There he stood, waiting for her, and the sight of him aroused in her a tenderness that was half pain. Something she had once read in a book came to her now. “A young falcon”—that was what Barty was like. He was a strong, splendid, free creature whose heart would break if he were fettered.
“I’m not silly about him,” she thought. “I know he’s not so awfully handsome.”
But she thought there was something about Barty that marked him out among all other men. His tie was crooked, his sandy hair was a little ruffled, he might seem to others simply a passably good-looking young fellow with a somewhat impatient and careless manner. His conver[Pg 209]sation was practical enough for the most part. Indeed, his feet were solidly planted on the earth; but Jacqueline had had a glimpse now and then of his jealously guarded spirit, of his passion for beauty, of his love for the mute harmonies of his great art. She loved all that was Barty—even his faults; but his spirit she very nearly worshiped.
When she had first met Barty, she herself had been ambitious. She had wanted to write, to make a name for herself. She could laugh—or weep—at that thought now. Ambition? She hadn’t known the meaning of the word. For no imaginable reward could she have worked as Barty did. He would work for days and days on a sketch or a plan, careless of rest or food, in a fire of enthusiasm. Then, putting his enthusiasm aside, and looking at it with his cool, impersonal brain, he would accept his work, or he would reject and destroy it and begin all over again.
Her own little ambition had flickered and died. It seemed to her a sublime destiny to help Barty, to serve this rare talent which her honest heart acknowledged as beyond measure superior to her own.
Their hands met in a formal clasp, and they smiled at each other, with their own secret smile of understanding. It was a wonderful thing to meet thus in public, and to let nobody know that they belonged to each other.
“Old Jacko!” said he.
“Old Barty!” said she.
Looking into his steady gray eyes, all desire to tease him about Mr. Terrill left her. All she wanted in the world was to help her man, at any cost.
“I’ve only got a few minutes,” he said. “I’ve got to go back and finish that thing.”