The Incomplete Amorist | Page 5

hills. In the
green foreground the pink figure, just roughly blocked in, was blocked
in by a hand that knew its trade, and was artist to the tips of its fingers.
"Oh!" said Betty again.
"Yes," said he, "I think I've got it this time. I think it'll make a hole in
the wall, eh? Yes; it is good!"
"Yes," said Betty; "oh, yes."
"Do you often go a-sketching?" he asked.
"How modest he is," thought Betty; "he changes the subject so as not to
seem to want to be praised."
Aloud she answered with shy fluttered earnestness: "Yes--no. I don't
know. Sometimes."
His lips were grave, but there was the light behind his eyes that goes
with a smile.
"What unnecessary agitation!" he was thinking. "Poor little thing, I
suppose she's never seen a man before. Oh, these country girls!" Aloud
he was saying: "This is such a perfect country. You ought to sketch
every day."
"I've no one to teach me," said Betty, innocently phrasing a long-felt
want.
The man raised his eyebrows. "Well, after that, here goes!" he said to
himself. "I wish you'd let me teach you," he said to her, beginning to
put his traps together.
"Oh, I didn't mean that," said Betty in real distress. What would he
think of her? How greedy and grasping she must seem! "I didn't mean
that at all!"
"No; but I do," he said.

"But you're a great artist," said Betty, watching him with clasped hands.
"I suppose it would be--I mean--don't you know, we're not rich, and I
suppose your lessons are worth pounds and pounds."
"I don't give lessons for money," his lips tightened--"only for love."
"That means nothing, doesn't it?" she said, and flushed to find herself
on the defensive feebly against--nothing.
"At tennis, yes," he said, and to himself he added: "Vieux jeu, my dear,
but you did it very prettily."
"But I couldn't let you give me lessons for nothing."
"Why not?" he asked. And his calmness made Betty feel ashamed and
sordid.
"I don't know," she answered tremulously, but I don't think my
step-father would want me to."
"You think it would annoy him?"
"I'm sure it would, if he knew about it."
Betty was thinking how little her step-father had ever cared to know of
her and her interests. But the man caught the ball as he saw it.
"Then why let him know?" was the next move; and it seemed to him
that Betty's move of rejoinder came with a readiness born of some
practice at the game.
"Oh," she said innocently, "I never thought of that! But wouldn't it be
wrong?"
"She's got the whole thing stereotyped. But it's dainty type anyhow," he
thought. "Of course it wouldn't be wrong," he said. "It wouldn't hurt
him. Don't you know that nothing's wrong unless it hurts somebody?"
"Yes," she said eagerly, "that's what I think. But all the same it doesn't

seem fair that you should take all that trouble for me and get nothing in
return."
"Well played! We're getting on!" he thought, and added aloud: "But
perhaps I shan't get nothing in return?"
Her eyes dropped over the wonderful thought that perhaps she might do
something for him. But what? She looked straight at him, and the
innocent appeal sent a tiny thorn of doubt through his armour of
complacency. Was she--after all? No, no novice could play the game so
well. And yet--
"I would do anything I could, you know," she said eagerly, "because it
is so awfully kind of you, and I do so want to be able to paint. What
can I do?"
"What can you do?" he asked, and brought his face a little nearer to the
pretty flushed freckled face under the shabby hat. Her eyes met his. He
felt a quick relenting, and drew back.
"Well, for one thing you could let me paint your portrait."
Betty was silent.
"Come, play up, you little duffer," he urged inwardly.
When she spoke her voice trembled.
"I don't know how to thank you," she said.
"And you will?"
"Oh, I will; indeed I will!"
"How good and sweet you are," he said. Then there was a silence.
Betty tightened the strap of her sketching things and said:
"I think I ought to go home now."

He had the appropriate counter ready.
"Ah, don't go yet!" he said; "let us sit down; see, that bank is quite in
the shade now, and tell me--"
"Tell you what?" she asked, for he had made the artistic pause.
"Oh, anything--anything about yourself."
Betty was as incapable of flight as any bird on a limed twig.
She walked beside him to the bank, and sat down at his bidding, and he
lay at her feet, looking up into her eyes.