“I have been expecting you for some time,” she went on; “I should like you to be more punctual another morning. But now I will show you where you are to stand.”
To stand! Everitt’s heart sank; he had hoped he might sit.
“I want,” said Miss Lascelles, calmly—“I want you to stand with your hand above your eyes, shading them—so. You are to be one of a group of peasants who are coming into Rome with all their goods, escaping from an inundation—you must have seen them, I’m sure? You are leading the string, and looking before you eagerly, perhaps to see whether some one who is missing is in front. You understand?”
“Signorina, yes. But—”
“What?”
“The sun with an inundation?”
“It has broken out, and is shining on the pools of water in the road.”
Everitt felt much more capable of criticising and suggesting than of posing as she desired, but there was no help for it. She had even looked a little astonished at receiving his last remark. He exerted himself now to stand in such a position that he could see her at work at her easel, and he was sufficiently experienced to be able to judge from her manner of handling her brush that she worked with vigour and freedom. He was conscious at the same time that he was not himself a good model; he even suspected that he now and then read a little disappointment in her face. Keeping his arm raised was fatiguing; he knew that he swayed, then began to feel as if pins and needles were all about him, then as though he were turned to stone. The ordinary hour had seemed to double itself before Miss Lascelles inquired gently whether he wished to rest. Rest! Never had the word a sweeter sound.
He sat down by the window. Outside and below there was a little old-fashioned garden with a brick wall and gravel paths. Two or three children ran out into these paths, and began a joyful onslaught upon square little plots where mustard and cress were sprouting into different combinations of the letter L. Further on a swing was fastened between two fine elm trees which grew out of the turf. There was a great deal of sunshine, and as yet little shade: only a finely outlined delicate network of shadows cast by the branches on the grass. Everitt had never in his life been more glad to sit down, and he thought the look-out delightful.
Presently the door opened, and another young lady came in.