Mrs. Lawton could not but welcome one of her own kind who belonged as remotely to a certain past as she herself. Brooke, remembering Dr. Russell’s words, greeted him cordially, glad to give cheer to one so lonely, and added to this motive, be it said, was the general interest which a man of fifty, who is in any way surrounded by a tragedy or mystery, excites in a young, warm-hearted woman; while the Cub fairly adored his tutor to be, afar off, for had not Stead a taste for horses, dogs, guns, fishing tackle, and, above all, liberty? Also, had he not offered to make easy the torturing pathway of mathematics?—while best of all from the first he had treated the youth of the difficult age, which is both aggressive and sensitive, like a fellow-man, younger, of course, but still an equal, instead of a cross between a fool, a nuisance, and a criminal, as some of his instructors had chosen to regard him.
When Brooke had taken the little package from Stead’s hand, in spite of the unfamiliarity of the writing upon it, a sudden embarrassment seized upon her, making her redden to the temples; and, instead of considering and opening it as one of the many cards of Christmas greeting that she had received from fellow-students and friends ever since her Paris year, she laid it aside and presently carried it to her room.
Closing the door, though it was very seldom that even her mother came to the second floor, Brooke turned the thick envelope over several times before cutting the heavy cord that bound it, and so swift and sure is the speech of telepathy that she did not wonder who had written to her in care of Carolus Ashton. She did not try to trace the identity of unfamiliar characters or remember that in the years that separated her from that time no similar letter had reached her; she simply knew that the address had been traced by the pen of Marte Lorenz, without for a moment realizing that the source of this clairvoyance lay in the undeniable craving of her whole being to know of him. Once opened, a double sheet of blank paper enclosed a square of artists’ board covered with light tissue. Tearing this off, with eager trembling fingers, instead of the man’s face that she had expected to look out at her, with those wide-open eyes from under the tumbled thatch of hair, instead of the mustache-veiled lips which told simple truths with such sympathetic sincerity that it made them more desirable than praise, she saw herself, or rather one of herselves, for it is only a strangely monotonous, colourless type of woman who can be interpreted by merely the universal blending of composites.
It was simply a head, small, perforce, and lightly sketched in oil, with only enough of the shoulder curve, over which the face was turned, to give a balance, the sombre background of deep browns serving to throw out the golden glints of the hair; but the quality that struck Brooke at once was the same strange effect of lighting that had puzzled her in the picture of Eucharistia. Without being in the form of the conventional halo of the old masters, a raying light emanated from behind the head, and the eyes seemed as if they were but the opening to a vision beyond.
Still hoping for some message or word, Brooke, holding the picture close, saw in one corner, half hidden by a bit of drapery, the initials “M. L.” and the words “For the New Year.”
Then Brooke, the girl of sentiment and idealized emotions, argued with Miss Lawton, the head of the family, the young woman of responsibilities and practicalities.
Brooke said, “Why did he send me my picture instead of his own?”
Miss Lawton answered, “Perhaps it is not intended for a portrait at all, but merely a chance resemblance in a New Year’s token, such as an artist may send to a dozen friends!”
“But,” queried Brooke, not listening, but following her desire, “he may have meant by sending my portrait that he wished to tell me that he still thought of me, and a girl always likes to have her picture painted; but if he had sent his own it would be like intruding himself upon me, if I had forgotten. How shall I thank him?”