a few fresh orders, and +if possible sell some of her present work. Neither attempt however +proved successful, and she arrived home tired and worried with a +distinct disinclination to climb the stairs. The ascent had to be made +nevertheless, and so she trudged wearily up, and pushed open the studio +door with a long drawn sigh of sheer fatigue. That night she crept into +bed supperless because she did not feel hungry, and as a natural +sequence cried herself to sleep. + +CHAPTER TWO. + +The following morning Jill received another visit. It was a case of +history repeating itself so to speak. She was seated in much the same +attitude as on the former occasion, only this time she waited and +allowed the visitor to stumble up the stairs as best he could and knock +before she rose to open the door. It was the same quick blundering +step, and, when she confronted him, the same slightly scowling face that +met her glance; apparently Mr St. John did not find the stairs less +intricate on further acquaintance. He held his hat in his hand and Jill +noticed that he looked rather diffident. + +"You got my note?" she queried with a clearly perceptible inflection of +surprise in her voice. + +"Yes," he answered, "that is why I am here. I must apologise, though, +for calling on your class day. As a matter of fact I came yesterday +afternoon but found I had just missed you; you were out." + +"Yes," she replied, "I was out, but I never heard that you had been. It +was courageous of you to attempt those stairs a second time. Will you +come in?" + +He entered, and then looked round in surprise. The room was just the +same as on the former occasion unoccupied save by themselves and with no +visible preparation for anyone else. Jill detected the look and +resented it. + +"You are wondering where my pupils are," she said quickly, "I am +expecting--no," with a proud upraising of her small chin, "I am _not_ +expecting--How could I expect anyone to mount those stairs?--I am +_hoping_ that some may turn up eventually." + +"And yet," he said in a distinctly offended tone, "you refuse the first +who presents himself. But perhaps you mistrusted my claim to +respectability?" + +Jill blushed uncomfortably. She had forgotten for the moment that she +had refused him as a pupil on the ground of having no vacancy. + +"It--it isn't that," she tried to explain. "I can quite believe that +you are _very_ respectable but--Oh! can't you understand?--I wanted to +teach children?" + +Apparently he did not consider that sufficient reason to preclude her +from teaching him also; he did not seem to think that there might be +other reasons which had led up to this--to him--very trivial one. + +"I don't know any more than a child would," he replied, "and I should +pay three times the fee--double for being an adult, treble for being a +male adult which some ladies seem to consider an additional +inconvenience." + +"Excuse me," put in Jill severely, "if I undertook to teach you my +charge would be the same for you as for any other pupil, but I am afraid +I must decline." + +"Very well," he answered huffily, "the decision of course rests with +you, but I won't attempt to disguise the fact that I am very +disappointed." + +He walked towards the door, but stopped, and came back a little way. + +"If it is anything to do with--that is I mean to say--I will pay in +advance," he blurted out. + +The girl bit her lip. + +"It has nothing to do with that," she cried sharply. "Oh, dear me, how +very dense you are! Don't you see that it wouldn't do for me to teach +you?" + +He stared at her. + +"Good heavens!" he exclaimed, "you don't mean to say that you're afraid +of Mrs Grundy? She would never get up those stairs I can assure you, +and if she did why we'd stick her on the model throne and paint her." + +Jill laughed in spite of herself. It sounded very ridiculous put into +plain English, and yet after all he had pretty well hit upon the truth. + +"It isn't only Mrs Grundy," she replied, "but I--I don't feel equal to +undertaking you. I think it would be better if you went to someone-- +older." + +"When I read your advertisement," he said stiffly, "I imagined that you +would be older. But I don't see that it much matters. I want to study +art. You wish to teach it and have no other pupils. Why not try me for +a quarter and see how it works?" + +It was a great temptation, Jill still hesitated. Absurd as she felt it +to be she was unmistakably nervous at the thought of teaching this big +young man, while he, noting her indecision, stood waiting anxiously for +her to speak, too engrossed with his project to consider her at all; she +merely represented a means to an end, the object through which he might +accomplish the only real ambition of his life. + +"I don't know," she said slowly after a long pause, "I think perhaps I +might try as you suggest, for the quarter but--I wish you had been a +girl." + +"Thank you," he answered. "I am sorry that I cannot agree with you. +Shall I stay this morning?" + +Jill looked rather alarmed at this proposal, but, she reasoned within +herself, if he were coming at all he might as well begin at once, so, +after another long pause, and a dubious look round the none too tidy +studio, she gave an ungracious assent, whereupon he immediately +commenced divesting himself of his overcoat, an action he regretted when +it was too late, and, but for fear of hurting her feelings, he would +have slipped into it again for the fire was nearly out and the room +struck chill; he wondered how she sat there painting with her small +hands almost blue with cold. + +"The servant," explained Jill airily with the astuteness of a very +observant nature, "will be here with the coals shortly; she usually +brings them up at about eleven." + +He looked rather disconcerted. + +"Oh, I'm not cold in the least," he exclaimed untruthfully, "it is quite +warm to-day." + +"Yes," replied the girl shortly, "the thermometer is below Zero, I +should say. Will you sit here please?" + +She placed him as near the fire as possible and provided him with +drawing-materials, then going over to a shelf began to rummage among +endless books and papers for a suitable copy simple enough for him to +start on. + +"I wish to go in for the figure from life," he modestly observed. + +Jill fairly gasped at his audacity; she had understood him to say that +he was a novice. + +"How much," she asked, pausing in her search and regarding him +critically the while she put the question, "or how little drawing did I +understand you to say you had done up to the present?" + +"I haven't done any," he answered meekly. + +Jill went on with her search again. + +"We will commence with flat copies," she crushingly remarked, "after +that we will attempt the cast, and then--but there is ample time in +which to think about such lofty aspirations." + +Mr St. John was not the mildest tempered of mortals but he sat mute +under the rebuff and took the copy which she handed him without comment. +It was an easy outline of a woman's head, absurdly easy the new pupil +considered it, and yet, to use his own vulgar phraseology after he had +been working laboriously for ten minutes and had succeeded in rubbing a +hole in the paper where the prominent feature should have been, it +stumped him. Miss Erskine rose and stood over him with a disagreeable, +I-told-you-so expression on her face. + +"I can hardly accuse you of idleness," she said, "you have been most +energetic as the paper evinces. I think we had better start again on a +fresh piece." + +She fetched another sheet of drawing paper and, taking the seat he had +vacated, pinned it on the board, while he stood behind her, his brows +drawn together in the old scowl, and a gleam of angry resentment in his +eyes. + +"The paper," Jill continued in measured cutting tones, "was not wasted; +it has served its purpose; for you have learnt your first lesson in art. +It is a useful lesson, too, as it applies to other things that are +worth mastering. The will to accomplish a thing is not the +accomplishment, remember; it is necessary to the accomplishment, of +course, but one must work hard, fight against difficulty, and defeat +defeat. Now that you have acknowledged the difficulty we will see what +we can do to overcome it." + +The young man stared at her with, it must be confessed, a certain amount +of vexed amusement in his gaze. He wondered what sort of an old woman +she would be, and finally decided that she would develop into an +acidulated spinster. + +"If you will kindly give me your attention," she began with the new +dignity which was so unbecoming to her, and so very unpleasant to her +pupil, "I will--" + +But here an interruption occurred in the welcome sound of someone +mounting the stairs, followed by much shuffling and the flop of +something heavy outside the door. + +"Coals!" purred Jill with evident relief, and then he noticed that she +was shivering slightly. + +"Come in," she cried. + +The shuffling re-continued but instead of the appearance of the coals +the sound merely heralded a retreat, whoever it was had commenced the +descent, of that there could be no shadow of a doubt. Jill sprang up +and went to the door, and St. John heard her remonstrating at some +length with a person named Isobel, an obdurate person seemingly, and one +who used the expression aint a good deal, and found some difficulty with +her aspirates. After a long and subdued warfare of words the shuffling +feet recommenced their descent, and then the door flew open and Miss +Erskine appeared dragging in the scuttle. St. John strode swiftly to +her assistance but Jill waved him peremptorily back. + +"Thank you," she said, "I can manage; it is not at all heavy." + +"No," he answered, giving her a straight look as he grasped the handle, +"not more than quarter of a ton I should say. Allow me if you please." + +Jill released her hold and watched him with limp resignation; that deft +usage of her own weapons had been too much for her. It was ungenerous +of him, she considered, and to do him justice he was rather of the same +opinion. + +"There!" he exclaimed, as he threw on fresh coals, and, going down on +his knees, raked out the dead ashes from the lower bars, "it will soon +burn up now. Had the cold upset Isobel's equilibrium too?" + +It was an unlucky slip, but fortunately for his own peace of mind, Mr +St. John did not notice the offensive and unnecessary little word at the +end of his query, nor, having his back towards her, could he see Jill's +quick flush of annoyance. + +"I don't understand you," she answered curtly. + +"I beg your pardon," he remarked, nettled by her tone. "I hope you +don't think me impertinent; but I thought there had been a little +difficulty about bringing in the coals." + +"So there was," she replied, and smiled involuntarily at the +recollection. Then she glanced at her art student as he knelt upon the +hearth, and from him to the models showing up white and still against +the dingy curtain which formed their background; Mars Borghese, the +Apollo Belvidere, the Venus de Medici, and a smaller figure of the Venus +de Milo; a good collection, a collection which both she and her father +had loved and been proud of, and which had taken many years to gather +together. + +"You were the cause," she continued, bringing her gaze back again to the +kneeling figure in front of the grate; "Isobel's modesty would not +permit her to enter the studio with a strange man present; ignorance is +always self-conscious, you know." + +He gave her a quick look. + +"I am sorry," he said, "to have been the innocent cause of so much +perturbation. Hadn't you better arrange with the Abigail to bring the +coals a little earlier?" + +Jill shook her head, but she was still smiling. + +"You forget," she said, "that I'm only the attics; it is a favour that I +get them brought at all. I fear it will end in your always having to +carry them in if you won't let me; that and the stairs will soon put to +flight your desire for studying art." + +He got up, and bending, began to dust the ash off his clothes with angry +vehemence. Did she wish to annoy him, or was it merely that she was +cursed with a particularly disagreeable manner? Jill feigned not to +note his displeasure, but, returning to the table, resumed her seat and +went on with the lesson as though there had been no interruption, +explaining and illustrating her remarks with the care and precision that +she remembered her father to have used when first instructing her. Mr +St. John listened with grave attention; he was at any rate unaffectedly +interested in the matter in hand, and had, if not the talent, an +unmistakable love for art. When she relinquished the seat he took it +and made a second, and this time less futile attempt. It is true that +his drawing bore so little resemblance to the copy that it could not +possibly be taken for the same head, nevertheless it was a wonderful +creation in the artist's eyes, and possessed a power and boldness of +conception which the original lacked, he considered. He put his idea +into words, and again Miss Erskine marvelled at his audacity. + +"Not bad, is it?" he queried in a tone the self-complacency of which he +did not even attempt to disguise. "I strengthened it a bit--thought it +would be an improvement, don't you know." + +"Yes," agreed Jill, regarding his work with dubious appreciation, +"character in a face is greatly to be desired." + +He nodded approvingly. + +"I'm glad you think that," he remarked with increasing satisfaction; +"but of course you would." + +"Of course. And, after all, a few inches on to one's nose hardly +signifies, does it? not to mention a jaw that no woman ever possessed +outside a show. Your drawing puts me in mind of somebody or other's +criticism on Pope's translation of Homer--`a very pretty story, Mr +Pope, but it is not Homer.' Yours is a very wonderful creation, Mr St. +John, but it in no wise resembles the copy." + +St. John glared. + +"I thought you said you admired character?" he exclaimed. + +"So I do; and there is a great deal of character in the original, I +consider; but if you wish for a candid opinion, I think your head is +simply a masculine monstrosity. But, come, you need not look so angry; +we do not win our spurs at the first charge, you know. Must I praise +your failures as well as your successes, eh?" + +"You don't think me quite such a conceited fool, I hope," he said +somewhat deprecatingly, though he still looked a little dissatisfied and +aggrieved. "I only meant that it wasn't altogether bad for a first +attempt." + +But it was not Jill's intention to flatter. + +"It isn't altogether _good_ for a first attempt," she said. + +"You are not very encouraging," he remarked a trifle reproachfully. +"Had you been my pupil and I had said so much--" + +"I should have thought you very disagreeable," she interrupted, +laughing. + +He laughed also; for despite her contrariety her mirth was most +infectious, and put him more at ease with her. It was the first glimpse +of her natural self that she had vouchsafed him, and he liked it +infinitely better than the half-aggressive dignity she assumed in her +capacity of teacher. + +"Do you think," he ventured again after a pause, and with a decided +increase of diffidence, "that I am likely to be any good at it?" + +Jill took up a pencil and penknife with the intent to sharpen the former +but laid them down again suddenly and looked him squarely in the face. + +"If you mean have you any talent for art?" she said coolly, "I am afraid +I cannot give you much encouragement. You have a liking for it, and, I +should say, possess a certain amount of perseverance; therefore in time +you ought to turn out some fairly decent work, but you have not talent." + +He looked displeased, and fell to contemplating his work anew from the +distinctly irritating standpoint of its not being quite such a success +as he had deemed it. + +"You are very candid," he remarked, not altogether gratefully; "I +suppose I should feel obliged to you. But, to be frank in my turn, you +would do well not to be quite so candid with your pupils; you will never +get on if you are." + +She laughed, and shrugged her shoulders with a careless, half-bitter +gesture. + +"Your advice is rather superfluous," she answered; "I am not likely to +get any pupils." + +"Why not?" he queried. "You have one." + +"Very true," she replied, "I had not forgotten that; it is too gigantic +a fact to be overlooked. Nevertheless, as I believe I remarked before, +the coals and the stairs are likely to prove too great odds; facts--even +gigantic ones--have a way of vanishing before great personal +discomfort." + +He reached down his overcoat and thrust his arms into the sleeves +without passing any comment on her last remark; there was such an +extreme possibility, not in the stairs, or the coals, but in herself +proving too much for him that he refrained from contradicting her. Jill +watched him busily without appearing to do so until he was ready to go, +and stood, hat in hand, apparently undecided whether to shake hands or +no. + +"Good morning," she said, and bowed in so distant a manner, that, +regretting his former indecision, he bowed back, and turning round went +out with an equally brief salutation. + +When he had gone Jill sat down in his seat and fell to studying his +work. + +"`Shall I be any good at it?'" she mimicked, and then she laughed aloud. +"`Do you think that I am likely to be any good at it?' No, I do not, +Mr St. John, I don't indeed." + +CHAPTER THREE. + +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." + +CHAPTER FOUR. + +On the next occasion that St. John made his appearance at the studio +there was a visible constraint in his manner as there was also in Miss +Erskine's. Jill had rehearsed a grateful little speech to deliver on +his entry, but when their hands met there was silence; the speech, like +many another rehearsed effect, had taken to itself wings, and all she +could find to say after an awkward pause was,-- + +"Good morning. The weather seems to have turned milder, doesn't it?" + +And St. John's remarkably original answer was,-- + +"Really! Do you think so?" + +And then they commenced work. Yet St. John knew that she had received +his flowers, and was pleased with them before even he caught sight of +them, withered and dead now, in their basket on the window ledge; and +she was equally aware that he understood all that she felt and yet had +failed to express in words. The words came later when the sudden fit of +embarrassment had worn off, and the lesson was nearing its termination, +and there was no doubt as to the genuineness of her pleasure when she +did thank him. She was sitting in his seat correcting his work, and he +was standing over her with his hands on the back of the chair. When she +said. + +"It was more than kind of you, Mr St. John, to send me those lovely +flowers," he let his hands slip forward a little until they touched the +sleeves of her gown. Jill, unconscious of the slight contact, continued +gravely,-- + +"I can't very well tell you how I enjoyed them because you could hardly +understand how anyone loving such luxuries and yet unaccustomed to them +could appreciate them. It was like a peep of sunshine on a rainy day to +me." + +St. John drew himself up and stood with his hands clasped behind him. +There was something about this girl, small, poorly clad, and friendless +though she was, that commanded his respect, and he felt instinctively +that his former lounging position had been an insult to her. + +"I am glad," he answered simply. "It gives me pleasure to know that you +enjoyed them." + +When he left the Art school that morning, he carried away with him a +pleasanter remembrance of it than he had ever had before, nor was he +again to feel the same annoyance and resentment that he had experienced +on every former occasion. Jill had let fall the mantle of reserve which +at first it had pleased her to gather round her, and though she might +later repent having done so she could never don it again with the same +efficacy. + +The next day Jill paid a visit to the dealer who bought her pictures, +and, having managed to dispose of a canvas, spent the rest of the +morning shopping; eventually turning her steps in the direction of home +laden with sundry small and not over tidy parcels. When passing +Shoolbred's she encountered St. John in company with Miss Bolton. They +met face to face, and though Jill, unhappily aware that she was looking +shabby and insignificant, would have slipped by without recognising him, +he saw her and raised his hat with a pleased smile. Jill returned a +very slight inclination of the head and hurried on conscious only of +Miss Bolton's cold stare, and her haughty, disapproving question before +even the object of her enquiry had time to get out of earshot. + +"Who are you bowing to, Jack? I wish that you would remember that you +are walking with me." + +Jill did not hear the answer; she had walked too fast, but her cheek +burned, and she experienced the very unholy desire to upset Miss Bolton +off her bike. + +Having once heard of Miss Bolton it seemed fated that she should both +hear and see more; the heiress appeared to cross her path at every turn, +and for some reason which she could not altogether explain Jill +entertained a very lively antipathy for her. Next Friday when St. John +arrived at the Art School as usual her name again cropped up, and this +time it was he who introduced it. + +"I have found you a fresh pupil," he said, "if you care about bothering +with another almost as great a novice as myself, what do you say, eh?" + +"Oh!" cried Jill, "I shall be delighted. But did you explain all the +disadvantages people patronising my studio have to battle with? Did you +mention the stairs?" + +St. John laughed. + +"Yes," he answered. "But indeed you over-estimate the inconvenience of +those stairs; they are nothing when you get accustomed to them. I am +growing quite attached to them myself." + +"I am glad of that," Jill answered smiling. "Do you know I was rather +afraid at first that they would drive you away." + +"_Afraid_!" he repeated incredulously. "I thought you were hoping that +they would." + +"Then how ungenerous of you to have kept on coming. But tell me about +my new pupil,--masculine or feminine gender?--minor or adult?" + +"It is my cousin Miss Bolton," he answered, "the lady who was +unfortunate enough to run you down last week." + +Jill's face fell; he could not help seeing it though he pretended not +to. "The lady who had run her down!" Yes, she had indeed "run her +down" in more senses than one. She turned away to hide her +disappointment, and stood looking out of the window at the dirty roofs +of the opposite houses. St. John watched her in silence. At length she +spoke. + +"I hope Miss Bolton doesn't think that that trifling accident which was +as much my fault as hers necessitates a step of such great +condescension?" she said. "I cannot look at it in any other light for a +lady in her position could study under the best masters how and where +she pleased; her coming here, therefore, is a great condescension and I +should be sorry to think that she inconvenienced herself under the +mistaken idea that she owed me some slight reparation." + +St. John worked perturbed. This small person had a way of making him +feel decidedly uncomfortable at times. + +"Miss Bolton's fancy to study art is a merely temporary whim," he +answered. He did not add that the whim had been adopted at his +instigation, and with a desire to please him rather than any enthusiasm +on the subject, but went on gravely. "Her resolve to attend here is, I +am conceited enough to believe, more on account of my doing so than any +wish to obligate you. However as it has vexed you I am sorry that I +mentioned the matter." + +"Not at all," replied Jill coldly, flushing with quick annoyance; his +speech for some reason or other had not pleased her. "Since Miss +Bolton's desire is not simply to benefit me I shall be only too glad to +get another pupil. I am very much obliged to you for recommending my +establishment." + +"Indeed!" he mentally ejaculated, "I shouldn't have thought so." Aloud +he said,-- + +"Don't mention it. I will tell Miss Bolton your decision; no doubt she +will come with me next time." + +The advent of this new pupil made a good deal of difference to Jill's +simple arrangements. Hitherto two chairs had sufficed, now it was +necessary to procure a third, but from where? Eventually she dragged to +light an old packing case used for keeping odd papers in, and turning it +on end, draped it with a piece of Turkey Twill which once a brilliant +scarlet was now owing to having reached a respectable old age subdued to +a more artistic shade. This erection would provide sitting +accommodation for herself at any rate, and St. John could use the chair +with the hole in it. This difficulty solved, Jill set to work to alter +the position of the curtain, which partitioned off the end of the room, +so as to include the door; thus making a small room in which to receive +her pupils instead of ushering them straightway into the studio; if +necessary the curtain could be drawn back afterwards to make the art +school larger. The rest of the preparations were postponed until +Monday, and consisted of a thorough turning out of the room, and dusting +and rearranging the models. And on Tuesday morning Jill sat on her box +and surveyed the scene of her labour with much inward satisfaction. +There was a nice fire burning in the grate and everything was in apple +pie order, even to Jill, herself, who had twisted her hair up into a +loose teapot-handle arrangement at the back of her head, and had +dispensed with the studio apron as too childish for so important an +occasion. She wore also her best frock, and had gone to the expense of +new collar and cuffs; and altogether felt thoroughly equal to receiving +even the heiress to quarter of a million. + +The heiress came late as was only to be expected. When St. John had +turned up alone he had been generally sharp on time, but regularity was +at an end now, Jill mentally supposed, as she arranged St. John's +drawing-board and copy, and sharpened a pencil for him. It doesn't do +to judge by appearances, to quote a trite truism, therefore Jill might +really have been highly delighted at the prospect of an additional +pupil, but she certainly did not look pleased. + +It was ten o'clock before the new pupil arrived rather breathless, and +clutching desperately at St. John's arm. The latter was looking +worried, and seemed greatly relieved when once inside Jill's +ante-chamber, an innovation that evidently met with his approval; for he +glanced round with great satisfaction and having greeted Miss Erskine, +and presented his cousin, he suddenly disappeared round the curtain into +the art school, leaving the two alone. + +Miss Bolton was tall, pretty, and well dressed; she was also bent on +being polite, and was almost effusive in her manner to Jill, but Miss +Erskine was as cold as the North polar region, and equally distant. + +"I am so glad to see you again?" gushed the heiress; "I have so wanted +to apologise to you for my stupidity that morning--" + +"_My_ stupidity," corrected Jill. + +"Oh, no! because there was heaps of room the other side of me, only I +didn't notice that horrid cab. Cabs and busses are a nuisance in +London, aren't they?" + +"It would be a greater nuisance if London were without them," Jill +answered. + +"Do you think so? Oh! I don't--But of course, yes; I was forgetting +the working classes." + +"Yes," responded Miss Erskine in her North Pole tone; "because you don't +belong to them, I do." + +But Miss Bolton was not in the least disconcerted. + +"Ah, no, you're an artist," she replied, "a genius; that's heavenly, you +know. Don't you recollect that an Emperor stooped for an artist's paint +brush because `Titian was worthy to be served by Caesar?'" + +Jill's lip curled. + +"I am not a Titian," she answered. + +"Perhaps not," continued Miss Bolton in a I-know-better tone of voice. +"Anyway Jack says that you are terribly clever. He considers your +paintings superior to many of those on the line this year." + +"Mr St. John is very kind but I am afraid his criticism wouldn't avail +me much. Will you tell me how far advanced you are. Of course you have +studied drawing before?" + +"Oh, yes! And painting also. My friends considered it a pity for me to +drop it altogether with my other studies so I thought that perhaps I +would take it up again. Like music it is a very useful accomplishment +`pour passer le temps,' you know. I am considered fairly good at it." + +"Ah!" responded Jill with uncomplimentary vagueness. "And what do you +wish to go in for? Mr St. John is studying the figure--" + +Miss Bolton interrupted with a little scream. + +"How horrid of him," she cried. "Not the nude, Miss Erskine, surely?" + +Jill stared. + +"Well, at present," she said, "he is drawing the human foot in outline, +and it certainly hasn't a stocking on." + +"But you don't teach--that sort of thing, do you?" + +"It is usually taught in Art Schools," Jill answered frigidly. "So far +as I am concerned I have only just commenced teaching. You do not wish +to go in for the figure then?" + +"Certainly not; flowers are my forte; I adore nature." + +Apparently she did not consider that the human form reckoned in this +category, and certainly her own, thanks to the aid of the costumiere, +had deviated somewhat from the natural laws of contour; nevertheless +nature is at the root of our being and no matter how we attempt to +disguise and ignore the fact she will not be denied. It was on the tip +of Jill's tongue to remark that flowers alone did not constitute nature +but she restrained herself, and endeavoured to check her increasing +irritability. + +"You are quite right not to go in for the figure," she said; "feeling as +you do about it nature becomes coarse, and artificiality--or shall we +say the conventional customs of circumstances?