Osmond would insist on rising from his chair to greet her; and his tall form looked taller than ever now that he was so thin.
Elsa drew near, hardly knowing where she was or what she was doing—little recking that he was to the full as excited as she.
They met; their hands touched; the girl could hardly see clearly through the mist of tears in her large speaking eyes. He looked straight at her, saw the crystal mist, saw one irrepressible drop over-brim the lid, and rest on the delicate cheek. A storm of feeling overcame him; he grew quite white.
It was the face of the mystic queen in his visions of Avilion—it was beauty of the type he most passionately admired; and beauty which was stirred to its depths by pity and sympathy for him.
He could say nothing articulate, neither could she. Their greeting was chiefly that of eyes, and of warmly grasping hands, for she had stretched both to him, and he had seized them.
How long did it last? They did not know. To Osmond it seemed, like the dreams of his fever, to last for hours, and yet be gone like a flash. He only knew that presently he found himself seated again in his chair, his fingers released from the warm touch of hers; that she was sitting by him on Wynifred's vacated seat; that the skies had not fallen, nor the shadows on the grass lengthened perceptibly; and that neither Wyn nor Mr. Fowler expressed any surprise in their countenances, as if anything unusual had transpired.
Apparently he had not openly made a fool of himself. He heaved a sigh of relief, and lay back among his cushions. There sat the lady of his dreams, no longer a phantom, a real girl of flesh and blood, with large eyes of morning grey fixed on him.
He fancied how those calm eyes, like the misty dawn of a glorious day, would gradually warm and deepen into the torrid splendor of noon; when what was now only sympathetic interest should have strengthened into passionate love, when his voice, his touch should alone have power to——
Alas! as usual, he was building an airy cloud-palace for his thoughts to live in; and here was the real earth, and here was himself, a poor, struggling young artist, a competitor in one of London's fiercest and most crowded fields of competition, and with three unmarried sisters to think of.
And there was she—could he dream of it for her? The future of a poor man's wife. Wife! The exquisite delight of that word, by force of contrast, calmed this enthusiast utterly. No. To him nothing nearer than a star, an ideal. His Beatrice, only to be longed for, never attained.