I was sitting alone on the balcony that afternoon. Aunt Philippa and Jill and Miss Gillespie were driving. I took advantage of their absence and the unusual quiet of the house to finish a book in which I was much interested.
I was very fond of this balcony seat: the awning protected me from the hot June sun, and the flower-boxes at my feet were sweet with mignonette. I could see without being seen, and the cool glimpses of the green Park were pleasant on this hot afternoon.
The adjoining house was unoccupied: it was therefore with feelings of discomfort that I heard the sound of workmen moving about the premises, and by and by the smell of fresh paint made me put down my book with suppressed annoyance.
A house-painter was standing very near me, painting the outside sashes of the window: he had his back turned to me, and was whistling to himself in the careless way peculiar to his class. It was a clear, sweet whistling, and I listened to it with pleasure.
A sudden noise in the street caused him to look round, and then he saw me, and stopped whistling.
Where had I seen that face? It seemed familiar to me. Of whom did that young house-painter remind me? Could I have seen him at St. Thomas's Hospital? Was it some patient whose name I had forgotten during my year's nursing? I had had more than one house-painter on my list.
I was tormented by the idea that I ought to recognise the face before me, and yet recognition eluded me. I felt baffled and perplexed by some subtile fancied resemblance. As for the young painter himself, he looked at me quietly for a moment, as though I were a stranger, touched his cap, and went on painting. When he had finished his job, he went inside, and I heard him whistling again as he moved about the empty room.
It was a beautiful face: the features were very clearly cut and defined, like—Good heavens! I had it now: it reminded me of Gladys Hamilton's. The next moment I was holding the balcony railing as though I were giddy; it was like Gladys, but it was still more like the closed picture in Gladys's room. I pressed my hands on my eyelids as with a strong effort I recalled her brother Eric's face, and the next moment the young painter had come to the window again, and I was looking at him between my fingers.
The resemblance could not be my fancy; those were Eric's eyes looking at me. It was the same face, only older and less boyish-looking. The fair moustache was fully grown; the face was altogether more manly and full of character. It must be he; I must go and speak to him; but as I rose, my limbs trembling with excitement, he moved away, and his whistle seemed to die in the distance.
It was nearly six o'clock, and there was no time to be lost. I ran upstairs and put on my bonnet and mantle. I thought that Clayton looked at me in some surprise,—I was leaving the house without gloves; but I did not wait for any explanation: the men would be leaving off work. The door was open, and I quickly found my way to the drawing-room, but, to my chagrin, it was empty, and an elderly man with gray hair came out of a back room with a basket of carpenter's tools and looked at me inquiringly.