Not much hope to be got out of that letter. A dry note from a dry man. Very little doubt as to the line which he would take. Yet, not an unkind letter. She put it back in her desk and sighed. Another long discussion. No: she would not discuss—she would listen, and then state her intention. She would listen again, and once more state her intention.
On the easel stood an almost finished portrait in pastel, executed from a photograph. It was the portrait of her guardian. She had caught—it was not difficult with a face so marked—the set expression, the closed lips, the keen eyes, and the habitual look of caution and watchfulness which become the characteristics of a solicitor in good practice. So far it was a good likeness. But it was an austere face. Elsie, with a few touches of her thumb and the chalk which formed her material, softened the lines of the mouth, communicated to the eyes a more genial light, and to the face an expression of benevolence which certainly had never before been seen upon it.
'There!' she said. 'If you would only look like that to-morrow, instead of like your photograph, I should have no fear at all of what you would say. I would flatter you, and coax you, and cajole you, till you had doubled George's salary and promised to get round my mother. You dear old man! You kind old man! You sweet old man! I could kiss you for your kindness.'
CHAPTER V
SOMETHING HAPPENS
So far a truly enjoyable Sunday. To sit in church beside her angry mother, both going through the forms of repentance, charity, and forgiveness: and to dine together, going through the ordinary forms of kindliness while one at least was devoured with wrath. Waste of good roast lamb and gooseberry tart!
Elsie spent the afternoon in her studio, where she sat undisturbed. People called, but her mother received them. Now that the last resolution had been taken: now that she had promised her lover to brave everything and to live the simplest possible life for love's sweet sake, she felt that sinking which falls upon the most courageous when the boats are burned. Thus Love makes loving hearts to suffer.
The evening, however, made amends. For then, like the housemaid, who mounted the area stair as Elsie went down the front-door steps, she went forth to meet her lover, and in his company forgot all her fears. They went to church together. There they sat side by side, this church not having adopted the barbarous custom of separating the sexes—a custom which belongs to the time when women were monkishly considered unclean creatures, and the cause, to most men, of everlasting suffering, which they themselves would most justly share. This couple sat hand in hand; the service was full of praise and hope and trust: the Psalms were exultant, triumphant, jubilant: the sermon was a ten minutes' ejaculation of joy and thanks: there was a Procession with banners, to cheer up the hearts of the faithful—what is Faith without a Procession? Comfort stole back to Elsie's troubled heart: she felt less like an outcast: she came out of the church with renewed confidence.