That was a pleasant meal, despite the cloud which hung over them, despite the unwelcome nature of Jerome’s errand to Manchester. It was a pleasant, and almost merry meal; and yet a nervous one, as the minutes flew relentlessly by, and the time for departure approached more inevitably.
‘I must see your atelier before I go. I came here on purpose, you know,’ said Jerome; ‘and we must go now,’ he added, looking at his watch, ‘for my time is short.’
They were alone in the studio. It was light, but sunless, for it faced north. It was bare, and yet furnished, like all studios. Two or three easels stood about—a number of unfinished canvases—some of the plaster masks and casts known as ‘gyps;’ and on a pedestal, a great jar of the blue and grey pottery they make about Coblenz, full of roses.
Jerome saw them. ‘I must have one of these,’ said he, turning the jar round. ‘Here is one—this Gloire de Dijon—more than a bud, but not yet fully blown. That is when a rose is more beautiful than at any other time. It is just like you,’ he added, drawing it from the jar, and shaking the water from it. ‘And now, Sara, what of the future?’ he added, drawing her to him. ‘Why do you always look at me as if you were half-afraid of me?’ he added, gazing down into her fascinated eyes. ‘Avice never does. Yours is not “perfect love” if it has not cast out fear.’
‘Avice—you will never have the same rights over Avice that you have already over me,’ she replied, tremulously.
Jerome smiled. The sensation he felt was not one of displeasure. How rapidly his nature had developed during the last six weeks, he little knew. His former cool indifference to most women had passed into passionate love for one—he did know that. What he did not know was that his love was of the masterful kind, not only delighting to inspire devotion, but loving to subdue. He had said, ‘Why do you look half-afraid of me?’ in an almost reproachful tone, but in his own mind he did not reproach her with that shade of fear, or anxiety, or whatever it might be. He did not understand the weight and the force of her nature. He measured what was not shown of it by what was—her utmost capacities by the devotion and humility of her love for him. He knew from a thousand signs and tokens that she was proud to an exceeding degree, and sometimes imperious. The knowledge that he had tamed her, and the deprecating look which told him that here he was supreme, was sweet—boundlessly sweet. He would have given worlds for a week to spare here—a week in which to inhale these fumes of sweet-smelling incense.
‘What claims have I over you, that I have not over my sister?’ he asked, smiling still, looking down into her troubled grey eyes with the look which had haunted her ever since the first time she had met it. ‘Legally, I have far fewer claims, for until Avice is of age, she is as much in my power as if I were her father; whereas you——’
‘I did not mean legally. I meant morally, of course; the rights that love gives, Jerome—the right to my thoughts and wishes, and life and hopes.’
‘You have the same rights over me,’ he said.
‘And yet you do not look afraid of me, you mean. It is different, Jerome. Not that I am really afraid of you,’ she added, looking up more confidently. ‘And you said something about the future,’ she went on, as her fingers played with the little locket and ring which hung at his watchguard.