Like the storm of yesterday, all traces of that midnight debauch had passed away. His face ought to have been pale and soddened, and his eyes dull and heavy, with great bags beneath them, but they were not the least changed. The fine intellectual beauty of the face was finer than ever, and the mere physical beauty, which no girl could look upon untouched, was seen to its best advantage on this sweet May morning.
Wyatt Edgell wore a straw hat with the ribbon of his college around it. He had just come from the river, fresh from his bath, and the sun had dried his hair as he had come along, and it curled all over his head in short crisp curls like a god. His face was glowing and his eyes were shining; he looked a picture of perfect health and manly beauty.
We have had so many studies of Venus rising fresh from her bath, but the artists have not been so keen on Adonis.
A sweet thing in oils, not 'The Bather,' but 'The Bathed,' would be a novelty on the walls of the Academy.
There are no baths at Newnham, only six feet of zinc to splash about in, and that one has to take in turn at the end of a lane of girls waiting in the passage. Lucy wouldn't have had her turn for another hour this morning, so she had dressed without it, and had come out into the lane to take a bath of sunshine instead.
She looked paler than if she had had her turn of splashing in eighteen inches of water, but her hair wasn't limp and wet and untidy.
Her heart couldn't help beating a little faster as Wyatt Edgell came towards her, and her face burnt hotly. She could feel that she was blushing like a milkmaid.
'Oh, you here!' she said in quite a tone of surprise. 'I didn't expect you this morning.'
He didn't believe her. He couldn't look down into her glowing face and believe she had put on all those blushes to meet the burning gaze of Apollo, unless, indeed, she expected Wattles.
'No?' he said with a smile, and he imprisoned her hand; 'but I couldn't keep away. I had something to tell you this morning.'