“And what does he do then?”
Mrs. Elles was recalled to a sense of the impropriety of all these questions on her part, and she dismissed the girl haughtily. She dressed, put back her hair, and resumed her spectacles with a sigh, but without hesitation. She had no full length mirror here to show her the oddish, but not ungraceful appearance that she presented, for, although her facial beauties were temporarily obscured, her slight figure in its boyish trim had a certain attractiveness of its own. The average glance would cursorily set her down for a well-grown school girl, labouring under a temporary affection of the eyes, which was, however, not serious enough to interfere with her health and spirits.
After she had breakfasted, in pursuance of a plan that she had conceived, she got one of the landlady’s sons to drive her over to Barnard Castle, where she purchased an outfit of drawing materials and a cheap Student’s Manual of Art. In the afternoon—Mr. Rivers, she ascertained, never came back to the inn for luncheon, but took out some sandwiches, which he ate, if he remembered to do so—she selected a point of view, just by the bridge over the Greta, a stone’s throw from the inn. She there began a study of the Student’s Manual, and her own capabilities in the way of handling a pencil.
She had had no previous training, but she was just clever enough to produce a not utterly despicable result, and that was all she had dared to hope. She did not expect to see the artist that day, nor did she; but she was not bored, although she had no one to speak to, and, to a woman of her temperament, that fact alone would, in the ordinary course of things, have engendered complete despair. But then, things were not by any means in their ordinary course; the very air was full of adventure and excitement of the vaguest and most blameless nature. Mrs. Elles had no precise idea of what it was that she hoped and desired, and with the unconscious diplomacy of the dual mind, took very good care not even to formulate it.
But next day, as she sat on her camp stool, with a half finished sketch of the picturesque stone bridge across her knee, she felt, rather than heard, Mr. Rivers coming down the road behind her. Hastily she pushed her spectacles back into position over her eyes, and turned a very little in his direction.
“Good morning,” he said, pleasantly enough.
“Good morning,” she said, half rising. “I have been wanting to thank you so much all these days.”
“For what?”
“For recommending this delightful inn to me, of course.”