--preferable. Will you +come into the studio?" + +It just flashed through her mind to wonder what this young lady whose +modesty was only to be equalled by Isobel's would say to the models when +she saw them, and it must be confessed that the thought of them caused +her a certain malicious satisfaction, but when she held aside the +curtain for Miss Bolton to enter she perceived to her unspeakable +astonishment that all the models had been carefully draped with the dust +covers in which they were kept encased when not in use, and which she +had herself taken off that morning, and had folded and placed on the +shelf. She glanced towards St. John in wrathful indignation, but St. +John was busy measuring the length of the big toe in the copy and +comparing it with his own drawing, which, taking into consideration the +fact that he was not supposed to be making an enlargement, was not +altogether satisfactory. + +"May I enquire," asked Jill with relentless irony, "the meaning of all +these preparations? Was it fear of the models taking cold that induced +you to cover them so carefully or a desire to study drapery, Mr St. +John?" + +She paused expectantly, but St. John made no sign of having heard beyond +an alarming increase of colour in the back of his neck, a mute appeal to +her generosity, which she was not, however, in the mood to heed. Miss +Bolton watched her in bewildered fascination, astonished at her +displeasure and unable to understand the reason thereof. So entirely +unprepared was she for what followed that it was probably a greater +shock than if she had walked straight in amongst the models, it could +not certainly have embarrassed her more. Jill, during the pause, had +approached one of the figures, and now catching impatiently at the +covering drew it off to the scandalised consternation of the new pupil, +who, without waiting for more, burst into a very unexpected flood of +tears, and fled precipitately from the room. Jill stared after her +open-mouthed, and for a moment there was dead silence. Then St. John +pushed back his chair and rose noisily to his feet. + +"Con--excuse me," he corrected himself, "but I think that I had better +go and see after my cousin." + +He caught up his hat with marked annoyance, and Jill stood gaping now at +him still too astonished for words. She watched him go in silence, and +then sat down on the twill covered box and drew a long breath--a sort of +letting off steam in order to prevent an explosion. + +"Well of all the inconceivable, incomparable, extraordinary, and +revolting imbeciles that I have ever come across that girl is the +worst," she ejaculated. "Thank heaven that my mind is not of that +grovelling order which sees vulgarity in nature and coarseness where +there should only be refinement. What agonies such people must endure +at times; they can never go to a gallery that's certain, and I suppose +they would blush at sight of a doll. Oh! my dear saint, why ever did +you bring such a person here, I wonder?" + +And then she sat and stared at his empty chair and saw in retrospection +the expression of vexed reproach in his eyes as he had risen to his +feet, their mute enquiry. + +"Could you not have spared me this? Was it necessary?" + +And in equally mute response her heart made answer,-- + +"Not necessary perhaps; but I'm not a bit sorry that it happened all the +same." + +CHAPTER FIVE. + +Jill did not anticipate the return of either of her pupils that +morning--did not, indeed, expect Miss Bolton to return at all; in both +of which surmises she proved correct. St. John had been obliged to hail +a four-wheeler and drive with his cousin home, and a most unpleasant +drive she made it; it was as much as he could do to sit quiet under her +shower of tearful reproaches. He ought to have known better than to +have taken her to such a low place. She might have guessed after having +seen her what sort of creature the girl was. It would have been much +better to have acted as she wished to in the first place--given some +suitable donation or commissioned her for a painting; that would have +been quite sufficient; it wasn't her fault that the stupid girl got in +front of her wheel, etc: etc: St. John said,-- + +"Shut up, Evie; don't talk rot." But when you tell some people to shut +up it has a contrary effect and serves as an incentive to talk more, it +was so with Miss Bolton. She was not violent because it was not her +nature to be demonstrative, nor was she in the slightest degree vulgar; +but her command over the English language could not fail to excite the +astonishment of her listener; to quote St. John's euphonism, "it made +him sick." + +"I daresay," retorted Miss Bolton disagreeably; "my remarks generally +have a nauseating effect upon you, I notice; yet that disgraceful girl +without any sense of decency--" + +"_In_decency, you mean," he interrupted. "You are very horrid," sobbed +his cousin, subsiding into tears again, and St. John devoutly wished +that he had held his peace. + +The rest of the journey was very watery, and at its termination he felt +too demoralised to do anything except go for a stroll; the house with +Miss Bolton in it was too small for him. Miss Bolton was Mr St. John +senior's ward; she was a kind of fifth cousin twice removed, which was +the nearest kinship that she could claim on earth--that is to say with +anyone worth claiming kinship with. There were cousins who kept a +haberdashery, and spoke of the `heiress' with a big `h' but Evie Bolton +didn't know them; though according to the genealogical tree they were +only once removed, but that remove had been so distant that it made all +the difference in the world. Mr St. John, senior, both admired and +loved his ward, Mr St. John, junior, was expected to follow the +paternal example, and Miss Bolton, herself, was quite willing to present +her big, good-looking cousin with her hand, and her fortune, and as much +of her heart as she could conveniently spare. It would be difficult to +ascertain whether St. John appreciated her generosity as it deserved. +He had appeared thoroughly acquiescent up to the present when a possible +engagement had been mooted by his father, but had so far refrained from +putting his luck to the test. But in Mr St. John, senior's, eyes the +affair was a settled fact, and had anyone suggested the probability of +its coming to nothing he would have scouted the idea. + +The following Friday when St. John entered the Art School he found a +very subdued little figure waiting for him--the old style of Jill with +her hair tied with ribbon, and the big pinafore over her shabby frock. +But not altogether the old style either; there was no attempt at dignity +here, no self-sufficiency of manner but that she was so thoroughly +composed he would have thought her nervous. She shook hands with a +slightly deprecating smile, and remarked interrogatively,-- + +"Miss Bolton has not come? I am sorry." + +"No," he answered with an assumption at indifference which he was far +from feeling. "I told you art was a temporary whim with her, and I +fancy the stairs rather appalled her; she is not very strong." + +His desire to spare her embarrassment was altogether too palpable. Jill +turned away to hide a smile, or a blush, or something feminine which she +did not wish him to perceive. He watched her in some amusement and +waited for her to break the silence. He would have liked to have helped +her out, but could think of nothing to say. + +"I behaved foolishly last Tuesday;" she remarked at length, speaking +with her back impolitely turned towards him, and a mixture of shame and +triumph on the face which he could not see. "I lost my temper which was +ill bred; and," turning round and laughingly openly, "I'm afraid that +I'm not so sorry as I ought to be. Don't," putting up her hand as he +essayed to speak, "go on making excuses--your very apologies but condemn +me further. It was most ungracious on my part after Miss Bolton's +condescension in coming; yet how was I to know that she was so +supersensitive?" + +"I ought to have warned you," he answered. "But never mind now; there +is very little harm done, only I am afraid that you have lost a pupil." + +"And isn't that highly deplorable," cried Jill, "considering how few I +have?" + +But St. John was not to be drawn into any expression of sympathy; +personally he felt no inconvenience, and he shrewdly suspected that Miss +Erskine was not particularly distressed herself. He sat down and work +commenced as usual. + +St. John was getting on more quickly than his teacher had imagined that +he would. He was not likely to ever make an artist but still he +progressed very fairly in amateur fashion. His eye unfortunately was +not true; he could never see when a thing was out of drawing, but he was +always ready to listen to advice, and correct his work under +supervision. His greatest fault was a desire to get on too quickly; and +Jill had to assert her authority on more than one occasion to restrain +him, and keep his ambition in check. + +One day, several weeks after the Bolton episode, he suggested that it +was time he commenced painting; he was tired of black and white. He was +then drawing from the bust of Clytie, and had only just begun working +from the cast. Jill was not in a good temper that morning--things had +not been prospering with her lately--and so St. John's ill-timed +suggestion met with scant consideration. + +"You want to run before you can walk," she returned with ill-humoured +sarcasm. "Some people are like that. I knew of a girl once who was +learning riding and insisted on cantering the second time she went out. +The result was not altogether satisfactory; for it left her sitting in +the middle of the road. Last week I yielded to your insane desire to +attempt Clytie; the attempt is a failure; and so you want to begin +painting." + +"Well," he answered not exactly pleased by her manner of refusing his +petition. "I certainly should like to vary the monotony. I don't see +why I shouldn't paint one day a week and draw on the other." + +"That's not my system," replied Jill, and the curt finality of tone and +manner irritated him exceedingly. He felt like saying `Damn your +system,' and only refrained by biting fiercely at his moustache, and +jerking back his drawing-board with such vehemence that, coming into +violent contact with the cast from which he had been working, and which +stood on a box in the centre of the table, it upset the whole erection, +and with a terrible crash Jill's favourite model was shivered into +fragments. Jill, herself, flew into such a rage as baffles description, +and, alas to have to record it! springing forward boxed St. John's ears. +It was by no means a lady-like thing to do; but it seemed to occasion +her some slight relief. She was positively quivering with passion, and +stood glaring at the offender as though he had been guilty of a crime. +St. John flushed crimson, and as if fearful of further assault dodged +behind the model of the Venus de Medici. He could hardly be reproached +with taking refuge behind a woman's petticoats; anyone knowing the +figure could vouch for the impracticability of that; but he felt +decidedly safer screened by the white limbs which had so scandalised his +cousin, and betrayed no disposition to emerge again in a hurry; he was +very big and Jill was very little but he most certainly felt afraid of +her just then. + +"How clumsy of you!" she cried. "I wouldn't have had it happen for the +world--I believe you did it on purpose." + +"I did not," he protested indignantly. "How can you say such a thing? +I am as sorry as you can be that it happened." + +He was not though, and he knew it. He considered her vexation +altogether disproportionate, and absurd to a degree verging on +affectation. Had the damage been irreparable he could have understood +her loss of self-control; but it was only a plaster cast which she must +assuredly know that he would replace. Being a man he did not take +sentiment into consideration at all, but merely thought her ill-tempered +and ungovernable. + +"How dare you equal your sorrow to mine?" Jill demanded fiercely. "You +can't know how I feel. I don't believe you care." + +Her lip trembled and she turned quickly away. Never had she looked so +forlorn, so little, so shabby, he thought, as at that moment, and +perhaps never in his life before had he felt so uncomfortable--such a +brute. Vacating his position of safety he approached until he was close +behind her where she stood with her back to the debris, and he saw that +her hands were picking nervously at the paint-soiled apron. + +"Don't," he said, and his voice sounded strangely unlike his usual +tones. "You make me feel such a beast. You know that I care--you must +know it. I would rather anything had happened than have vexed you like +this." + +"It doesn't matter," answered Jill a little unsteadily, and then one of +the two big tears which had been welling slowly in her eyes fell with a +splash upon the floor, and he started as though she had struck him a +second time. + +"Don't," he entreated again. And then without waiting for more he took +his hat and slipped quietly out of the studio. Jill scarcely noticed +his departure, did not even speculate as to his object in thus +unceremoniously leaving, nor wonder whether he was likely to return or +not. She was rather relieved at finding herself alone, and able to give +vent to the emotion she could no longer repress. Sitting down at the +table in the seat which St. John had so suddenly vacated she laid her +head upon his drawing-board and wept all over the paper. The outburst, +which was purely neurotic,--such outbursts usually are--had been +gathering for days past, and had culminated with the fall of Clytie--the +breaking of the bust which her father had so loved. Alas! for the +sweet, sad, absurd associations which cling about the things that the +dead have touched. + +St. John was not away very long; he had been to a shop that he knew of +quite handy, and had driven there and back thanks to the stupid cabs +that Miss Bolton found so inconvenient. He had bought another bust of +Clytie, an altogether superior article in Parian marble which he carried +back to the studio in triumph quite expecting to see Jill's grief vanish +at sight of it, and tears give place to smiles. He found her still +seated at the table; she was not crying any longer; but the traces of +recent emotion were sufficiently apparent for him to detect at a glance. +The sight sobered him instantly, and he approached with less confidence +in the efficiency of his purchase than had possessed him when out of her +presence. + +"It's all right," he exclaimed, speaking as cheerfully as he could, and +placing the new Clytie on the table among the ruins of her predecessor, +"I managed to get another. I hope you'll like it as well as the one I +broke. It was confoundedly clumsy of me. But you aren't angry with me +still?" + +"No," answered Jill, raising her head to view the Clytie as he drew off +the paper wrapping for her to see. "Oh!" she cried, "it is far too +good; mine was only plaster." + +"Was it?" he said slowly. "And yet, I fancy, you preferred it +infinitely to this one." + +Jill's lips quivered ominously again, and half unconsciously as it were +she fingered one of the broken pieces in lingering regret. + +"It had associations," she said simply. + +He stooped forward so that he could see her face, and his hand sought +hers where it rested upon the table, and with a kindly pressure +imprisoned it while he spoke. + +"Can't you form associations round this one too?" he asked. + +For a moment there was silence. Then she looked back at him and smiled +faintly. + +"I have commenced doing so already," she answered, and, quietly +withdrawing her hand, rose and stood back a little the better to admire +his purchase. + +"It was dreadfully extravagant of you to buy a thing like that just for +an art school model," she exclaimed. "It ought to be in some +drawing-room instead of here." + +"It looks very well where it is," he answered coolly. "But I think I'll +give over trying to draw it for a time; I can't catch that sadly +contemplative, sweetly scornful expression at all; I make a sneer of it +which is diabolical. Don't insist, please; because it makes me nervous +just to look at her." + +That was the beginning of things--at any rate the perceptible +commencement; though it might have begun with the flowers as Isobel had +insinuated. Never a word did St. John utter that Jill could possibly +have turned or twisted into a betrayal of the growing regard which she +felt in her heart he entertained for her, and never a sign did Jill make +that she understood, or in any way reciprocated his unspoken liking. +She knew that he loved her by instinct, and the knowledge made her glad, +so that her life was no longer lonely, nor the occasional privations, +the incessant work, the petty, carking, almost daily worries so hard to +bear. Life was one long pleasant day-dream; though sometimes Miss +Bolton "biked" through the dreaming, and then it became a night-mare, +and Jill was consumed with a fierce burning jealousy that lasted until a +new-born, audacious, delicious conceit--her woman's intuition--assured +her that poor and insignificant though she was St. John was far more +fond of her than he would ever be of his pretty, elegant, and wealthy +cousin. + +CHAPTER SIX. + +St. John had attended Miss Erskine's studio for two quarters, and was +now into the third. He was still her sole pupil; though she had had +another student, a long-legged girl of fifteen who had attended for +three weeks and then been taken away in a hurry because her mother had +discovered that Miss Erskine was very young, and had, besides her +daughter, only one other pupil--_a man_--and no chaperone. She wrote +Miss Erskine very plainly on the subject of the impropriety of her +conduct, and gave her a good deal of advice, but omitted to enclose the +fee. Jill showed the letter to St. John as the best way of explaining +his fellow-student's absence, and St. John laughed over it immoderately; +he was so glad that the long-legged girl was gone. + +"It's rather rough on you though," he remarked as he returned the +missive which Jill put into her pocket to keep for a curiosity. "If you +get another pupil of that description you'll have to get rid of me, +that's certain. Poor little snub-nosed Flossie! I hope we didn't +demoralise her altogether. How I do detest the respectable British +matron, don't you?" + +"No," answered Jill. "I detest the vulgar, narrow-minded order though, +like the writer of this letter. That poor child! I used to think her a +giggling little idiot. She did giggle, and she wasn't very wise; but +she is greatly to be commiserated all the same." + +Jill had no fresh pupils after that, only St. John trudged manfully up +the steep, narrow stairs with unfailing regularity, and once, when she +was ill and obliged to stay in bed with a bad cold on her chest, he sent +her fruit and flowers, but carefully refrained from going near the +studio himself until he received a little note from her thanking him and +saying that she was well enough to resume work. + +Independent of the fee he paid for tuition, and the pleasure she derived +from his society Jill enjoyed many advantages through his being at the +studio which she could not herself have afforded. For one thing when he +started painting he insisted upon employing a model; he wanted to paint +from life; and Jill had to pose the model and paint from him or her--as +the case might be--at the same time. She made good use of her +opportunities, and many of the canvasses sold, but she had to dispose of +them far below their market value at a merely nominal profit which just +paid her and that was all. St. John offered her a hundred and fifty +pounds for one picture--a female figure against a background of sea and +sky, the whole veiled in a kind of white mist--a vapoury shroud which +softened yet did not conceal. Jill had christened this picture "The +Pride of the Morning," and for some reason, perhaps because St. John so +greatly admired it, she felt loth to let it go for the ridiculous price +which she had accepted for the other canvasses; yet when St. John wished +to purchase it she refused. She would not sell it to him though she +offered it as a gift, but he would not take it, and so "The Pride of the +Morning" was stood in a corner of the studio facing the wall just as +though it was in disgrace. + +Just about this time Jill had a regular run of ill luck. In the first +instance the man who always bought her canvasses became bankrupt and was +sold up, and Jill, who didn't know anything about sending in claims, and +had no one to advise her; for she never consulted St. John on purely +personal matters for fear of his finding out how very poor she really +was, lost the price of three canvasses which he had taken of her and +never paid for, besides having nowhere now to dispose of her work. He +had paid her poorly but it had been a certain market, and although she +tramped London over, as it seemed to her weary feet, she could find no +one to give her an order, or even a promise of work in the future; she +had plenty of time for dreaming now. Besides this, the rent of her +rooms was due again, and it was absolutely expedient that she should +have new boots. And then came the climax--at least it seemed the climax +to Jill's overwrought and tired brain, but it was not so; as a matter of +fact that fell later when she had not conceived it possible that greater +trouble could fall to human lot. She became ill again--off her head, as +Isobel informed St. John when she received him one Tuesday with the +intimation that he could not go up as usual. The heat of summer, +together with the continual atmosphere of white lead and turpentine had +been too much for Jill, and she had collapsed, and, becoming rambling +and incoherent in her talk the landlady had taken things into her own +hands and sent for the doctor, when it was only rest and a little +nursing and relief from mental worry that the invalid stood in need of, +and not physic, a doctor's bill, and impossible advice. The doctor +came. She was thoroughly run down, he said; and he ordered her things +that she could not buy, and change of air which she could not afford +either, though she told him that she would see about