Jill did not anticipate the return of either of her pupils that morning—did not, indeed, expect Miss Bolton to return at all; in both of which surmises she proved correct. St. John had been obliged to hail a four-wheeler and drive with his cousin home, and a most unpleasant drive she made it; it was as much as he could do to sit quiet under her shower of tearful reproaches. He ought to have known better than to have taken her to such a low place. She might have guessed after having seen her what sort of creature the girl was. It would have been much better to have acted as she wished to in the first place—given some suitable donation or commissioned her for a painting; that would have been quite sufficient; it wasn’t her fault that the stupid girl got in front of her wheel, etc: etc: St. John said,—
“Shut up, Evie; don’t talk rot.” But when you tell some people to shut up it has a contrary effect and serves as an incentive to talk more, it was so with Miss Bolton. She was not violent because it was not her nature to be demonstrative, nor was she in the slightest degree vulgar; but her command over the English language could not fail to excite the astonishment of her listener; to quote St. John’s euphonism, “it made him sick.”
“I daresay,” retorted Miss Bolton disagreeably; “my remarks generally have a nauseating effect upon you, I notice; yet that disgraceful girl without any sense of decency—”
“Indecency, you mean,” he interrupted. “You are very horrid,” sobbed his cousin, subsiding into tears again, and St. John devoutly wished that he had held his peace.
The rest of the journey was very watery, and at its termination he felt too demoralised to do anything except go for a stroll; the house with Miss Bolton in it was too small for him. Miss Bolton was Mr St. John senior’s ward; she was a kind of fifth cousin twice removed, which was the nearest kinship that she could claim on earth—that is to say with anyone worth claiming kinship with. There were cousins who kept a haberdashery, and spoke of the ‘heiress’ with a big ‘h’ but Evie Bolton didn’t know them; though according to the genealogical tree they were only once removed, but that remove had been so distant that it made all the difference in the world. Mr St. John, senior, both admired and loved his ward, Mr St. John, junior, was expected to follow the paternal example, and Miss Bolton, herself, was quite willing to present her big, good-looking cousin with her hand, and her fortune, and as much of her heart as she could conveniently spare. It would be difficult to ascertain whether St. John appreciated her generosity as it deserved. He had appeared thoroughly acquiescent up to the present when a possible engagement had been mooted by his father, but had so far refrained from putting his luck to the test. But in Mr St. John, senior’s, eyes the affair was a settled fact, and had anyone suggested the probability of its coming to nothing he would have scouted the idea.
The following Friday when St. John entered the Art School he found a very subdued little figure waiting for him—the old style of Jill with her hair tied with ribbon, and the big pinafore over her shabby frock. But not altogether the old style either; there was no attempt at dignity here, no self-sufficiency of manner but that she was so thoroughly composed he would have thought her nervous. She shook hands with a slightly deprecating smile, and remarked interrogatively,—
“Miss Bolton has not come? I am sorry.”
“No,” he answered with an assumption at indifference which he was far from feeling. “I told you art was a temporary whim with her, and I fancy the stairs rather appalled her; she is not very strong.”
His desire to spare her embarrassment was altogether too palpable. Jill turned away to hide a smile, or a blush, or something feminine which she did not wish him to perceive. He watched her in some amusement and waited for her to break the silence. He would have liked to have helped her out, but could think of nothing to say.
“I behaved foolishly last Tuesday;” she remarked at length, speaking with her back impolitely turned towards him, and a mixture of shame and triumph on the face which he could not see. “I lost my temper which was ill bred; and,” turning round and laughingly openly, “I’m afraid that I’m not so sorry as I ought to be. Don’t,” putting up her hand as he essayed to speak, “go on making excuses—your very apologies but condemn me further. It was most ungracious on my part after Miss Bolton’s condescension in coming; yet how was I to know that she was so supersensitive?”