CHAPTER XV

Katherine, who had promised to sit to me for her portrait, kept putting me off from day to day, and it was nearly a week later when I made my first attempt. By some happy chance on that particular afternoon I had found her alone, for as a rule Gerald was there, and even now it was almost as if he were with us, since she began at once to talk about him.

“You must take off your hat,” I said, ignoring her remarks.

She obeyed me, and I began to draw in my outline.

“Gerald likes you,” she said. “I wish you would be friends with him.”

“But I am friends with him,” I answered, abstractedly.

“Not very much. You would rather he was not with us.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m not friends with him.”

“He has so few friends,” she went on, still clinging to the subject.

“Has he? I’m afraid, no matter how much I tried, we could never really be chums.”

“Why?”

“I don’t understand him.”

“Why don’t you understand him?”

“I suppose because I’m stupid. Besides, what I do understand I don’t greatly like.”

She was not offended; she simply asked, “What is the matter with him?”

I feared I had been horribly rude, but the words had slipped out before I could check them. “There is nothing the matter with him,” I answered hastily. “I wasn’t thinking of what I was saying. It is only that――that we’re not suited to each other: we’re too different. At all events, it is of very little importance, seeing that you’re going away in a few days.”

“We’ll be back again next year, I expect. Aunt Clara wants me to come. _She_ isn’t very friendly to Gerald either.”

“Oh, you only fancy that; of course she is. And there’s Miss Dick, who worships the very ground he walks on.”

“Miss Dick’s too silly for anything.”

“There you are! And yet you want me to worship him too!”

“I don’t want anything of the kind; and you know that. But of course if you don’t like him I can’t make you. I think that night――the night we went with you to your meeting――has something to do with it.”

“Oh that!” I answered lightly. It seemed to me a long time ago, though there was a yellow bruise still visible above my left eyebrow.

I finished my outline and began to paint. The other picture had been painted indoors, I reflected. I don’t know what made me think of it, but I couldn’t get it out of my mind. It kept floating between me and my work, and I seemed to see it quite as clearly as I saw Katherine herself. Still I persevered, though my progress was slow and from the beginning unsatisfactory. I talked to Katherine, or rather I replied to her, for what she said penetrated only the fringe of my consciousness. She had brought a book out with her, and by and by she began to read aloud, but I have no idea what it was she read. I painted away most diligently, yet all the time I couldn’t get rid of a foolish impression that I was being watched. And this fancy, utterly absurd if you like, took possession of me, grew stronger and stronger, till it seemed to tremble on the verge of reality.

“What are you looking at?” Katherine asked me suddenly, having reached, I suppose, the end of a chapter or a story.

“Nothing,” I answered guiltily.

But she wheeled round in her chair, and stared back at the house. I dipped my brush in water, and remarked quite quietly, “It’s only that I thought I saw someone at the window――the third window from the left, upstairs.”

Katherine shaded her eyes with her hand. “I can’t see anybody: the sun catches the glass. It must be one of the maids, for there’s nobody else in.” She yawned and took up the book again. “If it _is_ one of the maids,” she added, “she might have had sufficient sense to bring us out tea. I’ve been simply dying for some for the last half-hour, only I didn’t like to disturb you.”

“She hasn’t been there half an hour,” I replied. “I’ll go and tell them. Promise you won’t look at what I’ve done while I’m away: it isn’t finished.”

“All right. I must see it when it _is_ though: you’re not to tear it up or anything.”

“No, of course not.”

I walked back to the house, and not till I was quite close did I glance up at the windows above me. Naturally there was nothing. I hesitated in the hall. Had I been really sincere in thinking I had seen anything or not? I couldn’t be quite sure, for there was no doubt I often deliberately gave my imagination a kind of push in a certain definite direction, started it off, as it were, and then left it to perform all kinds of antics. Before me lay the broad, low staircase. Should I go up? I leaned against the balusters and listened, gazing aloft into the cool shadow. Suddenly I heard a door open near the kitchen, then the rustle of a dress, and one of the servants appeared. I told her that Miss Dale would like tea brought outside, and went into the morning-room myself for a small folding-table, which I carried back with me.

I looked again at my drawing. “Tea will be here in a minute or two,” I said. Then I handed the drawing to Katherine, for it was a failure, and there was no use going on with it.