it for fear he +should think that she was hoping he would not charge her for attendance, +which was very foolish and proud, just as foolish as her refusal to sell +St. John the picture. + +When she was well enough to get out again she took a holiday and spent +it at Hampden Court, going by steam-boat and returning in the evening by +train after a long, solitary, but on the whole fairly enjoyable day. +That was all the change of air she took, and greatly it benefitted her, +far more than anyone would imagine so short a time could do. On her way +home when she was crossing the road where Bedford Square merges into +Gower Street a private hansom passed her with St. John and his cousin in +it both in evening dress. Jill had fancied that Miss Bolton was out of +town, and the sight of her quite upset all the pleasure she had derived +from her jaunt. + +They did not see her, for it was dark in the road, but a street lamp +shining full in their faces as they drove past revealed them plainly to +her, and she noticed that St. John was looking both bored and worried, a +fact which compensated somewhat for the shock of disappointment she had +experienced on seeing the heiress. + +When she reached home there was a package of books addressed to her on +the hall table, and a note in the bold, familiar handwriting she had +learnt to know so well. She carried them up to her room and sat on the +edge of her bed while she read the latter without waiting to take off +her hat, or put in water the knot of wild flowers, faded now, which she +had gathered and thrust into her belt. + +"Dear Miss Erskine," it ran,-- + +"I am sending you some literature on the chance of your being well +enough now to do a little reading, and time, I know, hangs heavy when +one is convalescent. Don't worry about the lessons; I am enjoying the +holiday; but when may I be allowed to call and see you? I have +something to say to you which will not keep. + +"Yours very truly, J. St. John." + +Jill's heart gave a little jump as her eye took in the last sentence, +and she made a shy guess at what the `something' might be, a guess which +sent the blood to her face in a warm rich glow, and set her pulses +tingling in ecstatic enjoyment. She was curious to hear that something, +so curious that she could hardly wait, and yet she was determined not to +let St. John suspect how curious she really was. Going into the studio +she sat down at the table and wrote her reply, a carefully worded little +note thanking him for the books, and appointing Friday morning at the +usual hour for him to visit her; stating that she was quite well and +anxious to begin work. It was Wednesday so that there would be the +whole of Thursday to get through, but Jill felt that she could manage +that now that the letter was written, and tired though she was she went +out again and posted it. + +The next morning by the same post that St. John got his letter, Jill +received her doctor's account which was considerably heavier than she +had expected. It is an expensive luxury being ill. She sighed as she +looked at the bill, and wondered where the money was coming from. She +had not got it just then that was certain; the settlement must be +deferred for a while. How hard it was to want to pay and not be able to +do so! Later in the morning as she sat huddled up near the window +poring over one of the books St. John had sent--for she could not work +with the thought of the morrow before her; her sense of the fitness of +things had bidden her take a last holiday and give herself up thoroughly +to the enjoyment of the present--her attention was diverted from the +novel by the sound of a footstep on the stairs, a heavy, uncertain, +unmistakably masculine step which reminded her with a strange thrill of +St. John's first visit when he had stumbled up those stairs in the +darkness eight months ago. She waited where she was until the visitor +knocked, a loud, imperative, double knock on the door with his stick, +then she rose, laid aside her book, and slowly crossed the room. +Outside on the narrow landing stood an elderly man, tall and gaunt, with +shoulders slightly bent, and iron grey hair and beard. He eyed Jill +uncertainly, very much as St. John had done, and, also like St. John, +concluded that she must be a pupil; she looked so very childish, much +more like a child, indeed, than had the lanky, short-frocked, +girl-student who had studied there so brief a time. + +"I wish to speak with Miss Erskine," he said. And Jill, in vague +foreboding, and with a dull repetition of her information on that former +occasion, answered quietly,-- + +"I am Miss Erskine." + +"Good God!" exclaimed her visitor, and without waiting for an invitation +he strode past her into the studio. Jill followed him wondering, and +standing opposite to him, watched him closely, waiting for more. + +"My name is St. John," he said--the bomb had fallen. "My son--h'm!-- +studies art here." + +He looked round superciliously as though he wondered how anyone could +study anything in so mean a place; no doubt he considered that his son's +explanation had been merely a plausible excuse. + +"Yes," Jill answered, and that was all. + +He felt irritated with her that she was so quiet, so reserved, and so +thoroughly self-possessed. He had expected something different; his +ward had spoken of her as a horrid, designing, low-minded creature, his +son had told him plainly only the night before that she was the one +woman he loved, or ever could love; he had put the two descriptions +together, and had pictured something handsome and sophisticated, bold +perhaps, and necessarily charming, but nothing like what he found; not +an ill-dressed, white-faced, ordinary-looking child-woman, whose great +grey eyes watched him with such wistful, apprehensive, piteous anxiety +that he turned away from their scrutiny with ill-concealed vexation. + +"I have come on an unpleasant errand," he went on, "and naturally feel +rather upset. But these unpleasant things must happen so long as men +are imprudent and women over anxious. Have you no one belonging to +you?--no one to advise you?" + +"Thank you," Jill answered drawing herself up proudly, "I do not want +advice." + +"So most young people think," he said irascibly; "but they do well to +accept it all the same. My son has been studying under you for some +time, I believe?" + +"Yes," replied Jill, "since last January." + +"And have you any more pupils?" + +"Not now; I had one other for a short time. But the locality is against +my forming an extensive connection." + +"And you and my son work here alone two mornings a week?" he continued +staring hard at her under his bushy brows, "_Entirely_ alone?" + +"Yes," she answered, and his tone brought the blood to her pale cheeks +in a great wave of colour; but she looked him steadily in the face +notwithstanding. It did not seem to occur to her to resent this cross +examination; she just listened to his queries and answered them as +though he had a right to catechise her, and she must of necessity reply. + +"Do you consider that altogether discreet, Miss Erskine?" he enquired. + +Jill flushed painfully again, and her breath came more quickly. It is +so easy to wound another's feelings that sometimes the inflicter of so +much pain hardly realises the anguish that he causes. + +"Mr St. John," the girl said quickly, speaking as though she were +anxious to say what she wished to, before her suddenly acquired courage +deserted her again, "I don't quite understand what it is you want with +me, and I can hardly believe that you have come here with no other +intention than that of insulting me. Your last question was an insult. +Do you think that I am in a position to be discreet entirely dependent +as I am on my own exertions? Art with the many does not pay well. But +I can assure you had your son been other than he is--a gentleman--I +should not, as you so graphically put it, have worked here with him two +mornings a week entirely alone." + +Mr St. John was rather taken aback; she was evidently not such a child +as she looked. + +"Excuse me," he said, "but you mistake me altogether. I know my son +thoroughly, and though I have never had the privilege of meeting you +before to-day, yet once seeing is quite sufficient to disabuse my mind +of any prejudice I may have entertained towards you. In speaking of +indiscretion I was thinking entirely of outside criticism." + +Jill smiled faintly, contemptuously, incredulously. She had him at a +disadvantage, and the knowledge gave her a gratifying sense of +superiority. + +"I am too insignificant a unit in this little world to excite criticism, +captious or the reverse," she answered. "I thought, myself, at first +that it wouldn't do, but have since been humbled into learning that my +actions pass unheeded by the outside world. A great many actions of +bigger people than myself pass unnoticed if they were only big-minded +enough to realise it. Humanity does not spend its time solely in +watching the doings of its neighbour; that is left for the little minds +who have nothing more important to occupy themselves with. But you +didn't come here to warn me of my indiscretion. Would you mind telling +me what the `unpleasant errand' is?" + +"No," he answered bluntly coming to the point. "I was merely anxious +not to be too abrupt. I want to induce my son to give up coming here, +and I can't persuade him. Will you?" + +He did not look at her, but drawing a cheque-book from his pocket with +unnecessary display placed it upon the table. Jill watched him +comprehensively, and the blood seemed to freeze in her veins as she did +so. + +"Why," she asked, and could have bitten out her tongue because the word +choked in her throat, "why should he give up coming?" + +"This is absurd," exclaimed Mr St. John. "Let us give over fencing and +understand one another. My son is infatuated--he generally is, by the +way, it is a failing of his,"--Jill felt this to be untrue even while he +said it, but she made no sign. "You, of course, are quite aware of his +infatuation? But, Miss Erskine, he is a beggar; he has nothing in the +world save what I allow him." + +"How degrading!" cried Jill. "I should have credited him with +possessing more manhood than that. Everyone should be independent who +can be." + +He smiled and tapped the cheque-book with his fingers. He fancied that +she would be sensible. + +"It would not be wise to marry a pauper, would it?" he queried. "For a +man who marries against his relative's wishes when he looks to them for +every penny, would be a pauper, without doubt." + +"No," Jill answered with unnatural quietness, "it would not be wise. I +don't think anyone would contradict that." + +"You would not yourself, for instance?" + +"Most certainly I should not." + +"Now we begin to understand one another," he resumed almost cheerfully. +He had greatly feared a scene; but she was so absolutely unemotional +that he felt relieved. + +"Personally, you will understand I should have no objection to you as a +daughter-in-law at all, only I have made other arrangements for my son, +arrangements so highly advantageous that it would be the height of folly +to reject them as he proposes doing. He must marry his cousin, the +young lady whose acquaintance, I learn, you have already made--" + +"What! The young lady with a soul above nature?" interrupted Jill, +thoroughly astonished, and for the first time off her guard. "Oh, he'll +never marry her." + +"Indeed he will; there is nothing else for him to do. You forget that I +can cut him off without a shilling, and will do so if he does not +conform to my wishes." + +"Yes," Jill acquiesced as though she were discussing something entirely +disconnected with herself, "Of course, I had forgotten that." + +"The long and the short of the matter is this, Miss Erskine, if you +insist upon encouraging my son in his mad infatuation you ruin his +prospects and do yourself no good; for I believe that you agreed that +you would not marry a pauper?" + +"No," she answered, staring stonily out of the window with a gaze which +saw nothing. "I would not marry a pauper; I don't think it would be +wise, and I don't think it would be right to do so." + +"A very sensible decision," returned Mr St. John, senior, approvingly. +"You have taken a great weight off my mind, my dear young lady; and I am +greatly indebted to you. How greatly you alone are in a position to +say," and he tapped the cheque-book again with reassuring delicacy, but +Jill did not notice the action and for once failed to follow the drift +of his speech. A dull, heavy, aching despair had fallen upon her which +she could not shake off. She seemed hardly to be listening to him now +and only imperfectly comprehended his meaning. + +"I am to understand then," Mr St. John resumed, straightening himself, +and looking about him with an urbane benevolence that was most +irritating, "that you will work in conjunction with us? Disillusion him +a little, and--" + +"Oh, stop!" cried Jill, with the first real display of feeling that she +had shown throughout the interview. "I cannot bear it. Do you think +that because I have adopted art as a profession that I have turned into +a lay figure and have no heart at all? You have robbed existence of its +only pleasure so far as I am concerned. Can you not spare me the rest? +I won't impoverish him by marrying him but I am glad that he loves me, +and I won't try to lessen his love--I can't do that." + +He regarded her with angry impatience, frowning heavily the while. It +was a try on--a diplomatic ruse, he considered; he had wondered rather +at her former impassiveness; but apparently she was not very quickwitted +and had been unprepared. + +"My dear Miss--Erskine," he exclaimed, endeavouring to adapt himself to +the new mood with but little success however, "you are too sensible +altogether to indulge in heroics. I don't wish to appear harsh, and I +am quite certain that you have your feelings like anyone else, but there +are Miss Bolton's feelings also to be taken into consideration, and, +though I greatly regret having myself to announce his dishonourable +behaviour, she has been engaged to my son for some months past." + +Jill stared at him in dumb, unquestioning anguish. Engaged! Perhaps +that had been the `something' he wished to communicate to her. He had +never, given her any reason to suppose otherwise; it had only been her +vanity that had led her to imagine what she had. + +"He has not behaved dishonourably," she answered with difficulty; "he +has never made love to me. It was you who told me that he cared; I did +not know." + +He looked surprised. + +"I am glad to learn that that is so," he said. "I had feared things had +gone further. And now, my dear young lady, I must apologise for the +intrusion, and will finish up this very unpleasant business as speedily +as possible." + +He opened the cheque-book and took up a pen to write with. + +"You will allow me," he began; but Jill took the pen quickly and +replaced it in the stand. She was white to the very lips, and trembled +all over like a person with the ague. + +"Go," she said hoarsely, "before I say what I might regret all my life. +My God! what have I done or said that you should take me for a thing +like that? Go, please; oh! go away at once." + +CHAPTER SEVEN. + +The climax had come. It had rushed upon her with an unexpectedness that +was overwhelming and had left her too stunned to even think connectedly. +Only the night before she had been so full of glad expectation, and now +everything seemed at an end and all the gladness vanished. She walked +unsteadily back to her old seat by the window, and fingered absently the +book St. John had sent. It was a new volume, and had been a gift; for +he had written her name on the fly leaf. The fact had given her +pleasure last night, now she wondered why he had done it, and laid the +book down again wearily, all her former interest gone. There were other +evidences of his gifts about the room in the shape of baskets once +containing fruit and flowers. The fruit had been all eaten, and the +flowers were dead; a bunch of them, fading fast, drooped in a vase upon +the table; the rest, dried and discoloured, with all their beauty +perished, were hidden away in Jill's little bedroom where only she could +see them, and recall the pleasure they had given; and from her exalted +position on on the bracket which she occupied alone, Clytie looked down +white, and pure, and pensive, seeming to understand. Oh! it was hard, +and cruel, and bitter,--all the more bitter, that the mistake had been +her own. She drew from the bosom of her frock St. John's brief note, +the note that had made her so happy, and read it again by the light of +her new understanding, `Don't worry about the lessons; I am enjoying the +holiday.' Perhaps he had meant it literally and not, as she had +imagined, penned the clause solely with a thoughtful desire to save her +anxiety. How vain she had been!--how mad! `I have something to say to +you which will not keep.' So vague a sentence, and yet she had fancied +that she had guessed his meaning rightly. He might have meant a hundred +things, and what more probable than the announcement of his engagement? + +Jill crouched by the window for the rest of the morning hugging this new +trouble which had dwarfed all the others into insignificance. At first +she was too dazed to feel anything much, then gradually the anguish of +mind grew keener until it seemed unbearable, and finally exhausted +itself by its own violence. After that came a lull, and then followed +resentment, fierce, active, healthy resentment that left absolutely no +room for any other emotion; resentment against her recent visitor, +angry, contemptuous, indignant; resentment against Miss Bolton of the +fiercely jealous order; but keenest of all resentment against St. John, +the cold, inflexible, heartsore resentment of wounded love. He ought to +have told her of his engagement; if not actually dishonourable it was +mean of him to have suppressed the fact when he must have seen that he +was becoming necessary to her, when he knew, too, that she was more +than, under the circumstances, she should have been to him; for that he +did care for her she did not doubt--infatuation his father had called +it, and it might be that he was right. At any rate St. John should have +left the Art School before it had grown too late. This feeling of anger +acted as a tonic to Jill; it braced her nerves and put her on her +mettle, so that she determined to face her trouble and conquer it, and +if possible show St. John what a poor opinion she had of him. But then +came the remembrance of her small debts and her poverty. It had been a +bad thing for her this acquaintance with St. John; she had not relied +sufficiently on herself. When he was gone the fee would cease, and she +had not sold any work for weeks. The last canvas that she had been +engaged upon before her illness, painting from a model St. John had +employed, stood against the wall unfinished and there were others ready +for sale but nowhere to dispose of them. In the afternoon she went +out--there was no time for holidays now--in search of a market, and +returned in the evening weary, footsore, miserable, having had no luck +at all with her canvasses, but--oh! the degradation to Jill's +artist-soul--having been obliged to accept as the only thing going an +order for half-a-dozen nightdress sachets--`pyjama bags' as the oily, +leering, facetious individual who had given her the commission called +them. + +"There was a run on 'em," he had added, "the swells like painted satin +things to keep their night-gear in." + +Jill had agreed to do the work, but she looked far from happy over it, +and very nearly cried as she turned to leave the shop. The facetious +individual had chucked her under the chin, and told her to `buck up,' +and he would look round and see if there wasn't something else he could +find her to `daub.' Then he winked at her, and Jill had broken away in +haste fearing that these overtures would lead to an embrace. And so she +reached home, and that night went early to bed, and Thursday ended +unhappily even as it had begun. + +The next morning when she rose, the feeling of anger was still +paramount. She had suffered so keenly yesterday that she did not think +it possible that she could feel any greater pain, and she found it +difficult to realise yet all that this sudden breaking with St. John +must mean. She steeled herself to meet her old pupil with composure +though she had not yet determined upon what she should say or do. At +first she had thought of writing and forbidding him ever to come to the +Art School again, but had subsequently rejected this plan as +impracticable; what reason had she to offer? She could not say on +account of your engagement, such an excuse would have placed her in a +false position, and given St. John a right to put what construction he +chose upon her motive. The only thing that remained for her was to +receive him, and by saying as little as possible convince him how +indifferent she was, and how very determined at the same time. And at +nine thirty sharp he arrived, clattering up the steep stairs like a +noisy schoolboy and marching through the open door straight into the +studio where Jill stood white and nervous, but outwardly calm, waiting +to receive him. There was a pleased, eager, confident air about him in +striking contrast to the chilling quiet of her manner, and he grasped +her hand before she could prevent him with a very hearty grip of genuine +sincerity. + +"This is good to see you about again," he began. Then he stopped short +struck by something in her face, and exclaimed anxiously. "Nothing the +matter I hope, Miss Erskine?" + +Jill was standing with her back to the light so that she had the +advantage of him that way; but St. John's sight was good and he detected +at once the suppressed agitation of her manner; though she, herself, was +unaware of it there was a whole life's tragedy in the depths of her grey +eyes. + +"No," she answered; "nothing beyond a trifling annoyance that I have +been subjected to lately, and which I have determined to put an end to +for good and all. It is absurd of course and really not worth +discussing, but these petty worries are even more trying than big ones." + +"If it is not worth discussion," he said, "we'll let it slide for to-day +at any rate. I have got so much to say that is worth discussing, that I +want to say it at once. I give you fair warning that I haven't come to +work." + +As a matter of fact there was no work put ready for him; but he had not +time to notice that. He was so boyish and impulsive, so gay and +self-complacent that her anger gathered strength from his sheer +light-heartedness. + +"Come and sit beside me on the stool by the window, Jill," he said, "and +then we can talk at our ease." + +It was the first time that he had addressed her by her Christian name, +and he glanced at her half smiling, half diffident, to see how she would +take it. + +"No," she answered coldly, "what I have to say can very well be said +where I am, and it will be as well to get through with it at once. You +will think it rather sudden no doubt after my note of Wednesday, but, as +I told you, I have been subjected to a great deal of annoyance lately +and what I experienced yesterday has decided me to put an end to the +existing state of affairs. I regret having to spring this upon you so +abruptly, and in the middle of a quarter too, but I wish you to +understand that I cannot teach you any longer, I wish you to leave this +Art School." + +St. John looked mystified and incredulous, he was astounded at her +request, at the cold precision of her voice, and the apathy of her +expression. He felt annoyed with her and not a little hurt. + +"May I enquire why you dismiss me thus suddenly?" he asked schooling +himself to keep his vexation in check. "I should like to know what has +induced you to act so precipitately." + +"No, you may not," Jill answered crossly; "I only took you on trial, +remember." + +"For a quarter yes, but then the probation was over, and it is hardly +etiquette to dismiss a pupil in the middle of a term without vouchsafing +any reason." + +"I consider it quite sufficient that I do dismiss you," Miss Erskine +responded. "We will not discuss the matter further, if you please." + +"Oh! yes, we will," he answered, his temper like her own beginning to +get the upper hand. "In fact I refuse to leave without an alleged +complaint before my term is expired; you are bound to give a proper +notice." + +"Not if I expel you," Jill retorted. + +"Expel me!" he scoffed. "What would you expel me for? You couldn't do +that without a reason." + +"But I have a reason." + +"A reason!" he repeated aghast, "a reason sufficient to expel me? What +reason pray?" + +"Making love to me." + +Silence followed--a depressing silence during which neither of them +moved. She had spoken in the heat of the moment, the next she could +have bitten out her tongue for her indiscretion. St. John stared at her +fully a minute. Then he smiled rudely. + +"Making love to you!" he repeated. "Absurd! I have never spoken a word +of love to you in my life." + +It was true; he had not, and Jill's cup of humiliation was full. What +had induced her to make such an egregious error? + +"You'll be running me in for breach of promise, I suppose?" he continued +ruthlessly. "Don't you think that you're a little--a little--well, +conceited to be so premature?" + +Jill turned upon him wrathfully. + +"How dare you speak to me like that?" she cried. "It is only what +people think. For myself it wouldn't have mattered whether you had made +love to me or not; I should soon have settled that." + +He changed from angry crimson to dead white, and gazed at her in hurt +displeasure. + +"You mean that?" he asked. + +"Certainly," she answered with vindictive and unnecessary emphasis, "I +am not in the habit of prevaricating." + +"Very well," he said in a tone of forced calm which contrasted ill with +the pained expression of his face, "I believe you. And under the +circumstances am quite of your opinion that further acquaintance had +better cease. It was a