An Act in a Backwater

by E. F. Benson

Jeannie turned half round and looked at him. But before she could reply there swept by Colonel Raymond, followed by a string of straggling children, returning from their “good, brisk walk.” He saw her, stared, stared also at her companion, and passed on.

“Oh, dear me,” thought Jeannie, “Arthur has evidently seen him. That was one of the most complete cuts I ever received.”

She paused a moment to bring her thoughts back to the point from which they had strayed.

“No, you are right; not radically,” she said. “And if your disagreement has been radical, and it is not impertinent of me, do let me offer you my sympathy. It is rather a common word, but sincerity makes common things real.”

She looked divinely beautiful. The soft, wistful expression of her face was altogether womanly, the brightness and vivacity belonged to girlhood. Spring trembled on the verge of summer, an entrancing moment. Admirable as his sketch had been, like her as it was, Jack found it but a pale parody of the deeper beauty which shone on him. Sympathy like an electric spark had passed from her, and the face he had thought only so admirable in its amused anxiety became a face which showed a beautiful soul. The lamp within had been lit, and the light showed through the fair carving of the lantern.

“Thank you for that,” he said at length, gravely. “Tattered banners of words are hung in sacred places.”

She turned and looked at the water again.

“Are our brains cleaner?” she said. “If so, let us go and give Toby his bath. Won’t you come with me, Mr. Collingwood? We can stroll along the river and go back home round through the close.”

It was at that divine hour when day and evening meet. The sun was low and level, and its light, instead of coming from one spot and dazzling the eyes, was diffused through a golden haze. The heat and stress of summer, one would have said, was over or not yet come, and it might have been a day from early May or from late September. The fulness of the stream argued the former, but a certain mellowness of colour showed the other. Jack, inclined as an artist is to be very indolent except when he is very industrious, was under the spell of the evening, under the spell, too, of the sympathy which had floated to him across the airy bridge by which soul spans the otherwise inaccessible gulf which divides it from any other soul. He was a man, lovable; she was a lovable woman; heaven is there, and all is said.

Toby staggered round them, occasionally dashing away after interesting smells, and barking hoarsely and rudely at passers-by in a state of self-importance not unmixed with nervousness. He enjoyed his bath when once he was in the water, but he was a little distrustful of it; the self-importance was due to the fact that he considered this daily walk by the river to be taken entirely on his account. He had something, in fact, of the air of Colonel Raymond about him, and Jeannie wondered what he would make of this sight of herself and Jack together lounging on the bridge.