For an hour or more she remained obstinately dumb, motionless except for the uncontrollable trembling of her body; he brought her a glass of water, sat watching her at intervals; rose once or twice to pace the studio, his well-shaped head bent, his hands clasped behind his back, always returning to the corner-chair before the desk to sit there, eyeing her askance, waiting for some decision.
But it was not the recurrent waves of terror, the ever latent fear of Brandes, or even her appalling loneliness that broke her down; it was sheer fatigue—nature’s 123 merciless third degree—under which mental and physical resolution disintegrated—went all to pieces.
And when at length she finally succeeded in reconquering self-possession, she had already stammered out answers to his gently persuasive questions—had told him enough to start the fuller confession to which he listened in utter silence.
And now she had told him everything, as far as she understood the situation. She lay sideways, deep in the armchair, tired, yet vaguely conscious that she was resting mind and body, and that calm was gradually possessing the one, and the nerves of the other were growing quiet.
Listlessly her grey eyes wandered around the big studio where shadowy and strangely beautiful but incomprehensible things met her gaze, like iridescent, indefinite objects seen in dreams.
These radiantly unreal splendours were only Neeland’s rejected Academy pictures and studies; a few cheap Japanese hangings, cheaper Nippon porcelains, and several shaky, broken-down antiques picked up for a song here and there. All the trash and truck and dust and junk characteristic of the conventional artist’s habitation were there.
But to Ruhannah this studio embodied all the wonders and beauties of that magic temple to which, from her earliest memory, her very soul had aspired—the temple of the unknown God of Art.
Vaguely she endeavoured to realise that she was now inside one of its myriad sanctuaries; that here under her very tired and youthful eyes stood one of its countless altars; that here, also, near by, sat one of those blessed acolytes who aided in the mysteries of its wondrous service. 124
“Ruhannah,” he said, “are you calm enough to let me tell you what I think about this matter?”
“Yes. I am feeling better.”