There was a knock at the door, and Miss Kemp came in.
"I'm just going, Miss," she said. "Have you got your letter ready?"
"What?" said Bee huskily, without turning.
"I'm just going. Is your letter ready?"
"Yes," muttered the woman. She ran back to the table, and thrust the photograph in the envelope, and put it in the girl's hand.
[CHAPTER XVI]
David sat hunched in a chair, the likeness on his knees. He had risen determinedly and put it from him twice—lodged it against one of the eyesores on the mantelpiece that were referred to as the "ornaments "—but after intervals of abstraction he had found that he was nursing it again. He had a lurking consciousness that if he put it from him half a dozen times, it would be back on his lap before five minutes had gone by.
It surpassed all his dream-pictures of her. The situation confused him; he could not realise it quite, with the photograph under his eyes. He had for a friend this young, this beautiful girl. Though he had vaguely imagined her beautiful, the definite was bewildering; his letters seemed suddenly audacious to him—there was a breath of the incredible in the thought that he had written them to her. And hers! still more wonderful the thought of hers. His correspondent was this daughter of the gods, serene, imperial, proud—the girl who wrote to him was like this!
He had for a friend this young, this beautiful girl. For a "friend"? His manhood abjured the word. Was she not his by a subtler, stronger bond than friendship? If the community between them could be called friendship, what was love? She had yielded herself to him—her spiritual self—surrendered to his keeping thoughts more sacred than her body. He craved to go to her, and trembled with the dread of effacing by his personality the impression that he had made upon her by his art. To let his looks destroy the love his soul was waking in her? No, he could not go, he must be strong. But if he dared—if only it were possible! She lived—it was no vision conjured up by loneliness—she lived. She was smiling, speaking, thinking of him not thirty miles away. He was fevered by the idea of their meeting as it might have been—as it would have been if he had had a white skin. He found her here where she was sitting; the sunlight touched her just as now—"Your friend has come to you!" The eyes in the portrait shone to him, and he saw gladness in their gaze.... The trees had darkened, and the stars were lit. How long a time had passed? In his fancy there was no calendar, but the photograph had magic powers. He was telling her he loved her. The eyes looked tenderer, the bosom swelled; the lips——Oh, madman! the thing was only paper after all. If the delusion had lasted a second longer!