‘I can’t answer for my complexion,’ said Laurie; ‘but I’m not ill now, Forrester. I am going away, and I’ve been awfully busy. I want to see Mrs. Severn. I won’t disturb your master to-day.’
‘Master’s out, sir,’ said the man, ‘unfortunately; he’s at that blessed gallery, a hanging or a deciding on the poor gentlemen’s pictures. And a nice temper he do come home in, to be sure! And Mrs. Severn’s—— engaged, sir,’ said Forrester, making a stand in front of the stair.
‘Engaged!’ said Laurie, aghast.
‘Them’s the words, Mr. Renton,’ said the old man. ‘She’s a designing them twelve pictures, as far as I can hear. She’s busy, and can’t see nobody. It’s more than a week since them orders was give. And folks is astonished. It ain’t her way. But I can’t say but what I approve, Mr. Renton,’ said Forrester, stoutly; ‘designing of a series is hard work. They’ve all to hang together, and there’s harmony to be studied as well as composition. And she ain’t going to repeat herself if she can help it and, on the whole, I approve——’
‘That will do,’ said Laurie, putting him aside; ‘I will make my own way; and I will tell Mrs. Severn you did your duty, and stopped me. This could not include me.’
‘But, Mr. Renton!’ cried Forrester, making a step after him.
‘That is enough,—quite enough,’—said Laurie. ‘It could not include me.’
But his heart beat heavily as he went up the familiar stair. She had shut out all the world that she might make sure of shutting him out,—‘Though she might have known I would not molest her!’ poor Laurie said to himself, with a swelling heart. It was unkind of the padrona. Had he not been going away it would have wounded him deeply. He went up heavily, not with the half-stealthy eagerness of his last visit. It would not have troubled him had he encountered a dozen Miss Hadleys. ‘I must see Mrs. Severn alone;’ was what he would have said without flinching had he met her; but, as it happened, there was no one at all apprehensive or curious now. The order had been given, and the stream of callers had stopped, and there was an end of it. He went up without any haste, his foot sounding dully,—he thought,—through all the silent house. She would hear him coming, and she would know.
‘Come in,’ said the padrona.
She was standing at her easel, drawing, with a little sketch before her, putting in the outlines of her future picture. Somehow she looked lonely, deserted, melancholy; as if the stream of life that had flowed so warmly about her had met with some interruption. In fact, she had felt the withdrawal of that daily current more than she could have told; and she had missed Laurie; and her mind had been full of wondering. Where was the poor boy? What was he doing? How was he bearing it? This was the thought that was uppermost in her mind as she put in the Sleeping Beauty. Somehow the picture was appropriate. Life seemed to have ebbed from her too, though it was her own doing. She did not feel quite sure sometimes that it was not a dream; and lo, all in a moment, without any warning, he appeared standing at the door!