“Don’t hold it so close to you,” I cried, and Katherine obediently stretched out her arm full length.

“I think it’s quite good, you know, if it wasn’t meant to be my portrait,――but it’s no more like me than Adam.”

“Don’t be so rude. Of course it’s like you.”

A servant appeared with a tea-tray, and as soon as she was gone I seated myself on the grass at Katherine’s feet. When I had finished tea and had handed her back my empty cup I still sat there.

“Do you see that strip of yellow sand down below? It always reminds me of a certain poem.”

I knew Katherine was not fond of poetry; she had told me so herself; but I repeated the verses aloud for my own pleasure, in a sort of sing-song, laying tremendous stress on the rhymes.

“It was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom you may know By the name of Annabel Lee; And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me.

“_I_ was a child and _she_ was a child, In this kingdom by the sea; But we loved with a love that was more than love―― I and my Annabel Lee; With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven Coveted her and me.

“And this was the reason that, long ago, In this kingdom by the sea, A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling My beautiful Annabel Lee; So that her highborn kinsmen came And bore her away from me, To shut her up in a sepulchre In this kingdom by the sea.

“The angels, not half so happy in heaven, Went envying her and me―― Yes!――that was the reason (as all men know In this kingdom by the sea) That the wind came out of the cloud by night, Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

“But our love it was stronger by far than the love Of those who were older than we―― Of many far wiser than we―― And neither the angels in heaven above, Nor the demons down under the sea, Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:

“For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And so all the night-tide, I lie down by the side Of my darling――my darling――my life and my bride, In her sepulchre there by the sea, In her tomb by the side of the sea.”

I looked up at Katherine and saw that she was smiling. “It was written about this place,” I declared, “about just that strip of yellow sand and that blue sea.”

“And about just this little boy,” said Katherine, stroking my hair back from my forehead.

“Just this little boy,” I answered, narrowing my eyes under her touch, “whom you think such a very little boy indeed.”

“Such a dear little boy,” murmured Katherine, lulling me with her voice, and all the time stroking my hair.

“Is he dear?” I asked eagerly.

“I think so.”

“And you like him?”

“I like him very much.”

“How much? What do you like about him?”

She laughed. “I like everything about him?”

“But what?”

“The way he is: the way he looks: the way he pouts when he is cross: the kind of things he says: the way he asks questions: even the way he hesitates before some letters, so that you can see what he is going to say in his eyes before he can get it out.”

I was intensely happy. I leaned back my head, and Katherine’s dark blue eyes looked straight down into mine. I could see nothing but that clear dark blue which seemed to shut me out from the world, yet I knew she was smiling. Then she bent lower and her lips lightly touched my forehead.

Almost at the same moment I heard the swish of petticoats rustling over the grass from behind. I sat up straight, but did not look round till the rattle of tea-cups had ceased, and the servant who was bearing them off had almost reached the house.

“Gracious! I hope she didn’t see me kissing you!” said Katherine, half-laughing.

“What matter?”

“Of course it matters; and it’s your fault too, for pretending to be a little boy and all that nonsense. I’m sure she’s telling the cook about it at this moment. _She_ doesn’t think you’re a little boy. Get up at once.”

I knew Katherine wasn’t really much perturbed, but I got up and began to put away my colours, and we went back to the house. I left my painting materials on the window-sill, and, having made Katherine a present of my drawing, we strolled down to the shore. As we walked along the hard sand by the edge of the sea I wanted to tell her how much I cared for her. It was an admirable opportunity, and, if I could only get the first plunge over, I knew it would be all right. But I couldn’t. White sea-gulls were swooping and wheeling over the dark blue water, calling their peculiar lonely cry, and the foam of the waves was white as snow. “I _will_ tell her: I _will_ tell her,” I kept repeating to my soul; and all the time I maintained a most discreet silence on the subject, and babbled instead of the regatta that would take place on Saturday, and of the chance of a fine day. I had entered for two swimming-races and a diving-competition, and Katherine was coming to see me. I kept on talking about this, though I knew very well everything would happen exactly as it had happened last year; that in the swimming-races George Edge would be first and I should be second, and that I should win the diving-competition; and moreover I didn’t in the least care just then whether the regatta took place or not.