One day he suddenly found himself alone with Ianthe in a glade of larch trees which they had all been sketching. They had loitered. He had been naming wild flowers which Ianthe had picked for the purpose and then thrown wantonly away. She spied a single plant of helleborine growing in the dimness under the closely planted saplings.
"Don't! don't!" he cried. He kept her from plucking it and they knelt down together to admire the white virginal flower. His arm fell around Ianthe's waist in a light casual way. He scarcely realised its presumption. He had not intended to do it; as far as that went he did not particularly want to do it, but there his arm was. Ianthe took no notice of the embrace and he felt foolish, he could not retreat until they rose to walk on; then Ianthe pressed close to his side until his arm once more stole round her.
"Heavens above," she said, "you do get away with it quick!"
"Life's short, there's no time to lose, I do as I'd be done by."
"And there are so many of us! But glory," said the jolly girl, taking him to her bosom, "in for a penny, in for a pound."
She did not pick any more flowers, and soon they were out of the wood decorously joining the others. He imagined that Julia's gaze was full of irony, the timid wonder in Kate's eyes moved him uncomfortably, there was something idiotic in the whole affair.
Until the end of the summer he met Ianthe often enough in the little town or in the city three miles further off. Her uncouthness still repelled him and sometimes he disliked her completely, but she was always happy to be with him, fond and gay with all the endearing alertness of a pert bird.
Her sister Kate was not just the mere female that Ianthe was; at once sterner and softer her passions were more strong but their defences stood solid as a rock. In spite of her reserve she was always on the brink of her emotions, and they, unhappily for her, were often not transient, but enduring. She was nearly thirty, still unwed. Her dark beauty, for she, too, was fine, seemed to brood in melancholy over his attentions to the other two women. She was quiet, she had little to say, she seemed to stand and wait.
One autumn night after the pupils had gone home from school he walked into the dim lobby for his hat and coat. Kate Forrest was there. She stood with her back to him adjusting her hat. She did not say a word nor did he address her. They were almost touching each other, there was a pleasant scent about her. In the class-room behind the caretaker was walking about the hollow sounding floor, humming loudly as he clapped down windows and mounted the six chairs to turn out the six gas lamps.