mistake my coming at all both for you and for +me. Good morning, Miss Erskine, and good-bye." + +He paused, thinking that perhaps her mood had been prompted by caprice, +and that she might relent yet and call him back; but she made no +movement at all beyond a bend of the head, and her voice was no kinder +when she wished him farewell. Then he went, striding down the stairs +and out into the street, resentful, angry, heartsore, little guessing +how very much greater was the unhappiness he had left behind him where +Jill, alone now in every sense of the word, stood battling with her +grief and her emotion, and trying to face the difficulties which seemed +crowding upon her on every side. She got out her satin work when he had +gone and started upon the sachets with eager haste, glad of the +miserable order now; for it kept her employed, and diverted the train of +her thoughts. And all that day she sat working, working feverishly, +dining, when the light failed so that she could see to paint no longer, +off a crust of bread, the best her larder had to offer--indeed the only +thing. + +The next morning by the early post she received a letter from St. John. +Her hand trembled so violently as she took it up that she could hardly +unfasten the envelope, but, finally tearing it open she withdrew the +contents, a sheet of notepaper with St. John's compliments inscribed +thereon, and enclosed within a cheque for the fee paid in full up to the +end of the present quarter. The cheque fell to the ground unheeded but +the sheet of paper Jill spread out on the table before her and then sat +staring at it as though she could not take it in. It was the first +brief missive of the sort that she had received; its very brevity +chilled her. "With Mr St. John's compliments." So he had accepted his +dismissal? It was better so, of course; but it was very hard to bear +all the same. + +CHAPTER EIGHT. + +It was the Tuesday following that miserable and never to be forgotten +Friday. Jill had been out in the morning to take back two of the +sachets which she had finished, but had brought them back to make some +alterations that the oily individual had pointed out to her in a +playfully amorous fashion; a circumstance that had put her into as bad a +temper as her grief stricken soul would allow. She sat on the red stool +before her easel working, not at the sachets--she was too disgusted to +touch them--but at her last canvas, with a lay figure posed in lieu of +the model she could no longer employ. When the sound of someone +mounting the stairs caused her heart to quicken its beating, and the +tell-tale colour to come and go in her cheeks. It was St. John, she +knew at once; very few men ascended those stairs, and only one with that +quick decision born of familiarity. He knocked before entering, a +ceremony that he had dispensed with altogether on class days when he had +been a student; he did not, however, wait for permission to enter, but +opened the door for himself. Jill's mouth hardened obstinately as she +glanced casually over her shoulder, and then, feigning not to see the +bunch of flowers that he brought and laid humbly on the table as a +peace-offering, went unmoved on with her work. She did not rise, did +not even offer a word of greeting. St. John spoke first, awkwardly, +deprecatingly, uncertain, what to make of her mood. + +"Good morning," he said hesitatingly, "I--I was passing and thought I +would call." + +"Passing here?" interposed Jill incredulously, "what a circuitous route +you must have taken to accomplish that." + +"Not at all," he answered, "you aren't so very out of the way. Besides +I wanted to come." + +"So I supposed," she retorted disagreeably. "But you might have saved +yourself the trouble; you were quite safe paying by cheque, you know." + +"What do you mean?" he asked. + +"Mean! Why haven't you called for your receipt? I own to having been +remiss in not sending it, but I had my reasons; and after all it was +only three days since, and a cheque is always pretty safe." + +"You know that I haven't called for that," he said angrily. "If I +thought you really believed me capable of such an act I would--" + +"Well, what?" she asked derisively. + +"I don't know," he answered lamely, "clear perhaps. I had forgotten +even that a receipt was customary, and certainly never looked for one +from you." + +"Nothing so business like, I suppose?" snapped Jill. "I should have +sent one though if I had not intended returning the cheque instead. I +have no right to that money; I turned you away at a moment's notice, you +did not leave of your own accord." + +"That's true enough," he ruefully agreed. "Nevertheless the money is +due to you; I received the tuition." + +"It is not due," replied Jill firmly. "You are making me a present of +it, Mr St. John, and I will not accept such a gift. There is your +cheque, take it back if you please." + +He took it from her, tore it savagely into pieces, and threw them on the +floor. + +"So be it," he answered wrathfully. "You must indeed be succeeding as +you deserve, to reject what you have lawfully earned." + +Jill went white as she generally did when in a rage, and favoured him +with a glance that he was not likely to forget in a hurry. + +"I have not earned it," she responded, "neither am I succeeding; two +facts which you are thoroughly well acquainted with. Does _that_ look +like success?" And she drew from the cardboard box the sachets she had +brought home again from the shop that morning, and threw them on the +table in front of him. "That's the kind of work that I have come to do, +and I daresay I shall sink lower yet;--Xmas cards no doubt. Oh! yes, I +have sunk pretty low. The man who gave me that order superintends the +work, and corrects errors of detail. He does not like female figures in +atmospheric drapery like those. He said the public wouldn't buy them +that way; a nude figure on a nightdress bag--he didn't use the word +nude, by the way, but plain vulgar English--was too suggestive, and +requested me to take them home and paint in a garment--`Just a small +one'--as though he were alluding to a vest. Ugh! it makes me sick--it +makes me _blush_. He wears his hair oiled, too," she continued +retrospectively, forgetting for the minute her resentment against St. +John in disgust at her latest patron, "and--further degradation--makes +love to me which for the sake of the miserable commission I dare not +resent." + +What followed was unpardonable on St. John's part but for the life of +him he could not resist retaliating for the thrusts that she had given +him. + +"Perhaps the last is a hallucination," he suggested ungenerously; "You +have a tendency to imagine that sort of thing you know." + +She eyed him for a moment in stony displeasure, then pointed imperiously +to the door. + +"You may consider that remark worthy of a gentleman, Mr St. John," she +said, "I don't. You will oblige me by leaving the studio at once; I--I +shall be rude to you if you don't." + +Her voice broke, and she turned to her work again abruptly, painting +with feverish haste as thought she had not a moment to lose. In two +strides St. John was behind her, and stooping he put his arms about her +with a swift movement for which she was entirely unprepared, and which +imprisoned her so firmly that she could not escape. + +"Rude to me if you like," he cried; "but not unkind, Jill--never any +more." + +Jill had dropped her utensils, and the palette lay paint side downwards +on the floor. She put her small hands on St. John's wrists and tried to +free herself from his embrace, but the attempt was ineffectual, his arms +Only tightened round her, and his face bent lower until it was on a +level with her own. She looked into his eyes and read in them a +laughing mastery that defied her efforts to escape, and, even while it +angered her, set her pulses leaping in a wild excitement that was half +fear, half gladness. She breathed quickly, and pulled at his wrists +again. + +"Let me go," she whispered. "How dare you touch me?" + +But he only laughed in answer and held her closer to him, and for the +first time Jill felt his warm kisses on her lips. + +"It's not a bit of good," he said; "you can't get away. I feel as +though I could hold you to my heart for ever. You expelled me for a +fault that I was not guilty of; I am now going to justify your +accusation. Jill, Jill, you foolish child, what are you thinking? +Don't shrink away like that, dear. I love you, my darling, my little +independent, high-spirited girl. I love every tone of your voice, every +fresh mood, wound and vex me though they may at the time. Jill will you +marry me?" + +"No," Jill answered with curt abruptness. He shook his head at her +reprovingly, but looked not the least whit disconcerted. + +"Oh! yes, you will," he returned with confidence; "you must if I have to +carry you all the way to the Church in my arms like this. I can't let +you go again; these last four days have been unbearable. Answer me +truly, haven't you found them so too, dear?--just a little sad and +lonely, eh Jill?" + +"Stand back," she cried still struggling futilely to shake him off. +"You are mad to talk to me the way you are doing, and I should be worse +than mad to listen." + +"Oh! no, you wouldn't," he replied with gay audacity. "You can't help +listening, sweetheart, any more than you can prevent my kissing you. +Come, Jill, end this farce and be candid. Is it pique, dear, or what? +Why won't you own that you care for me? I know you do." + +"Yes. Oh, my God, yes!" she answered, and she broke into violent sobs. +"I wish from my heart that I could answer truthfully that I do not." + +He was startled at her outburst, and drew back in consternation letting +his hands fall to his sides. She was free enough now, but she hardly +seemed to realise the fact and made no attempt to rise. + +"Jill," he exclaimed, "what is it? What has happened, dear? Won't you +tell me?" + +But Jill only buried her face in her hands and sobbed on. She would +have given anything to have preserved her composure throughout this +interview; but once having broken down there was no stemming the +torrent; the flood must have its way, and a regular deluge it proved. +St. John watched her uneasily for a while, then unable to stand it +longer he went up to her again, and putting his arm around her neck, +tried to draw her hands away. In a moment she was on her feet facing +him, grief changed to indignation, scorn and anger in her eyes, while +the tear drops glistened still upon her flushed cheeks, and trembled wet +and sparkling on her lashes. + +"Don't come near me," she panted; "your touch is hateful to me--keep +away, do you hear?" + +"Don't worry yourself, my dear girl," he retorted a trifle impatiently +it must be confessed. "I have no wish to approach any nearer; indeed +I'd rather remain where I am. If you would only tell me what it is all +about, instead of flying off at a tangent we might arrive at a better +understanding. Have I done anything to forfeit your regard?" + +"Yes," she answered petulantly, "you know you have." + +"Should I ask for information which I had already?" he questioned +coolly. "Information moreover which is presumably hardly creditable to +myself. What is the something, please?" + +Jill looked at him coldly, but he bore her scrutiny well. He was grave, +but he certainly did not appear apprehensive, nor was he in the least +embarrassed or perturbed. + +"What is the something?" he repeated. "I think I have a right to know." + +But Jill seemed to find a difficulty in answering, or a disinclination +to do so; for she drew herself up and remained silent, an angry spot of +colour in either cheek. St. John tapped the floor impatiently with his +boot. + +"Come, come," he cried, "this is childish to accuse a fellow of some +possibly imaginary wrong, and not give him the chance of refuting it. +What heinous offence do you fancy me guilty of? Robbing a bank? I +haven't I assure you." + +He was turning her doubts of him to ridicule which only angered her the +more. There was a gleam of amusement in his eyes and his moustache +twitched ever so slightly. + +"What! sceptical of that even?" he continued ironically. "So it's my +honesty that's called into question, eh?" + +"Yes," Jill flashed back with a fierceness born of wounded pride, "your +honesty, Mr St. John. Is it honest of you to come and make love to me? +No, you know it is not, it is dishonourable, despicable--" + +"Stop a bit," he interrupted with a quietness and control which +surprised himself; "don't let us lose ourselves in a labyrinth of +adjectives, and so get away from the main subject altogether. Why is it +dishonourable for me to make love to you? For, though you will insist +to the contrary, I am absolutely ignorant of any prohibitive reason." + +"That is impossible," Jill replied, and he flushed at her want of faith +in his veracity. "But as you are determined to keep your counsel until +you discover how much I know I had better speak out I suppose. You are +not free to propose matrimony to me." + +St. John's eyebrows went up with a jerk. + +"Indeed!" he said. "Your statement is news to me, so also is the very +low idea you have formed of my character. In what way am I not free? +Do you mean that there is someone else?" + +Jill nodded; she could find no words. + +"And the lady's name?" he questioned in peremptory tones. + +"Miss Bolton," she answered with a visible effort. "I have recently +learnt from unquestionable authority that you have been engaged to your +cousin for some months." + +St. John started, pulled thoughtfully at his moustache for a moment, and +then looking up sharply,-- + +"The name of your informant?" he asked. + +"Never mind that," Jill answered, "my informant was in a position to +know. I have tried to but cannot doubt the assertion." + +"And yet you seem to find it easy enough to doubt mine," he said. + +She made no reply; and striding up to her he caught her by the shoulders +and transfixed her with a gaze at once stern and reproachful. + +"Speak," he exclaimed. "I will know who is the lying, interfering +mischief-maker who has spread such abominable reports about me." + +Jill swayed slightly in his grip, and her glance met his in wide-eyed +questioning as though she would read his very soul. + +"Ah!" she cried, "if it were false! if it were only false!" + +"The name?" he repeated impatiently, and almost shook her in his +excitement. She hesitated still for a minute, then the answer came +unwillingly, more as though his glance compelled the truth than that she +gave it voluntarily. + +"It was your father," she half-whispered, and her eyes sought the floor +and stayed there as though she dreaded reading what she might see in his +face. + +He stared at her for a moment, then he pushed her from him with a laugh. + +"Unquestionable authority certainly," he said moodily, and laughed +again. Jill remained motionless watching him, uncertain whether he +intended denying the allegation or not, and he stood opposite in a +towering rage glowering back at her with his brows drawn together in the +old bad-tempered scowl. + +"I suppose," he went on after a pause, "that he communicated this +intelligence to you between the time of your writing to me and my first +appearance at the art school after your illness?" + +"Yes," she replied, "on the Thursday." + +"That accounts for your inexplicable bad temper that Friday," he resumed +unpleasantly. + +"Information from such a source must certainly have been convincing, far +more convincing than my contradiction. But did it not strike you to +doubt the authenticity of the signature?" + +"It was a word of mouth communication," Jill answered coldly, "Mr St. +John honoured me with a visit." + +"He came here?" repeated her hearer aghast. "My father? Impossible!" + +"It does sound rather improbable I admit," agreed Jill. "It was going +to a great deal of trouble over a small matter, wasn't it?--when a penny +postage stamp would have done as well. But he seemed more concerned +about it than either you or I. Was it likely, do you think, that I +should question his statement? Had there been no truth in it why should +he have bothered?" + +"The only reason I can think of," answered St. John, "was that he merely +anticipated his desire. But for you I can find no excuse, not even one +so flimsy as that. Why should you place perfect reliance on the word of +a man you did not know, and, putting the worse possible construction on +my actions, refuse to give me even the chance of justifying myself?" + +"I don't know," retorted Jill ungraciously. "Looked at from your point +of view I suppose it appears monstrous, but from my point it seems +natural enough. I had no reason to doubt your father's word, and, as +you, yourself, informed me that morning you had never spoken a word of +love to me in your life. There was no necessity for you to mention your +engagement; men not infrequently prefer to conceal the fact from girls +of inferior social standing--" + +"Stop," he cried, angrily. "This is too much. I could have forgiven +the rest, but you go too far." + +"I didn't know that I had entreated your forgiveness," she said with a +smile which mocked his indignation. "`I love every tone of your +voice,'" she mimicked, "`every fresh mood, wound and vex me though they +may at the time.' You have a strange way of showing your affection, Mr +Saint John, an admirable way of disguising it, I should say." + +St. John looked furious, and his tormentor continued relentlessly. + +"Or is it that now it is wounding and vexing you? To-morrow, I suppose, +you will be enamoured of all that I have said and done to-day?" + +Then, her mood changing abruptly as the love in her heart reproached her +for doubting and vexing him as she had, she went up to the table and +buried her face shyly in the flowers he had brought. + +"Go away now, my dear Saint," she whispered, "and come to-morrow +instead; for I like you enamoured best." + +But St. John was angry still, and not so ready to be propitiated. His +hat lay on the table where he had placed it near the flowers, and Jill's +hand rested beside it--her fingers touching the brim, it may have been +by accident though it looked more like design. + +"I think I _had_ better go," he agreed, reaching out for it; "your +opinion of me is not easy to forget, and--" + +He had taken hold of his hat; but Jill's small fingers had closed upon +the brim on the other side, and kept their hold determinedly. + +St. John desisted at once; it was incompatible with his dignity to +struggle over his headgear. + +"At your pleasure, Miss Erskine," he said. + +"It's very strange," mused Jill in a tone of innocent speculation; "do +you know that until to-day I had always considered you handsome? What a +difference it makes to a face whether it is smiling or glum." + +"One can't keep up a perpetual grin," he retorted, but his countenance +relaxed a little despite his effort to appear unmoved, and seeing her +advantage she followed it up, turning a scene which had been growing +painfully strained into a comedy by her deft handling of the situation. + +"No; not unless it is natural to one, which is even a greater +affliction. I once heard of a man who had his nose broken for laughing +at a quarrelsome individual in the street. As a matter of fact he +wasn't laughing; it was only that Nature had endowed him with a +perpetual and unavoidable grin. But you are not at all likely to get +your nose broken from a similar cause." + +"I should hope not," he returned with disagreeable emphasis. + +"Is mine on my face still?" enquired Jill putting up her hand to feel. +"Why! it actually is. Funny, but I thought you had snapped it off. It +is there, isn't it?" + +She went quite close to him and held up her face for inspection with a +look in her eyes that St. John would have been more than human, or at +any rate not genuinely in love, had he resisted. He made no attempt to; +he just took the small face between his two hands and kissed it. And +then they sat down together on the twill covered box to spoon a little, +and afterwards talk matters over from a practical, common sense view, as +Jill declared; though it would have been more sensible had they left the +spooning and talked matters over first. + +CHAPTER NINE. + +"I wonder," mused St. John, stroking Jill's tumbled hair with his right +hand, and holding both hers in his left, "why the governor should have +come here and told you what he did? It was putting us all in such a +false position, and--well, I should have considered it an act altogether +beneath him." + +Jill sighed and nestled unconsciously a little closer to him. + +"Can't we forget all that for to-day," she asked, "and just think only +of our two selves? I quite believe you when you say that you are not +engaged to your cousin. I think I believed it all along only I was so +horribly jealous. I'm jealous still, jealous that she can see you when +I can't, and that she has a right to call you Jack--" + +"But you have got that right too," he interrupted, "a better right than +she has. You will call me Jack, won't you? I call you Jill." + +She laughed. + +"Doesn't it put you in mind of the nursery rhyme?" she said. "I never +thought of it before." + +"Yes; let's see, how does it go? We must alter it a little to fit the +case, `Jack and Jill went up the hill to--' we can't say `fetch a pail +of water.'" + +"In search of fame together," put in Jill. + +"Ah, yes! Jack and Jill went up the hill In search of fame together, +Jack fell down and broke his crown, And--" + +"No," interrupted Jill, "I won't come tumbling after. You can say that +I went on alone." + +"But that's so unkind," he objected; "besides it doesn't rhyme." + +"Oh! well," she answered after a pause devoted to thinking out a finish +to the verse, "put, `But Jill goes climbing ever.' That rhymes, and +it's true; I'm not going to stop in the valley trying to haul you up." + +"You're a disagreeable little prig," he exclaimed. "I should as likely +as not be obliged to haul you." + +"And I daresay you could manage that," she answered rubbing her cheek +against his coat sleeve; "you're big enough goodness knows. I should +like to be hauled up and have no more climbing to do, Jack; it would be +such a change. But that's too good to come true I'm afraid, it will +always be more kicks than coppers it seems to me." + +"What do you mean?" asked St. John in astonishment. "There will be no +more kicks, Jill, when you are once married to me; I shall take all +those." + +Jill went on caressing his coat sleeve vigorously, and her hand pressed +his with tender warmth. + +"We shall never marry, Jack," she said; "we can't." + +"Why?" he asked amazed. + +"Because we can't live on love, dear; I never did like sweet things +much, and you don't like bread and cheese, and stout. I don't much +either; but I have to go in for it; it's cheap. Only now I do without +the stout--and the cheese also the last day or two." + +"But, darling," he exclaimed, not quite certain whether she was joking +or not, "you are making troubles where they don't exist. There will be +no need to live on bread and cheese and affection--though I should be +equal to that even if necessary--I have five hundred a year from my +father, and he has promised to increase it when I marry." + +"Providing you marry your cousin," Jill interposed. "He would certainly +decrease it if you married me. Oh! I know quite well all about it. +You forget that he called upon me; he told me so then. And though you +love me and I love you we shouldn't be such fools, Jack, as to marry on +nothing." + +St. John looked glum. He entertained no doubt that his father had +resolved upon this plan of deterring him from marrying the girl he +wished to, and he determined to thwart him if possible. + +"We could get married, and I could come and live here," he suggested +brilliantly, "and we could work together; that would be jolly." + +Jill smiled at this proposal but shook her head decisively. + +"It's no good; it wouldn't answer," she said. "We should fight +dreadfully in a month, and then the models would get smashed. And you'd +never earn anything at painting, you know; your pictures always require +explaining, and your figures are atrocious. I can't think why you will +persist in going in for the human form divine; it's most difficult; for +any fool can see when a figure's out of drawing except the one who draws +it, and you never will learn that green isn't a becoming tint for flesh +even in the deep shadows." + +St. John heaved a sigh which seemed to proceed from the bottom of his +boots. He was too genuinely despondent to resent her slighting +criticism of his abilities, or too well aware of its truth perhaps. He +rose impatiently, and walked restlessly up and down trying to think. +Jill watched him, her own brows knit in a hopeless attempt to solve the +difficulty. + +"This is a pretty kettle of fish," he exclaimed swinging round so +suddenly that he nearly upset the model. "I'm hanged if I see what we +are to do." + +"My dear boy," remonstrated Jill in tones of apprehension, "do mind the +lay figure. I am trying to finish this canvas with its sole aid," +pointing to the work that she had been engaged upon at his entry--a +female figure recumbent on a night rainbow. "I can't possibly employ a +model, unless perhaps for a final sitting when I know that I shall see +so many mistakes it will be a case of repainting it." + +Then St. John had a happy inspiration. + +"Wouldn't I do?" he asked in all good faith. "I'm bigger, of course; +but I'd be better than a lay figure, and I don't mind posing for you a +bit." + +Jill broke into a laugh, the first laugh of thorough enjoyment that she +had had for days. + +"Ye gods!" she cried, "what next I wonder?" Then she got up and put her +two arms about his neck. + +"Dear old boy," she said gratefully, "I believe you'd stand on your head +if I wanted you to. But no, dear, I won't pose you as `The Shepherd's +Delight,' I'm sore afraid you wouldn't do at all." + +Well the end of it all was that Jill absolutely refused to marry St. +John on the understanding that they should pick up a precarious +livelihood by their combined artistic efforts, though she was quite +willing that he should speak to his father again on the subject if he +deemed it of any use. She also thought that Miss Bolton should be +apprised of what had taken place, and for the rest things would go on +just as usual, only he would attend the Art School again, and, as he +himself stipulated, pop in as often as he chose. Then Jill went and put +her hat on at his request, and they strolled out to lunch somewhere, and +afterwards spent the rest of the day as they liked, which wasn't among +pictures as one would have imagined from two such lovers of art. In the +first place St. John drove to a jewellers and placed a handsome +solitaire ring on the third finger of Jill's left hand, then they +attended a matinee at one of the theatres, and in the evening he took +her to Frascatti's to dinner. There were several men there whom he knew +and saluted in passing. They bowed back and stared hard at the dowdy +little girl he escorted, wondering where he had unearthed her, and why? +That night Jill tasted champagne for the first time, and its effect upon +her spirits was decidedly exhilarating. She liked champagne, she said, +and St. John laughed at the naivete of both manner and remark. When he +asked her where she would like to finish up the evening she suggested a +Music Hall; for there one could talk while the performance was going on. +So they drove to Shaftsbury Avenue, and St. John got one of the +comfortable little curtained boxes at the Palace where one can enjoy the +stage if one wishes to, or sit back and not pay any attention to it at +all. Jill liked the Living Pictures best. She almost forgot in the +delight of watching that they were actually animate and not marvellously +painted canvasses by some master hand. But St. John rather spoiled the +effect by remarking that they were `leggy,' whereat she told him that he +was horrid; nevertheless she noticed how very quietly the house received +these artistic representations; but it was the quietness of appreciation +had she known it--the appreciation which enjoys, yet with a very common +mock modesty fears to be detected enjoying. Jill glanced at her lover +as he sat back watching her instead of the stage with a smile of quiet +amusement on his face. + +"They are lovely, Jack," she said. "I should like to carry them all +home in reality as I shall in my mind's eye. But this is the wrong +audience to exhibit such things to." + +And St. John agreed with her, though he was by no means certain as to +the soundness of her logic, but he would have agreed to anything just +then; he was in the idiotic, inconsequent stage of love sickness, and +had got it fairly badly. + +When the Music Hall was over he suggested a late supper somewhere, but +Jill was firm in her refusal; so they drove straight to her lodgings +where St. John alighted and opened the door for her, and embraced her +several times in the dirty passage before he finally allowed her to shut +him out and go on up to her room. And that night she fell asleep with +her cheek pressed to the diamond ring, and a smile of perfect happiness +parting her lips. + +The next morning Jill went to work on the sachets again, though it was +with the utmost difficulty that she managed to concentrate her thoughts +upon anything at all save Jack and the new ring. As it was, her ideas +kept wandering, and she caught herself every now and again breaking off +into song--snatches of Music Hall choruses that she had heard the night +before. And then in the midst of it in walked St. John, and seeing what +she was doing he took the satin away from her in his masterful fashion, +and crumpled it up in his hands before her horrified gaze. + +"You said that the smirking idiot who gave you these to do made love to +you," he said. "I won't brook any oily rivals of that description." + +Jill laughed. She rather enjoyed the idea of his being jealous. + +"I thought you said that that was a hallucination," she retorted. "I +was almost prepared to believe you and to think that the next time he +chucked me under the chin, or put his arm round my waist that it was +only my vivid imagination." + +"He did that?" cried St. John fiercely. + +"Oh, dear! yes; several times." + +"Give me his address," commanded her lover. "I'll stop his love-making +propensities. Where does this greasy Lothario hang out?" + +But Jill was too discreet to say. + +"I forget," she answered lamely; "I never was good at locality. Don't +look so savage, Jack; he only chucked me under the chin once, and I +washed my face well directly I got back, indeed I did; I scrubbed so +hard that I rubbed the skin off, I remember, and it was sore for two +days." + +"You ought to have returned the work at once," grumbled St. John. "I am +surprised at your taking it after that." + +"Surprised!" she repeated. "You wouldn't have been so astonished had +you lived for a few days on a stale crust, and expected to dine the next +off the crumbs if by good luck there happened to be any crumbs left." + +"Oh! Jill," he exclaimed, "I'm a brute dear. Has it ever been as bad +as that, my poor little girl?" + +Jill nodded affirmatively, and then let her head recline contentedly +against his shoulder, glad to nestle within the comforting security of +his strong arms, and feel that there she could find both shelter and +defence. + +"Have you told your father yet?" she asked a little nervously. + +"No, dear," he answered. Then added quickly, "I will some time to-day, +though." + +"Yes," she said, "don't put it off any longer; I think that he ought to +know; and yet I feel somehow that his knowing will put an end to all +this pleasant fooling. Oh! Jack, I'm such a horrid little coward, I +know I am." + +She lifted her face, and he saw that she was laughing even though the +tears stood in her eyes. + +"If you feel like that," he said tenderly, kissing the upturned face, +"why not get married first and tell him afterwards?" + +"Oh! Jack, fie," she cried; "you are turning coward too." + +"Not I," he contradicted stoutly, then added with a smile, "I think I am +though; I'm so terribly afraid of your slipping through my fingers, you +eel." + +"Oh, you dear!" whispered Jill softly. "It _is_ nice to have someone +wanting you so badly as all that. I won't slip through though; I am far +too comfortable where I am." + +CHAPTER TEN. + +The following day, St. John entered the studio with a face the gravity +of which boded no good for their plans, Jill feared. She knew at once +that his father had refused to countenance the match, and although she +had not dared to hope for his sanction, the knowledge that he had +positively denied it came upon her with a sense of shock. Not for one +moment did she think of resenting his objection, nor of questioning his +right to forbid the marriage, she just crept within the shelter of St. +John's arms and stayed there, her face, with its flush of mortification, +hidden against his breast. + +"The governor's a silly old fool," St. John exclaimed savagely, thinking +less, perhaps, of the girl's discomfort than his own personal +grievances. "He's cut me off with nothing--at least five hundred +pounds; he gave me a cheque for that amount before giving me the kick +out." + +"We won't take it," Jill cried wrathfully with the improvident contempt +of the penniless, "We won't touch a farthing of it, will we?" + +"Oh; yes, we will," he answered. "We'll get married on it in the first +place, and then live on the rest for so long as it will last." + +"I wouldn't get married on that five hundred pounds for anything," Jill +said firmly. + +"Well, I'm going to," he replied, "I'm going to see about it now. We'll +go before a Registrar--much nicer than Church, you know, doesn't take so +long. And then I'm going to invest the rest with a little capital that +I have by me in a snug little business--haberdashery, or something of +the kind; I'm not quite sure what, though I thought about nothing else +all last night." + +Jill gave a quiet laugh. + +"My dear old boy," she said, "you must allow me a say in that matter if +you please. I wouldn't let you have a haberdashery; I'd sooner that you +were a pork butcher at once." + +"No good," he answered. "I've thought of that too; but I couldn't kill +a pig for love or money. I could measure out a yard or two of ribbon +though, and sell worsted stockings to old women. I say, Jill, what do +you think of a photographic studio?--That's the next best thing to art." + +Jill had a fine contempt for photography, and said so, but St. John was +rather taken with the new idea, and as he pointed out while he did the +mechanical work she could paint portraits and enlargements, and have a +kind of Art Gallery as well. He spoke with a cheery confidence that +showed that he fully expected her to fall in with his plan immediately +and be struck as he was with the brilliance of the idea. But for once +Jill's spirit seemed to have deserted her, and she turned away with a +catch in her voice, and quite a forlorn expression in the grey eyes +which a moment ago had been smiling into his. + +"Oh, Jack, don't!" she cried. "I can't bear to listen to you. My poor +old saint, I wish that you had never met me." + +"Stop that," commanded St. John sharply. "You make me feel such a +beastly cad--the son of a beastlier cad--" + +She turned and laid her hand upon his lips, shaking her head at him +reprovingly. + +"Your language isn't fit for a stable," she said in her elder sister, +teacher-to-pupil tone. "I can't have you calling people names here. +Besides what I said need not have excited your risability like that. I +meant it in all sincerity; it is a pity as things have turned out; I was +quite happy here working by myself, and got along fairly comfortably, +and I think now that we have had our pleasant fooling and the crisis is +reached I should like to offer you your freedom." + +"Thank you," he answered grimly, and he stood looking down from his six +feet of brawny manhood upon the small determined figure in front of him +busily engaged in withdrawing the ring--her sole article of jewellery-- +from the third finger of her left hand. She held the shining circlet, +emblem of their mutual love, towards him with a smile upon her lips, but +he made no attempt to take it though he understood the significance of +her action well enough. + +"Wouldn't you like to keep it to wear on the other hand?" he enquired +sarcastically. "It isn't etiquette, I know; but ladies do it sometimes, +I believe." + +"But your freedom?" Jill persisted, still holding the ring before his +eyes. "Won't you take that?" + +"Oh, certainly," he replied disagreeably, "but _that_ doesn't constitute +my freedom, does it?" with a contemptuous glance at the small golden +hoop in her hand. + +"No, I suppose not," the girl answered in a voice of such blank +disappointment that St. John grinned despite his ill-humour; her +lugubrious expression aroused his mirth. Jill saw nothing to laugh at. +The situation had assumed for her quite a tragic aspect, and her eyes +blazed with a very wrathful light as she gazed witheringly up into his +broadly smiling face. + +"I don't see," she observed icily, "that my remark called for any +violent ebullition of mirth. I wasn't aware that I had said anything +funny. Is there insanity in your family?" + +"Not that I know of," he replied, taking possession of both ring and +hand as he spoke, and keeping his hold despite her angry attempt to free +herself. "'Pon my word, Jill, you're enough to try a fellow's patience. +You deserved to be taken at your word just now, and didn't expect to +be, that's the joke. And now I've got to put this ring back in its +place, I suppose. The next time that you take it off for the childish +satisfaction of dangling it an inch from my nose I shall keep it and +give it to some other girl." + +"Miss Bolton perhaps?" remarked Jill in her nastiest tone. + +"Don't you think it would be better," he suggested without looking at +her, "to leave Evie's name out of our disputes?" + +"I don't know whether you consider it gentlemanly," Jill cried fiercely, +"to try and make me feel mean?" + +"I'm glad if I have succeeded in making you feel it," he answered +imperturbably, patting the ring in place, and slowly releasing her hand, +"for you certainly are mean. Your meanness is, in fact, only to be +equalled by your bad temper and that exceeds it. I am not blind to your +faults you may observe; they are as plentiful as flies in summer, and +equally irritating." + +"And to think," exclaimed Jill in exasperation, "that I was going to +give you up just for your personal benefit! I won't now; if you try to +back out of it I'll have you up for breach of promise." + +"You will, will you? Jove! I almost believe you would. And you'd win +your case too, for if you looked as belligerent as you do at present the +jury would be afraid to give it against you. It isn't a bit of use, +Jill, getting nasty; I'm in such an angelic frame of mind myself that +not even you could put me out. Get your hat on, old girl, and let's go +and look for our shop together. We are going to become public +benefactors, and hand down to posterity the idealised representatives of +the present generation." + +Jill smiled scornfully. + +"I am sorry for the idealisation if you are going to operate; they'll be +more like caricatures I'm thinking. What do you know about +photography?" + +"Know about it!" echoed St. John indignantly. "Why I've got a camera of +my own; Evie and I used to dabble a good deal in photography at one +time." + +"It strikes me that you _dabbled_ in a great many things," retorted +Jill. "Perhaps that accounts for the very indifferent manner in which +you do everything. If you are counting on your amateur efforts solely, +I fear we shall end in the bankruptcy court." + +"Jill," he said very gravely, and in such an altered tone that Jill +looked up in surprise, "are you afraid to throw in your lot with mine +now that my circumstances are almost as destitute and uncertain as your +own?" + +Jill gave a gasp. For a moment she looked as if about to offer an +indignant protest, the next she dissolved into tears. St. John's +half-formed suspicions faded immediately. His father had planted them +in his mind the night before. He had said "tell her that you are +penniless and see how sincere her love will prove." The girl's +uncertain mood had recalled the words to his memory but he knew as soon +as he had spoken by the look in her eyes that he had entirely misjudged +her. + +"How can you say such unkind things?" she cried. "I believe you are +trying to make me hate you." + +"Darling," he said contritely, slipping his arm about her, and holding +her closely to him, "forgive me; I didn't mean it, indeed I didn't." + +"You did," sobbed Jill. "You thought that I had been running after you +as a good speculation--" + +"Don't, dear," he entreated, "you make me feel so ashamed of myself." + +"And so you ought to," she answered, drying her eyes on the corner of +her painting apron, and looking up at him with a very woebegone face. +"I shall never forget that, I'm afraid; I have a horrid memory for cruel +things, and I have loved you so truly all the time. I would go through +a dozen bankruptcy courts with you, and--and--and end up in the +work-house even sooner than lose you now." + +She dropped her head again with a fresh burst of tears, and St. John +felt as intensely miserable as it is possible for a man to feel, +intensely ashamed of himself also for giving voice to such an unjust +suspicion. He racked his brains in search of something soothing, but +the only thing he could find to say was,-- + +"Don't keep hitting a fellow when he's down, Jill." + +It wasn't a very brilliant, nor a very original remark, but it was the +very luckiest thing he could have hit upon. Its effect on Jill was +marvellous; she recollected what she might have remembered sooner, that +he had been passing through very stormy times lately, and all on her +account. A man does not generally relish breaking with his family and +throwing up a luxurious home for the doubtful prospect of earning his +own living when he has not been brought up to any profession, and hasn't +a superabundance of capital to launch him into a going concern. St. +John had certainly not relished it, but he had made no complaint and had +met his ill fortune with a cheerfulness and pluck which did him infinite +credit. Jill mopped her eyes again vigorously and put both arms around +his neck. + +"I have been horrid," she said; "I have done nothing but worried you +ever since you came, and you were worried enough before. Jack dear, I'm +afraid we shall quarrel dreadfully after we are married. I really am +bad-tempered, and you are not--not altogether amiable, are you?" + +St. John laughed. + +"I don't care," he said, "so long as we make it up again. Rows are like +hills in cycling, beastly at first, but when you're used to 'em a flat +road seems dreadfully monotonous." + +Jill saw very little of her fiance during the next week. He was busy +looking for something to do! for she had declared that until he found +permanent occupation their marriage must be postponed; she was not going +to take such a serious plunge on the strength of the five hundred +pounds. St. John acknowledged the wisdom of her decision but chafed at +the delay. Having been ejected from the paternal roof he was anxious to +have a home of his own, and more than anxious to see Jill at the head of +his frugal board. He was not quite sure how Jill existed; it worried +him rather to think of her poverty; but she would take no assistance +from him. Once he deprecatingly offered her a ten pound note which she +however firmly refused. She would not allow him to support her until he +had the right to do so. + +"Don't you think that that's rather straining at a gnat?" he said. + +"Perhaps," she answered smiling. "But you would not like to think that +your coming had lessened my pride and independence, and made me lazy and +unselfreliant, would you? If I actually need assistance I will come to +you, dear old boy." + +And so he had gone forth in search of a livelihood more than ever +anxious for the ceremony to come off, and not a little eager to commence +the new life of independence and hard work. St. John had a friend who +knew everything. There is a difference between a man who knows +everything and the man who thinks he does; St. John's friend was the +right sort, and he put him in the way of the very thing he was looking +for. A photographer of the firm of Thompkins and Co, having recently +dissolved partnership through the Co, setting up for himself was +advertising through the regular channels for a new partner. St. John's +friend having some slight acquaintance with Thompkins introduced the +two, and eventually St. John invested his capital and returned to the +studio in triumph to inform Jill with much pride and satisfaction that +he represented the Co in "Thompkins and Co.--photographers." + +CHAPTER ELEVEN. + +"And now, Mrs St. John, I think we'll go and have lunch," Jill's new +husband remarked as they stood together outside the Registrar's office, +the sun shining brightly on the two faces, his quietly amused, hers a +little grave and wondering at the importance of the now irrevocable step +which they had taken. At the sound of her new name Jill smiled. "It +will be our wedding breakfast," she said. + +"So it will. We'll have fizz and go a buster--a man doesn't get married +every day. I didn't sleep a wink last night, Jill for thinking of it." + +Jill hadn't slept either. In morbid retrospection, half sweet, half +painful, she had spent the night in the empty studio--empty because St. +John had had every stick of hers removed to her new home, even to the +remains of the Clytie that he had broken, and which had been carefully +preserved among Jill's other treasures as too sacred to be thrown away. +She looked up at him, the memory of all his thoughtfulness adding an +increased tenderness to the loving smile that chased the momentary +sadness from her face. + +"You're a goose, my big boy," she said slipping her hand through his arm +as she spoke with a very unwonted display of affection. "And how nice +to feel that you are my boy--my very own. No one can part us now, Jack; +not all the spiteful machinations of the tyrannical, disagreeable, +up-to-date parent can come between you and me, dear, nor alter the fact +that we are man and wife." + +"That's true," replied St. John with mock resignation. "There's no +getting out of it edgeways; for there is a helpless finality about +matrimony that carries its own conviction. Jill, my dear, you look +uncommonly nice in that gown." + +Jill laughed contentedly. He had told her that three times already but +she had not the least objection to hearing him say it again. She patted +the grey folds of her dress with her grey-gloved hand, and tried to get +a glimpse of herself in the shop windows as they passed. It was a very +simple costume, and a very serviceable one in light tweed. She had +managed to dispose of some work lately and had felt justified in being a +little extravagant; though the extravagance had not gone further than +buying the necessary materials; her own busy fingers had fashioned the +costume with the aid of experience and a paper pattern, and the result +was highly satisfactory and very creditable from the top of the smart +little toque to the soles of her neat new walking-shoes. + +"Where shall we go?" enquired Jill serenely. + +"To Frascatti's," he answered, and to Frascatti's they went accordingly. +St. John ordered a very recherche little lunch although he was fully +aware that even in small matters it was necessary to practise the +strictest economy, but, as he argued in answer to Jill's expostulations, +it was out of all reason to expect a man to be economical on his wedding +day. + +"I'm afraid it's out of all reason to expect you to be economical at +all, my dear saint," remarked his wife sweetly, slowly withdrawing her +gloves, and regarding her very new wedding ring with marked complacency. +"I shall have to keep the purse, that's evident, and dole you out an +allowance." + +"It'll put me in mind of my schoolboy days," laughed St. John, "when I +received sixpence a week, and very often had that confiscated in payment +of fines." + +"I can quite imagine it," retorted Jill with a grave little shake of the +head. "It is strange considering what horrid little wretches boys +generally are how really nice some of them grow up." + +St. John laughed again; the compliment was intended for him, and he +appropriated it. He paused in the act of taking his soup to look across +at his small wife. Never had he felt more supremely happy and contented +than he did at that moment. He had a careless habit of living solely in +the present, turning his back on the past, and deliberately refusing to +look into the future--that future which with its work, its independence, +and its possible poverty meant so much to them both, and would prove not +only a test to the strength of his manhood but to the sincerity of their +mutual love. To-day he was determined to put such thoughts on one side; +it was his wedding morning and he meant to enjoy himself. He turned his +attention from his wife's face to the study of the wine card, and ran +his eye quickly down the list. "Do you like your wine dry?" he asked. + +"Um?" queried Jill. + +"Do you like dry wines?" + +"How funny!" she said. "I didn't know there was such a thing. I don't +think I should; I'm so thirsty." + +St. John looked the tiniest shade put out, the waiter stared, and a +good-looking man with a lightish moustache who happened to be passing +their table at the moment glanced down at the small grey figure in +careless amusement. Jill flushed, suddenly conscious of having said the +wrong thing, and the man behind her, looking from her to her companion +and recognising the latter, wondered what country cousin St. John had +got hold of now. + +"I don't know much about it," she admitted in a slightly vexed tone, +"but I liked what we had here before." + +St. John gave his order; then he looked into the troubled grey eyes +opposite and smiled reassuringly. As he did so he caught sight of the +man near Jill's chair; he was about to seat himself at the next table, +but before he could do so St. John rose and intercepted him. + +"Markham!" he exclaimed. "This is luck. I thought you were abroad." + +"Only returned last night," the other answered shaking hands. "Glad to +see you again, St. John. All well at home?" + +"I don't know," St. John replied; "haven't been there lately. Come over +to our table, old boy; we wanted someone to drink our health." + +Markham elevated his eyebrows in a show of surprise. St. John had hold +of him by the arm, and he allowed himself to be drawn forward until he +stood facing the little girl in grey, not quite clear even then as to +how matters stood. + +"Jill," exclaimed her husband, "allow me to introduce you to Mr +Markham, a very old pal of mine." + +Jill held out her hand with a smile. She was a little disappointed that +St. John had so readily ended their tete-a-tete luncheon, but she +carefully refrained from letting him see it, and graciously seconded the +invitation which the stranger appeared by no means reluctant to accept. +He took the seat on her right hand and looked her over with a glance +that was at once curious and puzzled. She was a lady that was evident, +though different in most respects to those he was accustomed to meet; +what he could not rightly fix was the relationship between her and St. +John. When he left England he had understood that the latter was to +marry his cousin--it had been for that reason that he had gone abroad-- +and yet a moment ago St. John had distinctly asked him to `drink our +health.' Whose health? And why? + +"This is a very festive occasion you are participating in, Markham," St. +John observed gaily. "It is my wedding day. As the only guest present +we look to you for a speech." + +Mr Markham stared incredulously first at St. John, and then at his +wife. Suddenly he caught sight of Jill's new ring--the plain gold +circlet seemed to carry conviction with it. He bowed to Jill and +impulsively held out his hand to St. John. + +"My