For years Bulstrode had been the victim of hope, or rather in this case of intent, to love again—to love anew! Neither of these statements is the correct way of putting it. He tried with good faith to prove himself to be what was so generally claimed for him by his friends—susceptible; alas, he knew better!
As he meditatively studied the blonde young girl he spun for himself to its end the idea of picking her up, carrying her off, marrying her, shutting Idaho away definitely, and opening to her all that his wealth and position could of life and the world. He grew tender at the thought of her poor struggle, her insufficient art, her ambition. It fascinated him to think of playing the good fairy, of touching her gray, hard life to color and beauty, and as the beauty and the holy intimacy of home occurred to him, and marriage, his thoughts wandered as pilgrims whose feet stray back in the worn ways and find their own old footprints there, ... and after a few moments Miss Desprey was like to be farther away from his meditations than Centreville is from Paris, and the personality of the dream-woman was another. Once Miss Desprey's voice startled him out of such a reverie by bidding him, "Please take the pose, Mr. Bulstrode!" As he laughed and apologized he caught her eyes fixed on him with, as he thought, a curious expression of affection and sympathy—indeed, tears sprang to them. She reddened and went furiously back to work. She was more personal that day than she had yet been. She seemed, after having surprised his absent-mindedness, to feel that she had a right to him—quite ordered him about, and was almost petulant in her exactions of his positions.
Her work evidently advanced to her satisfaction.
As she stood elated before her easel, her hair in sunny disorder, her eyes like stars, Bulstrode was conscious there was a change in her—she was excited and tremulous. In her frayed dress, sagging at the edges, her paint-smeared apron, her slender thumb through the hole in the palette, she came over to him at the close of the sitting, started to speak, faltered, and said:
"You don't know what it means to me—all you have done. And I can't ever tell you."
"Oh, don't," he pleaded, "pray don't speak of it!"
Miss Desprey, half radiant and half troubled, turned away as if she were afraid of his eyes.
"No, I won't try to tell you. I couldn't, I don't dare," she whispered, and impulsively caught his hand and kissed it.
When he had left the studio finally it was with a bewildering sense of having kissed her hand—no, both of her hands! but one held her palette and he couldn't have kissed that one without having got paint on his nose—perhaps he had! He was not at peace.
That same night a telegram brought him news to the effect that Miss Desprey was ill and would not expect him to pose the following day; and relieved that it was not required of him to resume immediately the over-charged relations, he went back to his old habit, rudely broken into by his artistic escapade, and walked far into the Bois.