The Incomplete Amorist | Page 8

that sank themselves were, "young and
innocent and beautiful like--like--"
"But he couldn't have meant me, of course," she told herself.
And on Monday she would see him again,--and he would give her a
lesson!
Sunday was incredibly wearisome. Her Sunday-school class had never
been so tiresome nor so soaked in hair-oil. In church she was shocked
to find herself watching, from her pew in the chancel, the entry of late
comers--of whom He was not one. No afternoon had ever been half so
long. She wrote up her diary. Thursday and Friday were quickly
chronicled. At "Saturday" she paused long, pen in hand, and then wrote
very quickly: "I went out sketching and met a gentleman, an artist. He
was very kind and is going to teach me to paint and he is going to paint
my portrait. I do not like him particularly. He is rather old, and not
really good-looking. I shall not tell father, because he is simply hateful
to me. I am going to meet this artist at 6 to-morrow. It will be dreadful

having to get up so early. I almost wish I hadn't said I would go. It will
be such a bother."
Then she hid the diary in a drawer, under her confirmation dress and
veil, and locked the drawer carefully.
He was not at church in the evening either. He had thought of it, but
decided that it was too much trouble to get into decent clothes.
"I shall see her soon enough," he thought, "curse my impulsive
generosity! Six o'clock, forsooth, and all to please a clergyman's
daughter."
She came back from church with tired steps.
"I do hope I'm not going to be ill," she said. "I feel so odd, just as if I
hadn't had anything to eat for days,--and yet I'm not a bit hungry either.
I daresay I shan't wake up in time to get there by six."
She was awake before five.
She woke with a flutter of the heart. What was it? Had anything
happened? Was anyone ill? Then she recognized that she was not
unhappy. And she felt more than ever as though it were days since she
had had anything to eat.
"Oh, dear," said Betty, jumping out of bed. "I'm going out, to meet Him,
and have a drawing-lesson!"
She dressed quickly. It was too soon to start. Not for anything must she
be first at the rendezvous, even though it were only for a
drawing-lesson. That "only" pulled her up sharply.
When she was dressed she dug out the diary and wrote:
"This is terrible. Is it possible that I have fallen in love with him? I
don't know. 'Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?' It is a most
frightful tragedy to happen to one, and at my age too. What a long life
of loneliness stretches in front of me! For of course he could never care

for me. And if this is love--well, it will be once and forever with me, I
know.
"That's my nature, I'm afraid. But I'm not,--I can't be. But I never felt so
unlike myself. I feel a sort of calm exultation, as if something very
wonderful was very near me. Dear Diary, what a comfort it is to have
you to tell everything to!"
It seemed to her that she must certainly be late. She had to creep down
the front stairs so very slowly and softly in order that she might not
awaken her step-father. She had so carefully and silently to unfasten a
window and creep out, to close the window again, without noise, lest
the maids should hear and come running to see why their young
mistress was out of her bed at that hour. She had to go on tiptoe
through the shrubbery and out through the church yard. One could
climb its wall, and get into the Park that way, so as not to meet
labourers on the road who would stare to see her alone so early and
perhaps follow her.
Once in the park she was safe. Her shoes and her skirts were wet with
dew. She made haste. She did not want to keep him waiting.
But she was first at the rendezvous, after all.
She sat down on the carpet of pine needles. How pretty the early
morning was. The sunlight was quite different from the evening
sunlight, so much lighter and brighter. And the shadows were different.
She tried to settle on a point of view for her sketch, the sketch he was
to help her with.
Her thoughts went back to what she had written in her diary. If that
should be true she must be very, very careful. He must never guess it,
never. She would be very cold