congratulations, old fellow," he cried warmly, "my very sincere and +hearty congratulations. By jove! I am surprised. But--" + +He paused. He had been going to ask `what about Miss Bolton?' but +bethought him in time that it might not be a welcome topic to the bride. + +"You don't congratulate _me_" said Jill smiling, "and yet you might do +that more readily because you know Jack and you don't know me. I feel +quite apprehensive; I've taken him for better and _worse_, you know." + +Mr Markham laughed. + +"I think your having done so does infinite credit to your judgment, Mrs +St. John," he said. "I wish you both every happiness and success." + +"Thank you," Jill answered: "I feel reassured and good wishes are always +most acceptable." + +"To wish success in our case is very appropriate too," struck in St. +John. "I'm going to give you another surprise now, old fellow; I've set +up in business on my own." + +"Eh?" enquired Mr Markham, putting down his wineglass and staring at +his friend. St. John whipped a card out of his pocket and laid it on +the table cloth. + +"When you want your photograph taken," he observed in some amusement, +"go to that address, my boy, and you'll get taken as you never were +before. I'm the Co, and I go into harness a week from to-day." + +To say that Mr Markham was astonished would be to express his +sensations very inadequately he was astounded--almost incredulous. He +looked at St. John's smiling face, and then at Jill's grave, +matter-of-fact one, and ejaculated "By George!" in a tone that made St. +John laugh more than ever. + +"It's a fact," observed the latter. "Put the card in your pocket and +advertise the firm a bit at the club and elsewhere. Besides you'll know +my address then, though, of course, it is quite permissible for you to +forget that if you want to." + +Mr Markham took up the card in silence, read it, placed it carefully in +his pocket-book, and sitting back in his chair fell to laughing +immoderately as though it were a huge joke. He had grasped the +situation immediately when he had quite taken in the news. He had +wondered that Jack and his wife should be having their wedding breakfast +at Frascatti's, and alone; but now he understood. He knew that St. +John, Senior, was bent on marrying his son to Miss Bolton, and he also +knew that St. John possessed no private means. He had evidently run +contrary to the paternal wishes and this was the outcome. What a fool +he was to be sure! To chuck up quarter of a million and pretty Evie +Bolton for-- + +"You must really excuse me, Mrs St. John," he exclaimed meeting Jill's +surprised, and slightly disapproving glance with easy frankness, "but +it's just immense to hear Jack talk about work; I don't suppose he has +done a hand's turn in his life." + +Jill lifted her eyes to her husband's with unconcealed pride in her +look. + +"It doesn't follow that he won't be able to do it," she answered +confidently. "You none of you seem to have understood him. He is full +of pluck and perseverance, only he has always been discouraged." + +"We understood the old Jack well enough," Markham responded. "But there +comes a crisis in some men's lives when their whole nature undergoes a +complete change. It doesn't always last; they often go back to the +original state which means disappointment, and sometimes disillusionment +too. I don't mean that St. John is likely to go back, I was merely--" + +"Preparing me," suggested Jill. + +"No; wandering off into personal experience--a mistake at any time, +unpardonable under existing circumstances. I won't forget to advertise +the show, old man," he continued turning to St. John, "and, if I may, +will book to-day fortnight for a sitting. I rather enjoy having my +portrait taken, and don't mind promising to become a regular customer. +I think I can bring some others as well." + +"Thanks awfully," answered St. John. "It will be good for me if I can +introduce some fresh customers. I have posted the old man a card. +Wouldn't it be a huge joke if I had the honour of photographing my own +father?" + +Jill made a little grimace, and then the three of them laughed +uproariously till Markham, raising his glass on high, drank to the +health and prosperity of bride and bridegroom, and confusion to their +enemies. + +"It is rather unfortunate having enemies at the outset of one's married +life, don't you think?" observed Jill a little wistfully. + +"Well, I don't know; I always fancy an enemy or two enhance, by +comparison, the value of one's friends." + +"Yes, perhaps--if one has friends." + +"You cannot persuade me that _you_ will not find plenty as you go +through life," Markham answered gallantly. + +"They are a long time coming," she rejoined with a smile, "but that is +generally the case where money is scarce, isn't it? And Jack and I are +horribly poor. We are going to live over the shop, you know, in three +rooms and a kitchen. We are lucky to get so many; old Thompkins--" + +"My dear Jill," interposed her husband, "you must really learn to speak +more respectfully of the head of the firm." + +"Old Thompkins," went on Jill imperturbably, "has only two. But then, +of course, he's a bachelor. I think I shall flirt with him! it might be +a stroke of business, eh?" + +Markham and St. John both laughed. + +"You're all right," ejaculated the former. "You can safely leave +yourself in your wife's hands; it is not difficult to foresee that old +Thompkins will be speedily bowled out." + +"He might be a misogynist," suggested Jill. + +"They are the easiest to get over because they imagine themselves +invulnerable," he replied. "I knew one once, but he married long ago. +I forgot to ask him to explain the inconsistency, but it seems to have +answered very well." + +"I'm glad of that," said Jill gravely. Then catching his eye she +smiled. "It would have been such a strong point against us if he had +found it a mistake after all," she explained. + +He smiled too. There was something about St. John's small wife that +unconsciously attracted him; he could not help thinking what a capital +friend she would make if a fellow were in trouble and in need of advice, +though why he should arrive at such a conclusion he could not guess; so +far they had exchanged nothing but very slight commonplaces. + +"I feel I must contradict you there," he said. "Had he found it a +mistake it would most probably have been his fault; people with decided +principles are generally difficult." + +"Don't," cried Jill, "you make me nervous. Jack may have decided +principles for aught I know--he's got a decided temper, and I'm horribly +afraid Ilfracombe will make it worse." + +"So you propose spending the week at Ilfracombe?" + +"Yes. I stayed there with my father once while he painted the Coast, so +Jack is taking me there for auld lang syne." + +"It's bracing," struck in St. John, with a commendable determination to +have nothing sad, not even reminiscences, on his wedding day. "Any +place would do me, but the little woman really wants setting up." + +"You will be putting up at the `Ilfracombe,' I suppose?" observed Mr +Markham, conversationally. + +"My dear fellow," returned St. John, "you don't seem to quite realise +our position. We belong to the working-class, and will have to hunt out +cheap rooms when we get there." + +"Ah! Well, diggings are more convenient in many ways, and more private, +too." And Mr Markham, raising his wineglass to his lips, drained it +quickly, as though he were swallowing something beside Heidsieck, as no +doubt he was. + +CHAPTER TWELVE. + +Cheap apartments are not easily obtainable at watering places in the +summer, that is apartments which combine cheapness with a certain amount +of comfort. It was Jill who pointed out the likeliest locality to +search in, and who finally discovered what they wanted after many +fruitless enquiries. They did not suit St. John's taste, however much +they might his pocket. He would have pronounced them impossible at once +had not Jill firmly maintained that they would do. She had had to study +economy so much all her life that she was easily pleased, and really +considered the rooms quite good enough for what they required. + +"They are," she observed cheerfully as soon as they were alone together, +"clean and comfortable. To me, after my old attic, they are more--they +are luxurious. And the air is perfectly delightful." + +St. John glanced round the tiny sitting-room with its cheap saddle-bag +suite, and uncompromisingly hard sofa, and endeavoured to see things +from her point of view, but with no very marked success. He was losing +sight of the romance of poverty, in the realisation of its sordidness. +He hated cheap lodgings and all their attendant discomforts, and his +dissatisfaction was written plainly on his face. + +"It might have been worse," he answered disparagingly. + +Jill bit her lip and turned to look out of the window. He followed her +example, and his discontent increased. + +"Not much of an outlook on somebody's bean patch," he grumbled. "Deuce +of a nuisance we didn't go nearer the sea." + +"Sea view apartments are beyond our figure," she returned. "Besides you +ought not to want any outlook, nor anything else except me." + +St. John's ill-humour vanished, and he smiled as he put his arm round +her shoulders and drew her nearer to his side. + +"I don't," he asseverated. + +"Then what are you grumbling at?" + +"I wasn't; I was only wishing that things were a little nicer for you." + +"That's very kind of you, dear, but you might wait until I complain +before you begin throwing a damper on things. I think that everything +is lovely, only--who is to manage the landlady, Jack? I'm sure I +daren't; she looks as if she would stick on the extras. We must do our +own marketing, and she won't like that, I suppose." + +St. John looked uneasy. + +"You always said," he remarked in a reminiscent manner, "that you would +never allow your husband to interfere in domestic concerns; it wasn't a +man's work." + +"Well, you are a coward," cried Jill; "big men generally are. And she's +only a little woman, not any bigger than I." + +"Little women are so vindictive," he retorted. "I shouldn't have minded +how big she had been, but I did mind the way in which she looked us over +and said, `You'll have breakfast at eight-thirty, I suppose? I can let +you have some butter that I've got in house.' Eight-thirty is such a +commonplace plebeian hour, and sums up one's social status so exactly, +and why couldn't she say in `the' house?" + +"Oh! don't be so ridiculous," replied Jill, "she is a Devonshire woman, +of course, which makes a difference. But I don't want her butter; I'm +sure it isn't good and that's why she is anxious to get rid of it." + +"Then why didn't you tell her so instead of saying thank you?" + +"I hadn't the moral courage to," Jill admitted frankly. "I don't know +why you didn't help me out. If you were half a man you wouldn't allow +me to be worried on my honeymoon." + +"It's my honeymoon too," protested St. John. "I don't see why I should +be worried either. Jill, dear, run and put your hat on we can't stay +all the evening in this pokey room. Let's go out catering for to-morrow +and have a peep at the sea." + +So with a laugh Jill went to do his bidding and together they sallied +forth like a pair of children, or two sea-side trippers who having come +for a week's holiday, intend making the most of their time. They turned +their footsteps towards the sea, and sauntered along the steep winding +path up the cliff for the sake of the view, and the breezes, and to +catch sight of the little paddle steamers passing in the distance. They +talked a great deal of nonsense, and St. John painted a golden future as +background to the rosy present till Jill almost believed that the +insignificant firm of Thompkins and Co. was the gilded gate to fortune, +and Jack's the lucky hand to hold the key. Markham's name cropped up in +the course of conversation. St. John introduced it, as he had the +owner, unexpectedly, and apropos of nothing that had gone before. + +"How did you like Markham?" he enquired. "Not a bad sort, is he?" + +Jill looked dubious, and puckered her brows thoughtfully. + +"I don't know," she answered. "I am not sure whether if I knew him +better I should like him a little, or dislike him a great deal. Why did +you ask him to come and spoil our lunch?" + +"I didn't, I asked him to come and drink our health." + +"But why?" she protested. "We didn't want any horrid third person. +What would you have thought if I had asked a girl?" + +"I should have thought it inconsiderate of you from a monetary point of +view, otherwise a charming arrangement." + +"You are a brute," cried Mrs St. John pettishly. "I'm not enjoying my +honeymoon a bit." + +"People never do," he rejoined; "It isn't fashionable, besides its bad +taste. I am afraid that I'm going to prove an exception to the rule +though; for I don't know when I have enjoyed anything so much as to-day. +Beastly form on my part to admit it, I know. But to return to Markham, +I asked him to join us for several reasons, not the least important +being a natural desire to introduce my wife--" + +"Yes, dear, I'll excuse the preliminaries," interposed Jill. "I want to +know the real reason." + +"You aggravating monkey, I've a good mind not to satisfy you. And I +daresay you will be aggrieved when you hear it because it concerns +Evie." + +"Oh! Was he in love with _her_?" + +St. John laughed at the disparaging tone and teasingly pinched her ear. + +"Incredible as it may sound he was," he replied. "I believe she refused +him a little while ago but he has been out of England since then and I +never heard the rights of the case. He's an old college chum of mine, +and an awfully good sort; I don't know why Evie doesn't have him." + +"Oh, yes, you do," rejoined Jill sagely. "And so you thought you would +let Mr Markham see that you were married and out of the runnings, you +conceited old humbug; and that's why he laughed so much, and was so very +polite to me. He'll send us a wedding present, Jack, I feel convinced +of that." + +"You've always got your eye open for the main chance," observed St. +John, "and ought to make a good business woman. You'll be pondering the +intrinsic value of that present within half-an-hour. Personally, I +shall be thoroughly satisfied if I hear that he wins Evie." + +Jill looked up at him swiftly, and slipped her hand into his with a +smile. + +"I don't mind who wins Evie now," she said, "but I was horribly anxious +once. I don't believe that I really felt quite safe until this little +gold band was placed on my finger, and then I knew that not even Miss +Bolton could take you away from me." + +"Possession is only nine-tenths of the law," interposed St. John; but he +squeezed the small hand lovingly, lying so confidingly in his, so that, +feeling the pressure, and meeting his earnest gaze, Jill was too +thoroughly happy even to retort. + +CHAPTER THIRTEEN. + +Mr St. John, Senior's, wrath knew no bounds when he received his son's +note and learnt that he had taken the irrevocable step and actually +married the art mistress. He passed the letter on to his niece with +Thompkins and Co.'s card, and turned away from the lunch-table too +disgusted to eat his food. Evie Bolton took things more quietly. She +had realised her defeat from the first, and accepted it as she did the +announcement of her cousin's marriage with a composure that did more +credit to her head than to her heart. She read the letter through +without comment, and studied the card. Then she looked up with a little +laugh. + +"How funny," she said. "I will go and have my photograph taken there." + +Mr St. John said nothing. He just wheeled about shortly and left the +room, but when he got outside his language was more forcible than +polite, and he kicked Miss Bolton's pet pug right across the hall. For +the first time he saw the heiress with his son's eyes. + +"Jack is a fool," mused Miss Bolton complacently, tapping the pasteboard +in a meditative fashion. "He will hate it all three months hence, and +then they will quarrel horribly. A photographer indeed! What possessed +him, I wonder?" + +When Miss Bolton flippantly observed that she intended having her +photograph taken at Thompkins and Co.'s, she did not mean it seriously; +for she had not considered the matter, and only spoke upon impulse. +Some months later, however, the idea returning to her mind, she +determined, after thinking it over for a little while, to act upon it, +and judge for herself how Jack adapted himself to his changed +circumstances. + +It was characteristic of her that she should don her richest attire for +the occasion, and drive there in style instead of going in the quietest +and most unobtrusive manner; and it was also characteristic that on +arriving and entering the shop she should haughtily demand to see Mr +St. John, entirely ignoring Jill, who, on her entry, had risen from her +seat at the desk, and now in her usual philosophic manner walked quietly +out of the shop to call her husband St. John was in the studio +endeavouring to snap an infant in its vest, and only succeeding in +making it howl. He was looking worried and annoyed, and welcomed Jill's +advent with relief. + +"You are better at this kind of thing than I am," he said in an aside to +her; "just see if you can pacify the little beast." + +"All right," answered Jill shortly. "You can go and do the agreeable to +Evie Bolton; she's in the shop waiting to see you." + +St. John whistled, and the infant stopped yelling to listen; it was +noted for its love of music. + +"How jolly nice of her," he cried. "Perhaps she'll stay and have tea +with us." + +"Perhaps she won't," Jill answered rather bitterly; but St. John was not +paying any attention; he was busy adjusting the collar of his coat, and +failed to detect the chagrin in his wife's tone and manner. Jill turned +her back on him quickly to hide her annoyance, and walked over to make +friends with the baby, while St. John, unconscious that anything was +amiss, strode through the studio into the shop where Evie Bolton awaited +him. She turned at his entry and advanced to greet him, recognising +with a little pang of envy as she did so, what a fine, manly, handsome +fellow this cousin of hers was. St. John, too, realised for the first +time how very pretty and stylish Evie was. When he had lived with +stylish women he had not noticed these things, now that his lot was cast +among the working-classes, he perceived and appreciated the difference. +His glance rested on Miss Bolton's well groomed prettiness with a kind +of tired relief, and the sordidness of his own surroundings became more +apparent. + +"It is good of you to look us up," he cried. "I half feared that I was +going to get the cold shoulder altogether." + +He had taken the girl's outstretched hand in both of his, and now looked +into her eyes with a smile of pleased gratitude. Evie smiled back. + +"You should never have thought that of me," she said. "You might have +known I would come eventually. If uncle hadn't been so furious about it +I should have come sooner, but I had to use my discretion and wait. The +first time I suggested a visit he flung out of the room in a temper. I +fear you have done for yourself, dear, so far as your father is +concerned." + +St. John looked moody, and seeing his change of countenance, she +hastened to turn the subject. + +"Jack," she said, "I am awfully low-spirited--I suppose I have missed +you rather. I want you to take me out to tea somewhere and cheer me up +if you can." + +St. John swallowed the bait. The idea of a diversion was pleasing to +him, and the knowledge that he had been missed gratified his vanity. + +"Dear little girl, of course I will," he answered. "I'll just go and +put it all right with Thompkins, and then I'll be at your service. +Jill's in the studio. You saw her though, didn't you?" + +Miss Bolton flushed. + +"Ye-es," she answered hesitatingly, "for a minute. Make haste, Jack +dear; I am so impatient to be off. While you are gone I will look at +these abominable photographs. I meant to let you take mine to-day, but +I object to being caricatured." + +"You must let Jill paint you," he said, "She's first class at portrait +painting and would like to get some customers." + +"One day," the girl answered vaguely, "perhaps I will." + +St. John hurried out, and Miss Bolton turned with languid interest to +inspect the portraits round the walls. When her cousin returned he +discovered her intently scrutinising a cabinet photograph of Mr +Markham. + +"What a libel," she cried holding it up. "This is your handiwork, I +should imagine. When did you take it?" + +"Oh! I don't know," he answered carelessly, "Jill took it one day. She +has taken him lots of times; he often calls in." + +Evie's eyebrows went up with a show of surprise. + +"Is he a friend of--Mrs St. John?" she asked. + +"I suppose so; Jill likes him. He and I were always rather chummy, and +he drops in in to talk about--oh! well, about old times and--friends, +you know." + +"He never told me," she rejoined slowly. "I saw him yesterday and he +mentioned very casually that he met you recently; he did not say that he +was intimate here." + +"Perhaps he didn't think that it would interest you," he suggested. "Or +he might have thought the subject tabooed." + +"With me?" she cried. "Impossible! I am always talking about you." + +"Very flattering of you, my dear Evie," he laughingly rejoined, "but +you'll never persuade me that you are so one idead." + +Miss Bolton put the photograph back in its place, and turned towards the +entrance with an evident desire to get away. + +"I am," she said. "I've only got one idea at present and that's tea. +Don't let us waste more time, Jack, but come along at once." + +"It's an awful pity Jill can't come with us," he remarked as he followed +her out, "but we couldn't both leave together." + +"Yes," acquiesced Evie, none too heartily, "it is a pity. Never mind +she sees plenty of you now and I don't. She can't begrudge me a few +hours now and then. I am seriously thinking of getting married myself, +Jack; it is so deadly dull since you went." + +Thinking of Markham, St. John looked pleased. + +"Why don't you?" he asked. + +"I am going to," she answered settling herself in a corner of the +carriage with an airy laugh. "I am looking about for a title." + +"Oh!" observed St. John disapprovingly, "I shouldn't bother about that. +Why not look about for someone you can give your heart to?" + +"Because I haven't got one to bestow," she retorted. "If I ever +possessed such an uncomfortable organ it must have been stolen from me +long ago, but I don't feel the want of it so don't miss it at all. I +suppose you flatter yourself that Jill has given her heart to you?" + +"Yes," he answered smiling, and patting his left side, "I have it here +safe enough in place of the one I gave to her." + +"Ah!" returned Miss Bolton coolly, "a pretty fancy no doubt, but a fancy +all the same, my dear Jack, and absolutely ridiculous." + +"Don't be cynical," he said; "it's a sign of the times, and unbecoming." + +"And cynical women are generally old maids," laughed Evie. "That won't +do for I must have my title. I won't die an old maid if I have to +advertise in a matrimonial journal." + +CHAPTER FOURTEEN. + +When St. John returned after seeing his cousin safely home it was late +in the afternoon, and though the place still remained open business was +apparently over for the day. Thompkins and Co. were not over-burdened +with customers at any time, and their number since the advent of the new +Co. had been steadily on the decrease. Business was slack, the returns +were very small, and St. John felt by no means sanguine as to the +success of his venture. He had been married a little over four months, +and it was only by exercising the greatest care that they managed to pay +their way even. Jill was a thrifty housewife--she always had been,--but +St. John forgot his straightened circumstances at times, and launched +out a little recklessly. He had not been altogether careful that +afternoon, and the consciousness of the fact gave him an unpleasant +twinge of remorse as he mounted the steep stairs to their little +sitting-room. + +Jill was alone standing looking out of the window with her back towards +the door, nor did she turn round at his entry. She was displeased. + +"You have been a long time," she said. + +"I'm afraid I have," he admitted. "You weren't lonely I hope?" + +"No; I was too busy for that. And afterwards Mr Markham came in. He +has just left." + +"Why, he was here yesterday. He surely didn't want his photo taken +again?" + +"No, I think he wanted a chat, and when he found I was alone he stayed +on for company. Have you had a pleasant time? Where did you go?" + +"We went and had tea," he answered. He didn't say where; he was ashamed +to; it was one of the places where you pay for locality and Miss Bolton +had not once offered to share expenses. "And then we spent a little +time at the Academy--Evie's fond of pictures you know." + +"Oh, yes, I know," agreed Jill drily. "I have a vivid recollection of +her passion for art; it was so upsetting. I suppose she shut her eyes +occasionally? Some people take art like they do physic--shut their eyes +and hold their noses except when nobody's looking." + +"Jill dear, don't be nasty," he said. + +Jill laughed. + +"I can't help it," she answered. "I'm afraid my nature must be warped I +have such a knack of being disagreeable. I could have pinched that +horrid little baby this afternoon, it irritated me so; and yet I am fond +of children. And I could have been exceedingly rude to Miss Bolton if +she hadn't been rude to me first;--of course I wouldn't follow her +example in anything." + +"Rude to you?