"You fight too hard," she pleaded.
"I"m sorry," he said remorsefully. "I shall not do it again."
"Oh, I"m not a bit hurt," she protested. "I was only thinking the point over."
"I want to hear what you were thinking." His smile and tone were meaningly affectionate, as if they would add "little child."
"I meant that I should never really be hurt by qualifications. I have never been used to having nice things said to me. I certainly do not deserve tributes, but I know I deserve all possible qualifications."
"Oh, if you please! I"ll not allow even Miss Robinson to say such slanderous things about so valued a friend of mine."
"So I have been slandering a friend of yours! I"m so sorry. Forgive me."
"I suppose I must--though I find it hard--very hard."
"I do believe you are paying me a tribute," she laughed. "Now for the qualifications. You shall see how stoical I am."
"Qualifications--none!" He threw down his brushes and palette, as if to emphasise the declaration. "I"m tired first," he sang out gaily. "Let us rest."
"There!" she exclaimed. "What a triumph for me!"
"But you say it so gently that it is a pleasure to concede you the victory. You are an ideal foe."
"Oh, if you please, I don"t want to be a foe.... How cold it is!" She stooped and held her hands again to the fire.
"No, child," he said gently, "of course we aren"t foes. We are very good friends indeed, aren"t we?" He held out his hand, as if to clench the understanding, so clearly and warmly acknowledged.
She was all a-flutter again, though, as was her habit, she covered it up with a smile. "Very good friends!" she returned, with conviction, and she put her hand in his, and let it linger there. "I have always lived reserved and to myself," she added thoughtfully. "You may think it strange, but I have never had a friend before--not even a woman friend."
"I can well understand your shrinking away from people. No doubt most people would jar on you."
"It would hurt me if I thought that. I should not like to despise anybody. I should have loved to have friends: only I have never had the gift of making them. Sometimes I am thankful that I am not brilliant--I might so easily have become unendurable and full of self-conceit."
"Ah, you are something better than brilliant," he exclaimed. "It needs an exceptional spirit to appreciate you. You are so much out of the ordinary in every way, in looks----"
"No, no," she interrupted in protest. "I have no looks. I have no illusions about that."
"Look at your own portrait," he insisted. "I say it is the kind of beauty it needs a gift to appreciate. In beauty--as in everything else--the crowd runs after the obvious and the commonplace."
"You are the first that ever thought I possessed good looks. You have given them to me."
"I have not even done you justice. I have omitted more than I have suggested. My sister thinks you are beautiful; all my artist friends who have seen the picture share her opinion."
She was silent, almost distressed; she could not meet his gaze, but turned her eyes away.
"It gave me pleasure to hear you appreciated," he continued. "You are above conventional compliments. I withdraw what I said before. You are _not_ like other women."
Her breath came and went as she listened, but she smiled bravely.
"At any rate I am not like _some_ women. I never could take any of the deeper aspects of life in a merely frivolous spirit. With me it is a loyal, deep friendship, or nothing."
He took her hand again. "Believe me, dear child, the friendship on my part is equally loyal and deep. It is for life."
"For life," she murmured, suddenly grown pale.
He dashed in, determined to strike home.
"I prize you at your full worth, since I am one of those who can measure it. I have the deepest affection for you. I believe I could make you happy. Don"t you understand? I offer you my whole life--that is, if you think me worthy."
"Worthy!" she echoed, in dazed distress. "How can you think me worthy of you! I have lived in narrow retirement. I am nothing."
He seized both her hands now. "No more of this. I ask for your promise."
"I love you with all my heart and soul. But I am not good enough for you."
"I thought we agreed you were not like other women, and yet there is this stiff-necked obstinacy." He drew her nearer to him, and kissed her on the lips. "It is settled--you are to be my wife."
His domination seemed to hypnotise her. "Yes, I will do my best to make you a perfect wife, dear," she murmured, as if bowing to his irresistible will.
