Had I met her?
No; but I had seen her two or three times.
What did I think of her?
Well, I thought her pretty enough to excuse a little wildness of imagination on his part. He would be a lucky fellow if he got her and some of her father’s money or a position in his business!
Did I think he would give up his Art so easily?
“My dear Jones,” I replied, “I don’t want to appear cold-blooded, or to dash your enthusiasm for your art in the least; but, to speak candidly, I should not be surprised if you did some day under sufficient temptation—the prospect of marrying Miss Cortland, for example.”
Jones declared his intention of calling on Miss Cortland that very day. He had a sketch-book full of studies, spirited, but many of them mere hints. He came back before dinner, full of life, and proposing a score of schemes for to-morrow. He made a sort of small whirlwind in my quiet life. Mrs. Cortland had received him civilly, but he thought a little coolly. But he had seen Agnes, and had spoken a few words to her that might mean much or little as they were taken, and he was happy—rather boisterously happy, perhaps, as a young fellow will be at such times—full of jokes, and refusing to see a cloud on his horizon.
Jones fell easily into our farm-house ways, though he was apt to steal off in the mornings to play croquet on the Cortlands’ lawn with Miss Cortland and Miss Parsons, and any other friend they could get to join them.
One afternoon, when the sun was getting low and a southerly wind blowing, we started to try for some fish at a pond about half an hour’s walk from the house. As we turned off the highway into a by-road covered with grass that led to the pond, I saw Miss Cortland standing on the rising ground some distance before us. She was looking from us towards the sinking sun, now veiled in quick-drifting clouds. Her dog, a large, powerful animal, a cross between a Newfoundland and Mount St. Bernard, was crouched at her feet. Some vague thoughts about Una and her lion flitted through my mind. But I was more struck by the way the light touched her figure, standing out motionless against the gray sky. It reminded me very much of the general effect of a painting by a foreign artist—Kammerer, I think it was—that I saw at the exhibition of the Boston Art Club last year. It was the picture of a girl standing on a pier on the French coast, looking out to sea. Her golden hair was slightly stirred by the breeze, her lips a little parted, and there was a far-away look in her eyes, as if she may have expected a lover to be coming over the sea in one of the yachts that lined the horizon. The dress of the girl and the stone-work of the pier were both white. It was a good example of the striking effects produced by the free use of a great deal of almost staring white, which is a favorite device of the latest school of French art.
As we advanced, the dog growled and rose, but, recognizing Jones, wagged his tail inoffensively as we drew nearer. Miss Cortland turned towards us.