--Evie? How?" + +"Oh! in an entirely lady-like manner. She merely gave me to understand +that she didn't intend to recognise me, and treated me as she would any +other shop assistant. Miss Bolton means taking you up and cutting your +wife. I suppose she is perfectly justified." + +"Don't be ridiculous, Jill," St. John cried sharply. "Evie means +nothing of the sort. She spoke of you most kindly, and said it was a +pity you couldn't go with us." + +"Ah!" rejoined Jill queerly. "My mistake again. Evie has a mystifying +way of showing her kindness, but doubtless she means well. You, I +suppose, understand her better than I do, but I shouldn't advise you to +try arranging an excursion for three." + +"Very well," he returned, "I won't go with her again. I wouldn't have +to-day if I had thought it would annoy you. We were like brother and +sister always and it was pleasant for me to see her again." + +Jill heaved a deep sigh, and leaned her forehead against the window +pane. She knew that he had no intention of wounding her feelings yet +these unconscious allusions to the sacrifice that he had made in +marrying her hurt her more than they need have done. And St. John never +guessed. Not for a moment had he regretted the step he had taken, and +it did not occur to him that Jill should imagine he might. + +"I am not annoyed," she said after a brief pause. "I am irritable this +evening, that's all. Mr Markham said that I wasn't looking well; +perhaps I am a little out of sorts. Are the pictures good this year, +Jack?" + +"Good enough. But none of them to come up to yours in my eyes as I told +Evie. It's scandalous to think that real talent should get overlooked, +yet it's often enough the case." + +"Mr Markham," jerked out Jill suddenly, "wishes me to paint his +portrait." + +St. John laughed. + +"Markham is getting vain," he said. "No doubt he purposes presenting it +to Evie. When is the first sitting to be?" + +"I don't know, nothing is definitely settled, I thought I would speak to +you about it first." + +St. John looked at her in astonishment. + +"Why?" he asked. + +Jill hesitated. She had no real reason to offer, but when Mr Markham +made the proposal she felt that she would like to consult Jack before +deciding. She had consulted him, and now regretted having done so. + +"I wasn't sure whether the arrangement would be agreeable to Mr +Thompkins," she answered. "He expects me to be available for the studio +at all times and seasons you know, and, of course, undertaking this +would mean giving a good deal of my time--" + +"To hear you one would think," interposed her husband, "that you +contemplated painting a multitude. You know as well as I do that +Thompkins will be quite agreeable. I should have thought you would have +settled the matter out of hand." + +"I am not at all sure that I will undertake it," retorted Jill +pettishly. "I hate painting men; they make such horribly uninteresting +subjects; and I'm sick to death of the sound of Evie Bolton's name. +Fancy listening for a solid hour to the extolling of her virtues! I +don't think I could stand it." + +"Oh! that's it, is it?" laughed St. John. "Well, of course, you must +please yourself, old girl, but I shouldn't let Evie do me out of a fiver +if I were you. Besides I have thought lately that Markham avoids the +subject I suppose he twigs that you're not so fond of it as he is." + +Jill said nothing. She had noticed the same thing; and could not help +wondering why their visitor came so frequently when he no longer cared +to discuss the once all sufficing topic. Jack had formerly declared +that he only came to talk Evie, but that could hardly be said of him +now. Sometimes Mrs Jack fancied that his suit did not progress +altogether as he could have wished, and in her womanly, whole-hearted +way felt sorry for him. She had been so happy in her own love that she +would have pitied anyone less fortunate than herself. Besides she liked +Markham and admired his perseverance, though she wondered occasionally +whether he would have been quite so devoted had Miss Bolton been +penniless like herself. + +"I saw the Governor on my way home," observed St. John at length, +breaking the silence with a short laugh. Mrs St. John's heart gave a +sudden jump. + +"He didn't--cut you?" she queried. + +"Oh, dear no! bowed to me almost as though he considered me on an +equality. Feels jolly rum being treated by one's father like that." + +"I call it abominable of him," Jill cried hotly. "He seems absolutely +heartless." + +St. John looked amused. + +"Well, I don't quite see what else he could have done under the +circumstances," said he. "I don't blame him for giving me the kick out +and all that as I disappointed him, but I do for not bringing me up to +some profession; it's beastly rough luck for me." + +Jill laid one small hand upon his shoulder, ever so light a touch but it +carried great comfort with it. + +"You don't make a good poor man, dear," she said gently. "You should +have known my father; he was always cheerful even in his poorest +moments; yet no one would have called him careless nor improvident. He +was simply brave and self-reliant." + +"Little mentor," answered her husband gravely, drawing her face down to +his. "I accept the rebuke; there shall be no more complaints. I will +be `up and doing--learn to labour and to wait.'" + +CHAPTER FIFTEEN. + +Notwithstanding her former reluctance Jill eventually undertook the +commission for Mr Markham's portrait, though some time elapsed before +she started on the work, Markham, himself, being out of town staying as +a guest at a house where Evie Bolton was also visiting, a circumstance +that filled St. John with pleasurable anticipation, though Jill, less +sanguine as to the result, was more inclined to foresee troubles ahead, +and looked forward with no great joy to their friend's return. Yet his +manner, when he did put in an appearance, conveyed absolutely no +impression; as St. John afterwards informed his wife he believed that +Markham had funked it. + +"When shall we have the first sitting, Mrs St. John?" he exclaimed +after the usual greetings were over. "I am quite anxious to begin." + +"Why not fix Monday?" suggested St. John amicably. + +"Monday!" cried Jill. "It's washing day. How can you be so +inconsiderate?" + +"Oh, ah! washing day! I forgot. The atmosphere is composed of +soap-suds, and we have cold meat. Not Monday, my dear boy; it is the +most ungodly day of the week." + +"Tuesday would do," said Jill, "if that suits, and I think three o'clock +would be the most convenient hour for me. The light, of course, is best +in the mornings, but I am always busy then." + +"Any time will suit me," Markham answered promptly, "and any day." + +"Ah," said Jill with a little smile, "Jack was like that once. Why +don't you get something to do?" + +"Because it isn't necessary." + +"But independence is such a grand thing," she persisted. + +"Exactly. I inherited it, and I like it best that way." + +Jill laughed. + +"We can't all be workers, I suppose," she said, "yet I fancy if I had +been given my choice I should have chosen that kind of independence. +Work is necessary to me." + +"From a selfish point of view I am glad that it is; otherwise you +wouldn't paint portraits." + +"What makes you fancy that?" she asked. + +"No one who paints as you do would undertake portraits if they could +avoid it. I know a man who has always one canvas at least in the +academy, but he can't afford to paint pictures now; they don't sell; so +he does portraits." + +Jill sighed. + +"I am sorry for that man," she said, "his life must be a disappointment. +The people who want to be painted are generally so impossible." + +"My dear girl," remonstrated St. John, "considering the circumstances +that is one of the things better left unsaid." + +"I am speaking from the artistic sense," she replied; "besides I said +`generally.'" + +"I quite understand," interposed Markham laughing, "and entirely agree +with you. But that won't interfere with the sitting on Tuesday, eh?" + +"I hope not," she answered gravely; "I should be doubly sorry now if you +didn't come." + +"There is no fear of that," he said. "I enjoy seeing myself reproduced. +It is so often an improvement, you know, yet one invariably flatters +oneself that it is as one habitually looks." + +"We haven't done much to foster your conceit so far," she observed. + +"Oh! I don't know," he answered. "I really thought that that last +portrait was a bit like me. Somebody told me I did look like that +sometimes when I had a liver attack." + +"Evie said it was a libel," St. John remarked tentatively. + +"Ah! Well, I should be sorry to contradict her," he replied, and Jill +fancied, though she could not be quite sure, that he looked slightly +displeased at the mention of Miss Bolton's name. Why should a name that +had once been his sole subject of conversation excite his annoyance now? +It was not consistent. Had it been a case of unrequited affection she +could have understood his being hurt, but displeasure was something she +could not account for; it irritated her, why she could not have +explained. She was not accustomed to analyse her sensations even to +herself; it would have been wiser if she had; for her instinct was +wonderfully true, and her nature peculiarly observant. + +"You put me on my mettle," she said, smiling. "It shan't be a libel +this time I promise you if infinite pains can prevent." + +"I am not afraid to trust myself in your hands," he said. + +Jill laughed. + +"That's very fulsome flattery," she answered. "I was responsible for +the libel, remember. Mr Thompkins declares that I shall ruin the firm +yet. It is so humiliating because I was so positive at first that I was +going to become one of those celebrated lady photographers who have all +the best people sitting to them, and can charge any price they like." + +"It's just as well as it is, perhaps," St. John rejoined with +conviction. "Success would make you a horrid little prig, Jill; very +few people can stand it." + +"If Mr Markham were not here," Jill returned, "I would tell you what I +think of you." + +CHAPTER SIXTEEN. + +Jill had got her canvas and everything in readiness, and was waiting for +her model. She had been waiting for about ten minutes, and was growing +slightly impatient; she hated wasting her time. St. John was busy in +the studio, unusually busy, so that he could not possibly get away even +for a few minutes. He wanted her badly, she knew; he always wanted a +mate, and she felt rather as if she were shirking. She looked at the +canvas in a dissatisfied kind of way, and then out of the window at the +people in the street. + +"I believe," she mused, thinking of the absent Markham, "that I could +draw his face from memory." + +Fetching a piece of paper she seated herself at the table and made a +rough sketch in pencil as she had once done of St. John, only in St. +John's case she had not trusted to memory. Markham arrived while she +was thus employed, and he stood by the table watching her, as she put in +the finishing strokes. He smiled while he watched as though he were +amused. Jill was grave and very much absorbed. + +"What a wonderful little head it is," he said. + +"Do you think so?" she asked, lifting the head he alluded to the better +to regard the one on paper which he was not even looking at. "I don't +call it wonderful, but I had an idea that I could catch the likeness; +some faces are quite easily remembered." + +"Yes," he acquiesced, "yours is." + +"Mine? I don't agree with you; my features are too indescribable. +There. It's finished. I have caught the expression, haven't! But I +haven't done justice to the nose. Will you sit in this chair near the +window, please? you are dreadfully late, so we mustn't waste further +time." + +Jill worked rapidly, and there could not possibly be any question as to +her ability. Markham watched her with interest, and every now and again +he rose from his seat to have a look how the work progressed, +notwithstanding her protest that it spoilt the pose. + +"I can't help that," he declared, "it fascinates me, I must look." + +"I had no idea before that you were so vain," she said. + +"I'm not," he answered. "It isn't the subject that interests me but the +work. I could stand behind you and watch you all day." + +"Not having eyes at the back of my head I shouldn't make much progress +with the portrait in that case," she retorted. "Do you mind going back +to your seat, please, and allowing me to study your physiognomy again?" + +He obeyed reluctantly, and for a time the work continued in silence; +Jill was too engrossed to talk, and Markham apparently had no desire to. +He sat quite motionless watching her with a strained, intent, +unfathomable expression in his glance that Jill in unconscious accuracy +was transmitting to the painted eyes on the canvas, though the +expression was by no means habitual to him, and gave the portrait an +unlifelike appearance. She shook her head over it despondently, and +stood back from the easel in order to take a better look. + +"I must leave the eyes alone to-day," she said, "I am making a muddle of +them. They are your eyes, and yet they are not yours. I don't +understand it." + +"Oh, bother the portrait," he exclaimed. "Put it up for to-day and +let's talk." + +"It wouldn't get finished very quickly at that rate," she answered. + +"I don't want it finished quickly," he said. + +"No?" Jill's tone was expressive of surprise, and she looked at him +very straightly as she spoke. "What are you going to do with it when it +_is_ finished?" she asked. + +"Give it to you if you will accept it." + +"Don't be ridiculous! that's not what you had it painted for." + +"Now, how do you know that?" he enquired. He had risen, and coming +forward took the palette and paint brushes out of her hand; then, +receiving no remonstrance, he began to untie the strings of her painting +apron. + +"Shut up shop for to-day," he pleaded. "I am going to stay to tea." + +It was rather an unfortunate moment for St. John to choose for putting +in an appearance. Had he been married as many years as he had months it +would not have mattered, but under existing circumstances it was +regrettable that he should open the door when he did Jill, all +unconscious of the suspicious proximity of Mr Markham's arm to her +shoulder, smiled serenely as she encountered St. John's sharp, surprised +glance, and noting that he looked displeased, presumed that he had spent +a wearisome afternoon in the studio. + +"Leisurable at last?" she queried cheerfully. "I am so glad, dear. +Come and make yourself agreeable while I see about the kettle; Mr +Markham is going to stay to tea." + +"Sorry, but I can't," he answered shortly. "I have to be in the dark +room in a few minutes, and have enough developing to keep me engaged for +some time. How's the sitting getting on? You don't appear to be very +busy. Is Markham tired already?" + +"We've been at it a solid three quarters of an hour," rejoined Markham +aggrieved, "and as for not being busy, look at the canvas, man." + +St. John did look; he stood a little way off, and studied it earnestly +for several minutes, but he did not speak. + +"Well, what do you think of it?" enquired the other. + +"I never presume to criticise Jill's work until it is finished," he +answered. "At present I don't like it." + +"Neither do I," acquiesced Jill, "that's why I was not loth to give up +for to-day. It's the eyes, I think; they have a sinister expression +that makes him look like a stage villain. And yet I'm sure the +expression was there at the time." + +"I hope not," St. John rejoined, looking fixedly at his friend in a +rather disconcerting manner; "the eyes never lie, you know." + +Jill took the canvas down from the easel and leaned it with its face +hidden against the wall. + +"Don't utter uncomfortable platitudes," she remarked. "If you can't be +more cheerful I hope you'll retire to your dark room speedily; Mr +Markham and I were enjoying ourselves till you came." + +To her surprise he took her literally, and, muttering something about +`sorry to be a wet blanket,' wheeled about abruptly and left the room. +Jill looked at Markham, and her eyes were both angry and concerned. + +"I can't think what's the matter with Jack," she said half +apologetically; "he is not often such a bear. Do you know that I think +you had almost better not stay this evening. It wouldn't be very +hilarious if he were in that mood, would it?" + +"Of course I won't stay; I was only joking. Jack is a bit huffed about +something no doubt, but you'll soon coax him into a better temper," he +responded, "I'll come to-morrow for another sitting, shall I?" + +"No," Jill answered slowly; "the same day and hour next week, if you +please." + +On the following Tuesday when Markham turned up for the arranged sitting +he found Jill alone as on the former occasion, St. John having purposely +gone out to spend the afternoon with Evie Bolton. The latter had +written to him during the past week asking him if he could manage to +meet her somewhere as she had something of importance to impart to him, +and St. John, in his fit of suddenly awakened jealousy had settled on +the day that Jill had fixed upon for the second sitting, taking a very +malicious satisfaction in her evident annoyance when he stated his +intention. She said little enough at the time, but her manner betrayed +her vexation, and the strained relationship that had existed between +them during the past few days grew more apparent. When Markham arrived, +she was feeling more hurt than angry, and her mood was softened and +subdued, and nearer akin to tears than it had been since her marriage. + +"Jack has gone out," she said in answer to his enquiry, not so much +explanatorily, but because she felt she must say something, and that was +the only thing she could think of at the moment. It was the one +miserable refrain that kept repeating itself in her mind--"Jack has gone +out--back to his own people." + +"He won't be home till late," she went on apathetically. "He said he +was going to take a journey into the past, and forget the sordid present +for a time. I don't think it altogether wise of him, do you? Where is +the use in looking back when the sordid present has to be lived through, +and the uncertain future to be faced?" + +"Mrs St. John," Markham answered gravely. "St. John--_our_ St. John +was never wise; the only noteworthy action of his life was when he +married you." + +"Ah!" said Jill with a very pathetic smile, "I often fancy that that was +the most unwise thing he ever did." + +Markham looked at her speculatively, and failed to make an immediate +reply. Was it St. John, himself, who had given her cause to think so, +he wondered. Was she finding out so soon that their marriage had been a +mistake? + +"You are depressed," he said, leaning towards her, his hands lightly +grasping the arms of his chair. "It isn't good for you to feel like +that. Jack is a brute to leave you to yourself. What can I do to cheer +you up, I wonder? After all we are both in the same boat; for if you +are lonely, so am I." + +"_You_!" echoed Jill in a tone which implied that her listener did not +know what loneliness meant. "How can you talk of loneliness? At least +you have Evie--" + +"No," he interrupted shortly; "Evie is nothing to me, and less than +nothing. She is engaged to marry a marquis. I should have thought you +would have heard of that by now." + +At his words, Jill's face visibly brightened. It flashed upon her with +a certain amount of conviction that this was why her husband had gone to +his cousin; possibly she had sent for him to consult him on the subject, +and the trouble that had oppressed her lightened instantly with the +thought. How could she have doubted him even for a moment? But he +ought to have taken her into his confidence; it was a mistake to make a +secret of so simple a thing. + +Markham misinterpreted the sudden brightening of her countenance, and +when in her impulsive, sympathetic way she laid her small fingers +compassionately over his, he grasped the little hand feverishly between +both his eager palms, and held it against his breast while he drew her +nearer to him and stared into her face with burning, compelling eyes. +She thought his manner strange but pardonable under the circumstances. + +"I am so sorry," she said gently, "so very sorry." + +"Sorry for what?" he asked. + +"Oh, the--the--your disappointment," she rejoined with an awkward +deepening of the colour in her cheeks. She felt that she was getting on +to delicate ground, and did not know very well how to proceed; but he +relieved the situation by a short, impatient laugh. + +"There wasn't any disappointment," he returned. "You must have known +that I was off that long ago. Don't humbug, Jill; you must have +perceived that ever since I knew you I have cared for no one else. I +should not have mentioned it only I see now that you care a little +also--that your marriage is not altogether a success. You are lonely as +well as I, dear. Why not let us console one another?" + +CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. + +For a few seconds Jill sat mute, too thoroughly taken by surprise even +to move. No lurking suspicion had ever entered her pure, wholesome, +unspoilt mind that any man could so insult a decent woman. Even then it +struck her that in some way she must have unconsciously given him an +opening. How else would he have dared to make love to her, and to seem +so assured that his love would be returned? + +She drew herself away from him, not violently, but with a cold +displeasure that carried more weight than any fierce resentment could +have done, and in a voice that trembled slightly with repressed anger +exclaimed as she rose and faced him,-- + +"Mr Markham, you have insulted me past forgiveness. If any action or +word of mine has led you to speak as you have done I deplore it with my +whole heart--I couldn't feel more humiliated even if such were the case; +I feel so abjectly debased as it is. How dare you imply that I do not +get on with my husband? I love him with the whole force of my being. I +doubt if you could understand or appreciate such love as ours." + +"I doubt it too," he sneered. "My love is not of the kind that can so +readily efface itself. You are rather unreasonable, I think; a man +can't help his feelings. Some women would take it as a compliment." + +"I am sorry for the sort of women you seem acquainted with," she +answered rather sadly. "You have formed a very low opinion of the sex. +It is not a compliment that you have paid me, and you know it. Don't +say anything more please; I decline to discuss that, or any other +subject with you. I must request you to leave my rooms, and never to +enter them again. You have made further intercourse an impossibility, +and our past friendship something to be remembered only with regret." + +"Don't say that," he began pleadingly; but Jill cut him short. + +"Please understand that I am quite in earnest," she said. "When Jack +comes home I shall explain to him what has happened; it is well that he +should understand the true character of his friend. I can never thank +heaven sufficiently that my husband is both a man of honour, and a +gentleman." + +"For that matter so should I have been if I had met you first," he +answered gloomily. "You are rather hard on me, Jill. Perhaps I have +been too precipitate; but I love you so madly, and to-day you seemed so +sad, and sweet, and lonely, that I wanted to comfort you." + +"Enough!" exclaimed Jill excitedly. "If you don't go I shall ask Mr +Thompkins to come and protect me from further indignity. How +contemptible you are!