"If, as you say, you are unalterably convinced that Art schools keep you back, you had better go and work every day in my studio," Geoff had written. "It is a big one, as you know, and only Jack Hardy is there at present. You would find him an enormous help to you—but don't bother him, there's a good lad. If you want to try your hand at a picture right away, there is ample room on the throne for two models; if you think a few months hard preliminary work would be of most value, you can make studies from Jack's model. Good luck to you in any case."
This kind offer had been accepted, and every morning Pallister punctually appeared and painted away steadily for a few hours. He did not know the meaning of real hard work, but under the influence of Jack's friendly aid and advice he certainly improved week by week.
Evarne found a certain satisfaction in being again in Geoff's own home, despite his absence, and although his name was scarcely mentioned. On the wall was a painting of him done by Jack a year or so previously. It was a marvellously good likeness, although the background and accessories were unfinished. Portrait-painting was Jack's forte, would he but have believed it.
"I'm going to smuggle away that picture of Mr. Danvers when you are not looking," declared Evarne; whereupon Jack, when he paid her at the conclusion of her sittings, smilingly handed her also the canvas in question already tied up to be taken away.
She hung it in her room, with a little bracket on either side, whereon stood vases which she kept filled with fresh flowers. Night and morning she pressed a gentle kiss upon the painted lips.
"Come back soon, Geoff—come back soon," she once whispered impulsively. And perhaps her wish was wafted away over land and sea to the City in the Waters, for within four months of leaving England Geoff had endured quite sufficient of this test of absence. Thus he wrote:
"Dearest, dearest beyond all expression
"I am returning home the day after to-morrow! Sweetest lady that heart ever adored, I am coming back to see you, to breathe the same air with you, to tread the same pavements, to kiss your hands, your lips, your feet.
"Will you welcome me? I left England loving you.... I thought, to the uttermost of my capacity. Perhaps it was so then; but now I love you ... oh, infinitely more ... because I think of you always.... your exquisite letters have taught me to know you far more perfectly; and all knowledge, all thinking, leads only to fresh love.
"In a way, I shrink from meeting you again. I am fearful now. In you is all the good and true, the pure and beauteous. How can I or any man be worthy of you? Suppose, after a while, I read disappointment in your face?
"But be kind to me, gentle and compassionate. I kneel at your feet, and beg you to give yourself to me and to take me for your own, heart and mind and body, for ever and ever. No other woman could ever be my wife, Evarne, for no other woman could I love.
"May God bless you!
"Geoff."
Evarne let this letter drop on the table, then bowed her head upon it in silence.
"What—what am I to do?" she murmured after a long pause, filled with a turmoil of mingled bliss and suffering. Had she been perfectly free to follow the promptings of her own heart, not one moment for reflection would have been needed. As it was, a secret indestructible, albeit so well-guarded—seemed to rise up as a hideous, pitiless spectre, bidding her set aside any idea of a future spent with Geoffrey.
"I see now—didn't I know it before?—I ought never, never, to have let him grow to care so much for me," she thought, weighed down by genuine though somewhat tardy remorse.