“Thank you,” said Jack curtly, “I need not trouble you. If your house does not suit me, I can complain, or leave it.” He paused, and then added more courteously, “You may reassure yourself as to my personal comfort, Miss Sutherland. I am well used to greater privation than I am likely to suffer with you.”
Mary had nothing more to say. Herbert coughed and turned his ring round a few times upon his finger. Jack stood motionless, and looked very ugly.
“Although Mr. Sutherland has left this matter altogether in my hands,” said Herbert at last, “I hardly like to conclude it myself. He is staying close by, in Onslow Gardens. Would you mind calling on him now? If you will allow me, I will give you a note to the effect that our interview has been a satisfactory one.” Jack bowed. “Excuse me for one moment. My writing materials are in the next room. I will say a word or two to Charlie, and send him in to you.”
There was a mirror in the room, which Herbert had used as a model. It was so placed that Mary could see the image of the new tutor’s face, as, being now alone with her, he looked for the first time at the picture. A sudden setting of his mouth and derisive twinkle in his eye shewed that he found something half ludicrous, half contemptible, in the work; and she, observing this, felt hurt, and began to repent having engaged him. Then the expression softened to one of compassion; he sighed as he turned away from the easel. Before she could speak Charlie entered, saying:
“I am to go back with you to Onslow Gardens, Mr Jack, if you don’t mind.”
“Oh, no, Charlie: you must stay with me,” said Mary.
“Don’t be alarmed: Adrian is going on to the Museum with you directly; and the housekeeper is here to do propriety. I have no particular fancy for lounging about that South Kensington crockery shop with you; and, besides, Mr Jack does not know his way to Jermyn’s. Here is Adrian.”
Herbert came in, and handed a note to the tutor, who took it; nodded briefly to them; and went out with Charlie.
“That is certainly the ugliest man I ever saw,” said Herbert. “I think he has got the better of us, too. We are a pretty pair to transact business.”
“Yes,” said Mary, laughing. “He said he was not a man of business; but I wonder what he thinks of us.”
“As of two young children whom fate has delivered into his hand, doubtless, shall we start now for South Kensington?”
“Yes. But I don’t want to disturb my impression of the Lady of Shalott by any more art to-day. It is so fine this afternoon that I think it would be more sensible for us to take a walk in the Park than to shut ourselves up in the Museum.”
Herbert agreeing, they walked together to Hyde Park. “Now that we are here,” said he, “where shall we go to? The Row?”
“Certainly not. It is the most vulgar place in London. If we could find a pleasant seat, I should like to rest.”
“We had better try Kensington Gardens, then.”
“No,” said Mary, remembering Mr Jack. “I do not like Kensington Gardens.”
“I have just thought of the very thing,” exclaimed Herbert. “Let us take a boat. The Serpentine is not so pretty as the Thames at Windsor; but it will have the charm of novelty for you. Will you come?”
“I should like it of all things. But I rely upon you as to the propriety of my going with you.”
Herbert hesitated. “I do not think there can be any harm.”
“There: I was only joking. Do you think I allow myself to be influenced by such nonsense as that? Let us go.”
So they went to the boat-house and embarked. Herbert sculled aimlessly about, enjoying the spring sunshine, until they found themselves in an unfrequented corner of the Serpentine, when he half shipped his sculls, and said, “Let us talk for a while now. I have worked enough, I think.”
“By all means,” said Mary. “May I begin?”
Herbert looked quickly at her, and seemed a little disconcerted. “Of course.” said he.
“I want to make a confession,” she said. “it concerns the Lady of Shalott, of which I have been busily thinking since we started.”
“Have you reconsidered your good opinion of it?”
“No. Better and yet worse than that. I have reconsidered my bad impression of it — at least, I do not mean that — I never had a bad impression of it, but my vacant, stupid first idea. My confession is that I was disappointed at the first sight of it. Wait: let me finish. It was different from what I imagined, as it ought to have been; for I am not an artist, and therefore do not imagine things properly. But it has grown upon me since; and now I like it better than if it had dazzled my ignorant eyes at first. I have been thinking that if it had the gaudy qualities I missed in it, I should not have respected you so much for painting it, nor should I have been forced to dwell on the poetry of the conception as I have been. I remember being secretly disappointed the first time we went to the National Gallery; and, as to my first opera, I suffered agonies of disenchantment. It is a comfort to me — a mean one, I fear — to know that Sir Joshua Reynolds was disappointed at his first glimpse of Raphael’s frescoes in the Vatican, and that some of the great composers thought Beethoven’s music hideous before they became familiar with it.”
“You find that my picture improves on acquaintance?”
“Oh. yes! Very much. Or rather I improve.”
“But are you sure youre not coaxing yourself into a false admiration of it for my — to avoid hurting me?”
“No, indeed,” said Mary vehemently, trying by force of assertion to stifle this suspicion, which had come into her own mind before Herbert mentioned it.
“And do you still feel able to sympathize with my aims, and willing to encourage me, and to keep the highest aspects of my art before me, as you have done hitherto?”
“I feel willing, but not able. How often must I remind you that I owe all my feeling for art to you, and that I am only the faint reflexion of you in all matters concerning it?”
“Nevertheless without your help I should long ago have despaired. Are you quite sure — I beg you to answer me faithfully — that you do not despise me?”
“Mr. Herbert! How can you think such a thing of me? How can you think it of yourself?”
“I am afraid my constant self-mistrust is only too convincing a proof of my weakness. I sometimes despise myself.”
“It is a proof of your artistic sensibility. You do not need to learn from me that all the great artists have left passages behind them proving that they have felt sometimes as you feel now. Take the oars again; and let us spin down to the bridge. The exercise will cure your fancies.”
“Not yet. I have something else to say. Has it occurred to you that if by any accident — by the forming of a new tie, for instance — your sympathies came to be diverted from me, I should lose the only person whose belief in me has helped me to believe in myself? How utterly desolate I should be!”
“Desolate! Nonsense. Some day you will exhaust the variety of the sympathy you compliment me so highly upon. You will find it growing shallow and monotonous; and then you will not be sorry to be rid of it.”
“I am quite serious. Mary: I have felt for some time past that it is neither honest nor wise in me to trifle any longer with my only chance of happiness. Will you become engaged to me? You may meet many better and stronger men than I, but none who will value you more highly — perhaps none to whose life you can be so indispensable.”
There was a pause, Mary being too full of the responsibility she felt placed upon her to reply at once. Of the ordinary maidenly embarrassment she shewed not a trace.
“Why cannot we go on