--how mean! Why don't you insult me when my +husband is at home? The sight of you is hateful to me. Why won't you +go?" + +"I will," he answered quietly, "as you wish it. I do not want to +frighten you; but remember--always remember that I love you with all my +heart." + +Jill stood quite still and watched him as he gravely quitted her +presence, and then listened dully to his footsteps clattering down the +stairs. When they died away along the narrow passage and she heard the +street door bang behind him she put her hand to her forehead in a dazed +kind of way, and glanced vaguely round the little room seeing nothing +but Markham's cynical face with the ugly expression in his eyes that was +in the painted eyes of the canvas on the easel. Her glance travelled to +the portrait, and rested there for a moment. The sight of it seemed to +rouse her into action, and, with a catch in her voice that sounded like +an angry sob, she took up a brush, and in a few vigorous strokes painted +the whole thing out again as she would have liked to blot the incident +from her memory. + +To Jill the fact that Markham loved her was anything but a +congratulatory matter. The red blood surged to her temples in a flood +of indignant colour at the mere thought of such an outrage to her +wifehood. She was very angry; her calmness and self-possession had +entirely deserted her leaving her excited and wholly unlike herself. +She did not expect St. John home for some time; he had told her not to +wait tea, he should be late; and so she seated herself in the big chair +by the window to watch for his return, too upset to think of getting tea +for herself, too miserable to feel the need of it. St. John was not +very late however. He had promised Thompkins to be back by six, and at +a few minutes to the hour he arrived. Jill saw him coming but she did +not move. She remained where she was until she heard his footstep on +the stairs, then she rose and walking quickly to the door threw it open. +He was going into the bedroom to change his coat for the old one he did +his work in. Jill called to him softly, but he went on as though he had +not heard. She set her lips tightly and followed him, determined to +clear up the misunderstanding that existed between them at any cost, and +to tell him what had occurred during the afternoon. + +"Jack," she said, "I want to talk to you." + +"Sorry," he answered, "but I haven't time. I have a lot of work to do." + +His manner was anything but encouraging. At another time she would have +turned away and allowed the breach to widen, but to-day she was sick of +quarrelling about nothing, and longed for a complete reconciliation, and +so she persevered. + +"You are not very kind to me, dear," she said. "I think the work can +wait a few minutes longer, and what I have to say is most important. I +have had a very unpleasant experience to-day, Jack, and feel quite +worried and upset about it--if you only knew how worried I am sure you +would give me your attention." + +St. John turned towards her, an expression of surprise on his face. He +was in his shirt sleeves, and looked handsome, bad-tempered and ill at +ease, his afternoon with Evie had apparently not conduced to +exhilaration of spirits. + +"What on earth can be worrying you?" he exclaimed. "Didn't Markham turn +up?" + +"Yes, he turned up," answered Jill sharply. "That is the trouble. I +had to send him away again. You, who knew him so intimately, had no +right to leave me alone with such a man--no right to introduce me to him +at all. He insulted me--he actually tried to make _love_ to me." + +She broke off abruptly. Her voice shook a little, and she put up a hand +to her burning face. St. John swore. He dropped the jacket he was +holding on to the floor, and began struggling fiercely into his outdoor +coat again. Jill watched him anxiously. Then she laid a restraining +hand upon his arm. + +"What are you going to do?" she asked. + +"Find him and--give him a lesson." + +He looked so fierce and determined that Jill felt frightened. She was +nervous and unstrung with the excitement of the afternoon, and she +trembled slightly as she clung tenaciously to his arm. + +"Let him alone," she cried quickly. "I will not have my name dragged +into any dispute. We have done with him; that is enough. The matter +must end there." + +"That is all very well," he retorted, "but do you suppose I am going to +stand quietly by and allow any cad to make love to my wife?" + +"If you had not stood quietly by it might never have happened," she +answered. "I don't quite know what it is we have been quarrelling +about, but I do know that lately we have drifted apart, and he noticed +it--he said so. He thought that I had found out that our marriage had +been a mistake." + +She looked up to meet St. John's gaze riveted upon her face, with an +expression in his eyes that puzzled her, it was so unlike anything she +had seen in them before. He looked as a man might look when someone he +has loved and trusted deals him a blow on the face, so stern and white +and miserable, and so full of an unspeakable shame. + +"Jack," she half-whispered, "what is it? What is the matter, dear?" + +"Forgive me," he cried brokenly, "If I have misjudged you; but I +thought--as Markham thinks. And, my God, I think so still." + +Jill drew away from him, wounded into silence by what she heard. For a +few moments she stood irresolute, struck motionless with an anguish too +deep for words; then with a half articulate cry she tottered forward, +and fell, a forlorn little bundle, at his feet St. John stooped swiftly, +and gathering her up, laid her tenderly upon the bed, and, bending over +her with a face even whiter than her own, stared down, awed and humbled, +at the motionless, unconscious form. + +He was almost too stunned at first to realise that there was anything +serious the matter; but it gradually dawned upon him that she ought not +to be allowed to lie there as she was without calling in some +assistance, and so, not pausing to put on his coat, he ran out of the +bedroom on to the landing, and stood there in his shirt sleeves, in +terrified and breathless anxiety. + +"Thompkins!" he cried excitedly. "Thompkins!" + +"Hallo!" answered a voice from the bottom of the stairs, a voice of calm +and unruffled serenity. + +"For God's sake run for the doctor," St. John called back. + +There was silence for a few seconds; then the street door was opened and +banged to again, and St. John returned to the room to watch by his wife +and wait. + +CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. + +It was not many weeks after her sudden and unusual attack of +unconsciousness that Jill presented her husband with a little son. The +small stranger appeared upon the scene rather too soon, and was delicate +and puny in consequence, and a great source of anxiety to its parents. +Jill, herself, was very ill for a long while after its birth, so that +St. John had a trying and expensive time of it, the only beneficial +result being that every minor worry was forgotten in the all absorbing +one of his wife's health. + +After the child's birth he wrote a brief note to his father acquainting +him with the news. He considered it his duty to do so, though he +neither expected nor hoped for any reply to the letter; and he was not +disappointed; Mr St. John, Senior, might never have received it for all +the sign he made, and Jill, being ill and low-spirited at the time, +cried with annoyance to think that her husband should have written to +him at all. + +"He will only imagine that you want something out of him," she exclaimed +pettishly. + +"Never mind what he imagines," answered St. John, bending over the +speaker's couch, and touching the baby's smooth cheek with his finger. +"It needn't bother us so long as we are satisfied that we have done what +is right. You wouldn't like to think that one day this little man might +fail in his duty to _his_ father, would you?" + +Jill looked down at the wee, mottled face, and laughed softly, though +the tears stood in her eyes still, and would not be blinked away. + +"How absurd it seems," she said, "to think that this will one day be a +man. It's so small and frail that I'm half afraid of it, Jack. And +it's dreadfully ugly too, isn't it, dear? Not even you could call it +pretty." + +"Never mind it's looks," St. John answered reassuringly. "They're all +putty-faced at first, you know. If he only grows up with but half his +mother's charm and goodness he'll do all right." + +Jill laughed again; the extravagance of the compliment amused her. + +"I hope he won't grow up with his mother's temper," she said, adding +with a mischievous look at St. John, "nor his father's either for that +matter; I'd like him to strike out an original line there, Jack." + +"Too late, I'm afraid," St. John answered ruefully as the baby screwed +up its face preparatory to howling. "He always yells for nothing just +when we're having a quiet chat." + +Jill sat up a little and rocked the child gently in her arms. + +"He is jealous," she explained; "he takes after you in that." + +"I think the less _you_ say about it the better," he retorted. "I +remember some rather uncomfortable half hours spent on Evie's account." + +She smiled, her face close pressed to the baby's, her lips caressing +it's hair. + +"How ridiculous it all seems now!" she exclaimed--"How small! What a +pair of geese we were!" + +"Yes," he said, and he straightened himself and walked away to the +window to hide the mortification in his eyes. His jealousy had been of +a far graver nature than hers, and he did not like to hear it referred +to even. He was very much ashamed of himself, and rather embarrassed by +a generosity that forgave so quickly and entirely as Jill had done. + +"Yes," he repeated softly more to himself than her, "we were a pair of +geese. How I wish we had found it out sooner than we did. What an +infinitude of suffering it might have saved us both!" + +The next important event in their lives, which took place as soon as +Jill was well enough to walk to Church, was the baby's christening. He +was called John after his father as the eldest sons of the St. John's +had been from time immemorial. It was Jill's wish that this should be, +St. John, himself, having no idea on the subject. It was also Jill's +wish that Mr Thompkins should stand Godfather, and, upon being asked, +the senior partner gave a somewhat reluctant consent. He was a +practical, hard-working old bachelor, and babies were not much in his +line, but he had an unbounded admiration and respect for this baby's +mother, so when she informed him of her desire very much after the +manner of one conferring an inestimable favour he had not the pluck nor +the cruelty to say her nay. The honour cost him a guinea in the shape +of a christening present, but the guinea weighed lightly in the balance +compared with the interest that he was expected to take in his Godson. +Jill had a way of putting it in his arms, and watching him nurse it +which not only embarrassed but annoyed him greatly; and sometimes St. +John would come in and look on with a grin, observing the while that he +was quite a family man, or something equally idiotic. + +St. John _was_ idiotic in those days. He thought so much of his ugly +offspring, as the infant's Godfather mentally called it, and spoilt as +many plates in attempting to photograph it as would have served for all +the babies that came to the studio in a year. Mr Thompkins groaned, +but Jill laughed happily; this tiny link between herself and Jack seemed +the one thing necessary to make her life perfect. Its advent had closed +a chapter in their history and commenced a new one altogether brighter +and happier than the last. The last had known Evie Bolton, and Markham; +but now the name of the one was seldom mentioned, the other never. Jill +had not seen Markham from the hour she sent him from her presence-- +neither had St. John--but a few days after the affair she had received a +letter from him, just a short note of apology which ran as follows:-- + +"Dear Mrs St. John,-- + +"I cannot, I fear, convey to you my heartfelt sorrow at the indiscretion +I was guilty of last Tuesday. I have been reproaching myself for my +folly ever since. The fault was mine, as is also the loss. I made a +mistake. Try to forgive me and to forget. I go abroad next week +indefinitely. Goodbye." + +Jill offered it to her husband when she had finished reading, but St. +John put her hand aside, and shook his head decisively. + +"You know that that isn't necessary between you and me," he said +reproachfully. + +"I think he would like you to see it," she answered. + +He took it then and read it through; when he had done so he handed it +back again with a grave half-troubled smile. + +"Considering how I, myself, was mistaken," he said, "I don't think that +I have the right to censure him at all." + +Jill tore the note up slowly, watching the fragments intently as they +fluttered from her fingers. The knowledge that her husband had +misjudged her was the bitterest part of all. And yet in her heart she +did not blame him; she even found excuses for him, but the pain was none +the less acute because she refused to admit its reason, though no doubt +it was easier borne, and would be more readily forgotten. + +"I am very much afraid," she said gently, with a slight hesitation of +tone and manner, "that I, also, must have been at fault to cause two men +to make the same mistake. I don't suppose that I have any right to +blame him either. I think the wisest course would be to do as he +suggests--forgive everything, and forget." + +And as St. John was of the same opinion the matter ended there, and if +not entirely forgotten was at least never referred to between them +again. + +CHAPTER NINETEEN. + +It was just two years after Jill's baby had been born that a very +wonderful thing occurred; Mr St. John senior visited Thompkins and Co. +for no less a purpose than calling upon his son's wife. He did not come +unexpectedly; he wrote a week beforehand apprising them of the fact, and +duly on the appointed date he pushed open the outer door and entered the +mean little shop, standing in it, as it were, protestingly, his hat off, +his shoulders slightly bowed; tall, and cross, and dignified--frowning +at his son. St. John came forward quickly. He was expecting his father +but pride forbade his making any preparation. He had been in the studio +during the early part of the afternoon and was still in his working +clothes though Jill had suggested to him the propriety of changing, but +he had chosen to ignore the suggestion, arguing that that which was good +enough for his wife should be good enough for his father too; and so he +came forward as he was and stood in front of the visitor just as he +might have done had he been any ordinary customer. The old man's glance +travelled slowly from the strong face with its proud smile to the shabby +suit of clothes, the stains upon them testifying to the nature of the +wearer's work, and his carelessness as an operator. As he looked he +smiled also. It was not a pleasant smile, and the younger man silently +resented it. + +"Photography does not appear a very lucrative employment," he observed. + +"No," answered St. John. "At least I do not find it so." + +"Ah! Well, no doubt that assists you to realise the mistake you made." + +"I made no mistake," the other interrupted shortly. "If you refer to my +marriage that is the one thing I have never--and shall never regret." + +"Yet it has been the means of reducing you to your present strait." + +"Pardon me," retorted the younger man, "want of a profession, and not my +marriage, has been the means of my poverty. If I failed in my duty to +you as a son remember that you in the first place failed in your duty to +me." + +The grey brows drew together over the high-bridged nose, and the old +eyes glared angrily into the young, indignant ones. + +"I brought you up to the profession of a gentleman," Mr St. John +remarked. + +"If by the `profession of a gentleman' you mean a dependent beggar--a +parasite--a less than menial," rejoined the son, "you did. And until I +met Jill I was not man enough to feel the degradation of it." + +"Until you met Jill you were not a fool," snapped his father. + +"We won't discuss that point further," St. John rejoined; "it is one on +which we are never likely to agree. You wanted, your note said, to see +Jill. I can't imagine why, but if you still wish to see her we will go +upstairs at once." + +Mr St. John having intimated that a two minutes' uncomfortable +conversation with his son had not altered his intention in coming, the +latter turned impatiently upon his heel and led the way to the +sitting-room where Jill was waiting with her little boy, striving, in +her efforts to amuse him, to stifle her own nervousness and vague +misgivings. + +The child was simply and daintily dressed in white, and had grown from a +puny infant into a sturdy, healthy little man, with more than an +ordinary share of good looks and good spirits, and a very charming and +lovable disposition. Jill idolised him, but she was wise in her love, +and the spoiling--if spoiling it could be called--was of a very +judicious kind, tending chiefly to bring out the best qualities in the +impressionable baby-nature, so that surrounded, as this baby was, with +love and care and tenderness, he bade fair to turn out a generous, +affectionate, happy little fellow; and if he were not as well off as +some babies, at least he had been born without the silver spoon, and so +was not likely to feel the deprivation. + +Jill had been playing with him on the floor, doing her best to keep him +good-tempered before his grandfather's arrival; for with her +mother-instinct she associated this visit with the child, and was +naturally anxious that he should appear at his best. When she heard +their steps upon the stairs she scrambled hastily to a more dignified +position, and stood with bright eyes, and flushed cheeks waiting to +receive her former enemy. She had not forgotten his first and only +other visit to her; she was not likely to forget it, nor to forgive him +the pain he made her suffer then, and the insult which he had offered +her. But she was content to ignore the past for her husband's sake more +than her own, and equally ready to treat her father-in-law with a +politeness and consideration that he had no right to expect at her +hands. Doubtless he remembered the incident also; he certainly did not +anticipate a welcome, for he returned her cool little bow with equal +distance--indeed hardly appeared to notice her at all. It was evident +that if she had not forgiven him neither had he forgiven her; to her he +owed the upsetting of all his plans, and his present lonely, childless +condition, and he was not the sort of man who easily forgot an injury, +nor readily pardoned the offender. His supercilious gaze rested for an +instant on the mother's face, and then wandered away to the child's, +taking in every detail of the baby-features from the wide, curious eyes, +so absurdly like Jill's both in expression and colouring, to the pretty +curved lips, and rounded chin which even then gave promise of being as +square and obstinate as his father's. What he saw apparently pleased +him; his features relaxed a little, Jill even fancied that he smiled +back when the child in his friendly, confiding fashion smiled up at him, +though if such were the case, which was doubtful, he made no further +advance. He had never cared for children, and he did not now pretend to +feel any interest in this one more than another. He had not come to see +his grandson, but merely to make a proposal concerning him, and this +proposal he forthwith expounded to the baby's parents to their no small +astonishment and dismay. His offer--and it was a good one from a +worldly point of view--was to adopt the child altogether; to take him at +the age of seven from his present surroundings and bring him up as he +had brought up the father, bequeathing, at his death, his entire fortune +to him unconditionally. He made no stipulation against the child seeing +his parents as often as the latter wished, but he was not to live with +them, nor to stay beneath their roof for any length of time. + +When he had finished speaking he looked towards his son, but St. John +shook his head decisively, and turned abruptly away; he could not answer +such a question; he felt that he had not the right to do so. + +"Ask his mother," was all he said. + +"Petticoat government, eh?" sneered the old man. "I appealed to you +because I hoped that you would have profited by your own experience and +been glad of the opportunity of giving your son a chance. With women it +is different; they are so beastly selfish in their love; they always +want the object of their affection near them." + +"Ask his mother," St. John repeated in a hard voice. "A mother has more +right than anyone else to decide the future of her child." + +Jill, who had remained till now impassive, listening open-eyed to all +she heard, came forward as her husband finished speaking and stood +between the old man and the baby on the floor as though she would +protect the child from his grandfather's designs. She was quite calm +and collected; St. John wondered rather at her evident self-control. + +"It is very good of you, Mr St. John," she said, "to make Baby such a +handsome offer. But you are wrong in thinking that a mother's love is +selfish; it is not where it is real; and it is entirely in my baby's +interests that I am going to regard your proposal." + +"Going to refuse it you mean," he snapped. + +Jill smiled. + +"Going to refuse it if you like to put it that way," she said. "Of +course it would be splendid for Baby in one sense, but I don't think it +would be kind. I have never approved of bringing children up in a +different position to their parents. My boy, no matter how good-hearted +he turned out, would grow to look down upon his father, and the poor +little shop with its poorer photographs, and upon the kind old man who +stood Godfather to him, and drops his h's, but loves the child almost as +though he were his own. I have heard of such things before. Children +who are exalted to very different positions to their parents learn to +despise them, and feel ashamed of them, and then, of course, they +despise themselves for doing so; and altogether it is very hopeless, and +rather cruel, I think. + +"Don't fancy me ungrateful; it is not that. It isn't that I wouldn't +spare my boy if I considered it all for the best; but I don't I think he +will be a much happier, and a better little boy if he is brought up just +as well as we can manage, with no more brilliant prospect than the +knowledge that he has to make his own way in the world as his father did +before him." + +"So you are going to make an independent beggar of him as you did of his +father, eh? Well, I would have made him an independent gentleman. But +no matter. You possess the right unfortunately of ruining both their +futures. Perhaps one day you will remember my offer with regret, but +understand, please that I shall not renew it; neither will you or yours +benefit from me in any way." + +"I had never expected that we should," Jill answered with proud +simplicity. "I have not been accustomed to luxury and so don't feel the +need of it. It is harder for my husband than for me, harder for him +than it will be for the boy; but I don't fancy that Jack minds it much." + +"Jack is a fool," his father answered bitterly. "He could have been +anything almost if he had followed out my wishes." + +St. John smiled faintly. He did not resent the slighting epithet +applied to himself; he understood in a way, the old man's keen +disappointment, and felt more sorry than chagrined at his unrelenting +harshness. + +"Don't think too much about it, sir," he said; "I should have been bound +to fail you somehow. I was never one of those brainy ambitious fellows, +you know; it takes more than money to make a great career." + +"It takes a _man_," Mr St. John answered sententiously. He had not sat +down throughout the brief interview, although his son had placed a chair +for him, and now he turned to go with less ceremony than when he +entered. He even omitted the courtesy of bowing to Jill; he simply +walked out without looking at her. St. John followed him and opened the +shop door for him to pass through. + +"Good-bye," he said earnestly. "I regret the breach between us with all +my heart--though that will hardly bridge it over, will it? If at any +time you want me you have only to command." + +"You have always obeyed my commands so readily, eh?" retorted his +father. "I am not likely to trouble you again. By the way you need not +consider it necessary in future to make a kind of family Bible of me for +the chronicling of domestic events. Our intercourse is at an end from +this date. I neither wish to hear of, nor to see you again." + +CHAPTER TWENTY. + +When St. John had closed the door after his father he walked into the +studio and busied himself unnecessarily shifting back scenes and +rearranging everything in order to work off the depression the recent +interview had left behind. He thoroughly understood that this was the +final break with his father, and the realisation cost him more than one +pang of bitter regret. He felt that to a certain extent he had been +wanting in duty, and yet he knew that he could not have acted otherwise; +the whole thing was as deplorable as it was inevitable; and it might +have been so different had it not been for the obstinate pride of one +ambitious old man. + +In the midst of his sad reflections he forgot Jill altogether. Sorrow +inclines one to be selfish, and St. John just then was dwelling so much +upon his own wounded feelings that he had no room for any other thought. +That Jill, too, might be hurt, and that very possibly she was worrying +on his account did not occur to him or he would have gone to her at +once, instead he seated himself on a little rustic bench that had so +often served to pose a difficult subject, and leaned his head dejectedly +upon his open palm. And thus Jill found him later when, having left her +baby in his Godfather's charge, she came in search of him wondering at +his continued absence. The sight brought the tears to her eyes, and she +drew back with the half-formed resolve of going away unseen, but +changing her mind almost immediately she dropped the shabby curtain +which formed the exit behind her, and running forward put both her arms +about his neck. + +"Oh! my saint, my dear old saint, don't take it to heart so," she cried +imploringly. + +And at the sound of her voice, the voice that was dearer to him than any +other in all the world, he lifted his head and smiled up at her, a +loving, reassuring smile. + +"I am not taking it to heart," he said. "I was a little bit hipped, +that's all." + +"You don't think that I acted wrongly?" queried Jill diffidently. "You +are not vexed that I declined his offer for baby?" + +"Good Lord, no!" he answered vehemently. "I could never have reconciled +myself to giving the little beggar up. We managed very well without him +before he came, Jill dear; but we couldn't manage now after once having +him, could we? You did what was right as I knew you would. In any +serious matter I should invariably leave the decision to you." + +"How good you are to me, Jack," she whispered gratefully. "How +unselfish! It doesn't seem fair that you should have had to give up so +much for me. And now comes this fresh trouble. We have had one or two +worries, haven't we dear?" + +"Yes," he answered brightly, rising, and putting his arm protectingly +around her waist, "we have, but fortunately we are both sufficiently +self-respecting, and single-purposed to trust one another implicitly, +and so the worries don't affect us very much. Some people would have +magnified them into tragedies, but we have managed to shake them off +somehow, and come up smiling. So long as we have each other, and +health--" + +"And Baby," supplemented Jill. "And Baby, of course; there is nothing +much we need worry about. The business manages to keep on its feet +somehow; I think one day it may possibly even walk." + +"You are brave and confident," Jill whispered a little wistfully, "but +you will never be well off now dear." + +And St. John with his arm still round her, drew her nearer to him and +kissed her upon the lips. The feeling of sadness had passed, a deep +happiness and contentment had risen in its place. + +"I _am_ well off," he answered. "No man, whatever his social standing +or the size of his banking account, could be better off. I wouldn't +swop you and the boy, Jill, for the untold wealth of the world." + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +The End. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Triumph of Jill, by F.E. Mills Young + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRIUMPH OF JILL *** + +***** This file should be named 37269.txt or 37269.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/2/6/37269/ + +Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. |