Only in moments she realised that she was able to write without constraint because they had not met. He didn't know her, and unknown, she was unembarrassed; the disparity between her body and her mind ceased to oppress her until the envelope was sealed. She would not even tell him she was an artist, lest he should make inquiries, and discover that she was deformed. In their sensitiveness to their exteriors, as well as in their hunger for love, these two were akin. Often when the man wrote to her, he shivered in imagining her aversion if she could see her correspondent's face. Often when the woman posted her answers, she was ashamed, conjecturing his fancy-portrait of her and cowering before her crooked shadow on the road.
And his fancy sketched a score of portraits of her. She had youth—he was sure of that—yet she was not so young that her outlook was a girl's. She had beauty—manlike, he clung to that, although he had so good a cause to know that lovely thoughts may inhabit unlovely homes. But after it was said, how little had been told! He craved the definite. Was she fair, or was she dark? Were her eyes brown or blue? What colour was her hair? Was she small, or queenly? At once he longed to see her, and trembled at the thought of revealing himself to her astounded gaze. Frequently he was harassed by the thought that an opportunity for their meeting would occur, and he wondered what excuse he could offer for avoiding it. Her letters were friendly, frank; one day he might open one to learn that she was coming to town. How could he dare to greet her? "I am David Lee." He foresaw her start, the colour falling from her face, the effort with which she put out her hand after the shock. And then? Yes, they would talk together for a little while unhappily; she would be painstakingly polite and struggle to conceal the dismay that he read in her every tone and gesture. And afterwards there would be a difference in her letters; and by degrees they would grow shorter, and presently they would cease—and the woman who had given him a new interest in life would be lost. While he could retain this sweet and strange companionship he swore he would retain it. The shock must come to her some time, he supposed, from a newspaper paragraph; for the present——But cowardice could not quiet his curiosity, and again and again he wished that he could see her once; always he wondered how she looked.
Bee's dread of his suggesting a visit to her was deepened by the fact that if she seemed reluctant to receive him, her correspondence would assume a clandestine air. Into the woman's life as well had come a new and eager fascination; she, too, desired and feared together. She wanted to hear him talk; she did not ask herself if he was handsome, but she wanted to hear him talk. What joy to have a presence that he would approve! To be able to tear open his welcome letters with no misgiving; one day to read that he was coming, and go down to the drawing-room, a graceful figure in a becoming frock, without the terror of reading consternation in his gaze. She pictured her entrance as it must be: his blank astonishment as she appeared on the threshold; their perfunctory conversation, with a lump in her throat; his pitiful pretence that he was pleased that he had come. How her letters would shrivel in his remembrance! She bowed her head.
Each was fast falling in love with an individuality; each was frightened at the thought of meeting the other's eyes. The man said bitterly, "She would shrink from a mulatto!" The woman sighed, "No doubt he thinks me beautiful!"
[CHAPTER XIV]
April was drawing to a close, and every evening the Professor said, "Have you heard from the Academy, my dear?" and sighed when she answered "No." She had begun to conclude that "The Sun's Last Rays" was rejected, and it distressed her to think of the money that she had laid out on the frame. Before the order for that frame was given, the price had been exhaustively debated at the supper-table; she knew that a good frame was a recommendation to a hanging committee—her father had argued that "an artist's work ought to stand on its own merits." In his demeanour now she read a reproach of her extravagance, and each time that he asked her if she had heard yet, it was a greater effort to her to reply.
At last, however—one evening when hope had almost died in her—the servant entered the room with a letter. The Professor lolled in the armchair smoking his pipe; Hilda was engrossed in a "new novel" from Turlington's—published in the previous spring—and Bee herself was sitting idle. Her thoughts flew to David Lee as she watched the girl advance towards her. She had withheld from her family the fact of her correspondence with the poet—withheld it, not because they would regard her friendship with him as an impropriety, but because they would consider she was making herself ridiculous—and she prayed that her father would not ask from whom the letter came. The handwriting relieved her anxiety, and the crest on the flap excited her. The next moment she pulled her varnishing ticket from the envelope.
"From the Academy, my dear?"
"Yes," she exclaimed, "I've got in!"