He reached down his overcoat and thrust his arms into the sleeves without passing any comment on her last remark; there was such an extreme possibility, not in the stairs, or the coals, but in herself proving too much for him that he refrained from contradicting her. Jill watched him busily without appearing to do so until he was ready to go, and stood, hat in hand, apparently undecided whether to shake hands or no.
“Good morning,” she said, and bowed in so distant a manner, that, regretting his former indecision, he bowed back, and turning round went out with an equally brief salutation.
When he had gone Jill sat down in his seat and fell to studying his work.
“‘Shall I be any good at it?’” she mimicked, and then she laughed aloud. “‘Do you think that I am likely to be any good at it?’ No, I do not, Mr St. John, I don’t indeed.”
Chapter Three.
When St. John left the studio it was with so sore a feeling of resentment against Miss Erskine that it seemed to him most unlikely that he would ever re-enter it. It was not that he disliked her; he did not, but he had an uncomfortable conviction that she disliked him, and felt aggrieved at his presence even while she suffered it on account of the fee. He remembered with some vexation that he had almost forced her into accepting him as a pupil, for poor as she undoubtedly was she had plainly evinced that she had no desire to instruct him. Never mind, he would atone for his persistence by sending her his cheque and troubling the studio no more; that at any rate would show her that he had no wish to intrude. This decision being final he dismissed the matter from his mind, and, as a proof of the consistency of human nature, on Friday morning at the specified hour he stood on the dirty steps outside Miss Erskine’s lodgings knocking with his walking-stick on the knockerless door. The modest Isobel opened it after a wait of some five minutes—minutes in which he had time to recall his past determination and to wonder at himself for having so speedily altered his mind—and having opened it startled him considerably by firing at him without giving him time for speech the vague yet all comprehensive information.
“She’s hout.”
“Miss Erskine?” he queried in very natural astonishment.