第38章

Never once was his departure connected, in the minds of others, with her arrival.There was always some excellent and perfectly natural reason why he had been obliged to leave, and he was openly talked of and regretted, and Jane heard all the latest "Dal stories," and found herself surrounded by the atmosphere of his exotic, beauty-loving nature.And there was usually a girl--always the loveliest of the party--confidentially pointed out to Jane, by the rest, as a certainty, if only Dal had had another twenty-four hours of her society.But the girl herself would appear quite heart-whole, only very full of an evidently delightful friendship, expressing all Dal's ideas on art and colour, as her own, and confidently happy in an assured sense of her own loveliness and charm and power to please.Never did he leave behind him traces which the woman who loved him regretted to find.But he was always gone--irrevocably gone.Garth Dalmain was not the sort of man to wait on the door-mat of a woman's indecision.

Neither did this Jack of hers break his crown.His portrait of Pauline Lister, painted six months after the Shenstone visit, had proved the finest bit of work he had as yet accomplished.He had painted the lovely American, in creamy white satin, standing on a dark oak staircase, one hand resting on the balustrade, the other, full of yellow roses, held out towards an unseen friend below.

Behind and above her shone a stained-glass window, centuries old, the arms, crest, and mottoes of the noble family to whom the place belonged, shining thereon in rose-coloured and golden glass.He had wonderfully caught the charm and vivacity of the girl.She was gaily up-to-date, and frankly American, from the crown of her queenly little head, to the point of her satin shoe; and the suggestiveness of placing her in surroundings which breathed an atmosphere of the best traditions of England's ancient ancestral homes, the fearless wedding of the new world with the old, the putting of this sparkling gem from the new into the beautiful mellow setting of the old and there showing it at its best,--all this was the making of the picture.People smiled, and said the painter had done on canvas what he shortly intended doing in reality; but the tie between artist and sitter never grew into anything closer than a pleasant friendship, and it was the noble owner of the staircase and window who eventually persuaded Miss Lister to remain in surroundings which suited her so admirably.

One story about that portrait Jane had heard discussed more than once in circles where both were known.Pauline Lister had come to the first sittings wearing her beautiful string of pearls, and Garth had painted them wonderfully, spending hours over the delicate perfecting of each separate gleaming drop.Suddenly one day he seized his palette-knife, scraped the whole necklace off the canvas with a stroke and, declared she must wear her rose-topazes in order to carry out his scheme of colour.She was wearing her rose-topazes when Jane saw the picture in the Academy, and very lovely they looked on the delicate whiteness of her neck.But people who had seen Garth's painting of the pearls maintained that that scrape of the palette-knife had destroyed work which would have been the talk of the year.And Pauline Lister, just after it had happened, was reported to have said, with a shrug of her pretty shoulders:

"Schemes of colour are all very well.But he scraped my pearls off the canvas because some one who came in hummed a tune while looking at the picture.I would be obliged if people who walk around the studio while I am being painted will in future refrain from humming tunes.I don't want him to scoop off my topazes and call for my emeralds.Also I feel like offering a reward for the discovery of that tune.I want to know what it has to do with my scheme of colour, anyway."When Jane heard the story, she was spending a few stays with the Brands in Wimpole Street.It was told at tea, in Lady Brand's pretty boudoir.The duchess's Concert, at which Garth had heard her sing THE ROSARY, was a thing of the past.Nearly a year had elapsed since their final parting, and this was the very first thought or word or sign of his remembrance, which directly or indirectly, had come her way.She could not doubt that the tune hummed had been THE ROSARY.

"The hours I spent with thee, dear heart, Are as a string of pearls to me;I count them over, every one, apart."

She seemed to hear Garth's voice on the terrace, as she heard it in those first startled moments of realising the gift which was being laid at her feet--"I have learned to count pearls, beloved."Jane's heart was growing cold and frozen in its emptiness.This incident of the studio warmed and woke it for the moment, and with the waking came sharp pain.When the visitors had left, and Lady Brand had gone to the nursery, she walked over to the piano, sat down, and softly played the accompaniment of "The Rosary." The fine unexpected chords, full of discords working into harmony, seemed to suit her mood and her memories.

Suddenly a voice behind her said: "Sing it, Jane." She turned quickly.The doctor had come in, and was lying back luxuriously in a large arm-chair at her elbow, his hands clasped behind his head.

"Sing it, Jane," he said.

"I can't, Deryck," she answered, still softly sounding the chords.

"I have not sung for months."

"What has been the matter--for months?"

Jane took her hands off the keys, and swung round impulsively.

"Oh, boy," she said."I have made a bad mess of my life! And yet Iknow I did right.I would do the same again; at least--at least, Ihope I would."

The doctor sat in silence for a minute, looking at her and pondering these short, quick sentences.Also he waited for more, knowing it would come more easily if he waited silently.

It came.