He held her hands tighter, and looked into her face as if proudly. She met his look with glistening eyes: she was deathly pale now, and her lips, too, were colourless. Then abruptly she drew her hands from him, and, as if impelled on some tide of womanhood that rose in high music above all hesitations, above the fluttering timidity of her whole life, she threw her arms round his neck, and kissed his lips with a long abandonment.
"I am now almost afraid of your sister," she whispered presently. "I shall feel on my trial."
"But she has fallen in love with you already," he rea.s.sured her again.
"And Mary is the sweetest and gentlest soul in the world."
"I know I shall love her," she said. Her head hung down a moment in meditation. "But let us continue the work now, dear. I know you wish to have it finished to-day."
But he had little now to add to it, and he had made his last stroke before the dusk of the afternoon overtook him.
XIV
Wyndham"s career as an engaged man began amid a radiance of enthusiasm.
When his prospective mother-in-law arrived for the tea-party, she was enchanted at the news, declaring, after the first joyous surprise, that it was the wish that lay nearest to the hearts of herself and her husband. And, presently, when Mary appeared, and was introduced not only to "the original of the portrait she had so admired," but also to "a very sweet Alice" who was to be her sister, "I guessed it," she broke out, kissing Miss Robinson impulsively. "I am so delighted."
Heigh, presto! In a trice the three women were chatting away like a group of old neighbours! Wyndham became discreetly busy with tea-things.
Of course the Robinsons insisted on Mary"s dining with them, and so there was a happy little reunion in the evening. Mr. Robinson thrilled visibly with the honour of having Mary at his board, and he congratulated Wyndham with pathetic cordiality, his voice husky with emotion, his eyes streaming with tears.
Such was the auspicious beginning. But the universe seemed to vibrate to white heat as a wider population entered into the jubilation. Mary was the first to spread the news, her letters reaching the Hertfordshire circle express. In the twinkling of an eye, as it appeared to Wyndham, a flood of letters poured through the slit in his door. He had done that which makes every man a hero for the moment, and dim figures with whom he had been out of touch for endless years started up again on the horizon, palpitatingly actual, athrob with goodwill. In the Bohemian world, too, confirmation of the former rumour was not slow to be noised abroad, and Sadler hastened to Hampstead and burst in upon him, the ma.s.sive head enthusiastically aglow; declaring that he had never for a moment taken Wyndham"s denial seriously, and roaring out his congratulations and envy with an exuberance of virile expletive.
At Aunt Eleanor"s the Christmas festivities were struck in a gayer key in his honour. Odes of welcome and triumph were in the air. And he was glad enough to be among his own world again; living in the way that meant civilisation to him, and breathing homage and consideration-- lionised by his equals! It was as though the fatted calf had been killed for him, after his prodigal riot of penury. He expanded in this atmosphere of adulation, amid all these manifestations in honour of the brilliant artist and the Prince Charming who loved and was loved idyllically. His engagement seemed to him now most admirable--the world"s sanction had invested it with warm and pleasant lights.
Certainly n.o.body deprecated or criticised the projected alliance; though it was known to be with middle-cla.s.s people who were not in Society, but merely quiet folk of wealth and respectability. Mary"s enthusiasm had gone a long way in antic.i.p.ating any possible caste objections, and the word of approval went round from one to another in the usual parrot-like way in which public opinion has formed itself since creation. There seemed in fact to be a very conspiracy of approbation. Wyndham had done wisely; and voices dropped impressively to dwell on the Robinson millions--with the obvious implication that that is what wealthy middle-cla.s.s people are for--to have the most promising of their kind promoted into the upper cla.s.ses.
But the Robinson fortune, though not inconsiderable, was not the romantic one of rumour. Mr. Robinson had already performed his duty of writing to Wyndham on the financial aspect of the alliance, and in so charming a way that Wyndham had at once paid him the tribute of "jolly decent." Since they had not had the opportunity of disposing of the subject _viva voce_, had said the old man, he conceived it perhaps to be an obligation on his part to do so without delaying further; after which these matters would of course pa.s.s entirely into the realm of Wyndham"s private affairs, where he was well content to leave them.