had been obliged to haila four-wheeler and drive with his cousin home, and a most unpleasantdrive she made it; it was as much as he could do to sit quiet under hershower of tearful reproaches. He ought to have known better than tohave taken her to such a low place. She might have guessed after havingseen her what sort of creature the girl was. It would have been muchbetter to have acted as she wished to in the first place--given somesuitable donation or commissioned her for a painting; that would havebeen quite sufficient; it wasn't her fault that the stupid girl got infront of her wheel, etc: etc: St. John said,--
"Shut up, Evie; don't talk rot." But when you tell some people to shutup it has a contrary effect and serves as an incentive to talk more, itwas so with Miss Bolton. She was not violent because it was not hernature to be demonstrative, nor was she in the slightest degree vulgar;but her command over the English language could not fail to excite theastonishment of her listener; to quote St. John's euphonism, "it madehim sick."
"I daresay," retorted Miss Bolton disagreeably; "my remarks generallyhave a nauseating effect upon you, I notice; yet that disgraceful girlwithout any sense of decency--"
"_In_decency, you mean," he interrupted. "You are very horrid," sobbedhis cousin, subsiding into tears again, and St. John devoutly wishedthat he had held his peace.
The rest of the journey was very watery, and at its termination he felttoo demoralised to do anything except go for a stroll; the house withMiss Bolton in it was too small for him. Miss Bolton was Mr St. Johnsenior's ward; she was a kind of fifth cousin twice removed, which wasthe nearest kinship that she could claim on earth--that is to say withanyone worth claiming kinship with. There were cousins who kept ahaberdashery, and spoke of the `heiress' with a big `h' but Evie Boltondidn't know them; though according to the genealogical tree they wereonly once removed, but that remove had been so distant that it made allthe difference in the world. Mr St. John, senior, both admired andloved his ward, Mr St. John, junior, was expected to follow thepaternal example, and Miss Bolton, herself, was quite willing to presenther big, good-looking cousin with her hand, and her fortune, and as muchof her heart as she could conveniently spare. It would be difficult toascertain whether St. John appreciated her generosity as it deserved.He had appeared thoroughly acquiescent up to the present when a possibleengagement had been mooted by his father, but had so far refrained fromputting his luck to the test. But in Mr St. John, senior's, eyes theaffair was a settled fact, and had anyone suggested the probability ofits coming to nothing he would have scouted the idea.
The following Friday when St. John entered the Art School he found avery subdued little figure waiting for him--the old style of Jill withher hair tied with ribbon, and the big pinafore over her shabby frock.But not altogether the old style either; there was no attempt at dignityhere, no self-sufficiency of manner but that she was so thoroughlycomposed he would have thought her nervous. She shook hands with aslightly deprecating smile, and remarked interrogatively,--
"Miss Bolton has not come? I am sorry."
"No," he answered with an assumption at indifference which he was farfrom feeling. "I told you art was a temporary whim with her, and Ifancy the stairs rather appalled her; she is not very strong."
His desire to spare her embarrassment was altogether too palpable. Jillturned away to hide a smile, or a blush, or something feminine which shedid not wish him to perceive. He watched her in some amusement andwaited for her to break the silence. He would have liked to have helpedher out, but could think of nothing to say.
"I behaved foolishly last Tuesday;" she remarked at length, speakingwith her back impolitely turned towards him, and a mixture of shame andtriumph on the face which he could not see. "I lost my temper which wasill bred; and," turning round and laughingly openly, "I'm afraid thatI'm not so sorry as I ought to be. Don't," putting up her hand as heessayed to speak, "go on making excuses--your very apologies but condemnme further. It was most ungracious on my part after Miss Bolton'scondescension in coming; yet how was I to know that she was sosupersensitive?"
"I ought to have warned you," he answered. "But never mind now; thereis 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 Ihave?"
But St. John was not to be drawn into any expression of sympathy;personally he felt no inconvenience, and he shrewdly suspected that MissErskine was not particularly distressed herself. He sat down and workcommenced as usual.
St. John was getting on more quickly than his teacher had imagined thathe would. He was not likely to ever make an artist but still heprogressed very fairly in amateur fashion. His eye unfortunately wasnot true; he could never see when a thing was out of drawing, but he wasalways ready to listen to advice, and correct his work undersupervision. His greatest fault was a desire to get on too quickly; andJill had to assert her authority on more than one occasion to restrainhim, and keep his ambition in check.
One day, several weeks after the Bolton episode, he suggested that itwas time he commenced painting; he was tired of black and white. He wasthen drawing from the bust of Clytie, and had only just begun workingfrom the cast. Jill was not in a good temper that morning--things hadnot been prospering with her lately--and so St. John's ill-timedsuggestion met with scant consideration.
"You want to run before you can walk," she returned with ill-humouredsarcasm. "Some people are like that. I knew of a girl once who waslearning riding and insisted on cantering the second time she went out.The result was not altogether satisfactory; for it left her sitting inthe middle of the road. Last week I yielded to your insane desire toattempt Clytie; the attempt is a failure; and so you want to beginpainting."
"Well," he answered not exactly pleased by her manner of refusing hispetition. "I certainly should like to vary the monotony. I don't seewhy 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 andmanner irritated him exceedingly. He felt like saying `Damn yoursystem,' and only refrained by biting fiercely at his moustache, andjerking back his drawing-board with such vehemence that, coming intoviolent contact with the cast from which he had been working, and whichstood 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 intofragments. 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 occasionher some slight relief. She was positively quivering with passion, andstood glaring at the offender as though he had been guilty of a crime.St. John flushed crimson, and as if fearful of further assault dodgedbehind the model of the Venus de Medici. He could hardly be reproachedwith taking refuge behind a woman's petticoats; anyone knowing thefigure could vouch for the impracticability of that; but he feltdecidedly safer screened by the white limbs which had so scandalised hiscousin, and betrayed no disposition to emerge again in a hurry; he wasvery big and Jill was very little but he most certainly felt afraid ofher just then.
"How clumsy of you!" she cried. "I wouldn't have had it happen for theworld--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 vexationaltogether disproportionate, and absurd to a degree verging onaffectation. Had the damage been irreparable he could have understoodher loss of self-control; but it was only a plaster cast which she mustassuredly know that he would replace. Being a man he did not takesentiment into consideration at all, but merely thought her ill-temperedand ungovernable.
"How dare you equal your sorrow to mine?" Jill demanded fiercely. "Youcan't know how I feel. I don't believe you care."
Her lip trembled and she turned quickly away. Never had she looked soforlorn, so little, so shabby, he thought, as at that moment,
andperhaps never in his life before had he felt so uncomfortable--such abrute. Vacating his position of safety he approached until he was closebehind her where she stood with her back to the debris, and he saw thather hands were picking nervously at the paint-soiled apron.
"Don't," he said, and his voice sounded strangely unlike his usualtones. "You make me feel such a beast. You know that I care--you mustknow it. I would rather anything had happened than have vexed you likethis."
"It doesn't matter," answered Jill a little unsteadily, and then one ofthe two big tears which had been welling slowly in her eyes fell with asplash upon the floor, and he
The Triumph of Jill Page 9