CHAPTER IV.
IT was a cold and drizzling February morning that last sitting which Anne Brown was to give to Walter Hamlin. As the girl slowly mounted the well‐like stairs of the old tower palace, and saw the distant snow‐covered hills through the dim windows on the landings, she thought with sadness that this was the last time she should toil up to Hamlin’s studio. A lethargy weighed upon her, making her feel that everything was dreary and unreal, such as she had experienced only once or twice before, when one of the few holidays of her childhood had drawn to a close. The cheerless, colourless, eventless, joyless routine of ordinary life was about to close over, to engulf, her little island of brightness. She was longer page: 145 than usual taking off her bonnet and cloak in the anteroom filled with orange‐trees, for she felt as if she must look at everything well one last time—at the bits of brocade and the photographs on the wall, the plaster‐casts on the shelf, the scarlet and purple anemones in the cracked china bow], the brass synagogue lamp hanging in the window.
“It is bad weather,” said Hamlin’s old housekeeper.
“Horrible,” answered Anne, looking vacantly through the window at the grey sky and wet roofs.
The old woman opened the studio door and drew the curtains. Hamlin, who was at a table writing, rose and came to meet his model.
“It is very good of you to come in such horrible weather, Miss Brown,” he said.
“It is the last sitting—I thought I ought not to miss it,” and she sat down at once in the arm‐chair of faded green velvet opposite Hamlin’s easel.
page: 146“Won’t you warm yourself a little?” he asked.
“No, thank you; I am not cold.”
Hamlin began to prepare his paints.
“You are going to Viareggio, Miss Brown,” he remarked.
“Yes; I believe I am.”
“You will enjoy the change of air. The sea—you told me you liked the sea one day,”—and he went on squeezing the paints on to his palette.
“I suppose so.” She said no more.
Hamlin was seated before his easel, looking now at his work and now at her, and making minute alterations with a small brush. They did not talk much. He seemed bent upon his work. He had told her that she need not keep her head in position, as he was merely finishing some unimportant details. Her eyes wandered round the room—at the books, the sketches on the wall, the rugs under foot. On the chimney‐piece was stuck a photograph of Melton Perry. If only she might have a photo‐ page: 147 graph photograph of Hamlin! . . . For less than a second she thought she might beg for one; then it seemed to her impossible, and the wish beat itself painfully against that cold, dead impossibility, like a bird against its cage‐bars.
Hamlin called the old woman—
“Take that letter to the post‐office at the Uffizi,” he said, pointing to his writing‐table, “and mind you get it registered.”
It was the first time that Hamlin had sent the old woman on an errand during one of Anne Brown’s sittings, when she was wont to go in and out of the studio noiselessly, like a watchful duenna.
The heavy stairs door banged behind her. Anne listened to it dully, vacantly, as one listens to things when deeply preoccupied. For a few minutes Hamlin worked on in silence, then suddenly, without looking up, he said—
“Do you remember my finding your ‘Dante’ in the vineyard at the Villa Arnolfini, Miss Brown?”
“Yes,” she answered.
page: 148“And you told me that you wished to fit yourself to be a teacher?”
“Yes, I remember.”
“Well,” went on Hamlin, “I have been thinking about that; and I think it would be a pity—I mean—I hope you won’t think it horribly rude of me to say so—I think it would be better if you went to school for a little while yourself.”
Anne stared at this speech, and at the close of it her surprise turned to resentment.
“Of course it would be better,” she said, bitterly; “of course I shall always be very ignorant; but I have no wish to set up for what I am not. I am not going to teach people anything—only to correct their pronunciation and a few mistakes. One does not require to study much for that, and I shall be competent to do it.”
In her quiet, subdued way she looked very angry.
Hamlin rose from his easel.
“You misunderstand me,” he said; “and page: 149 indeed what I have to say is so strange and perhaps so unjustifiable, that you have every right to do so. Listen,” and he drew a chair near hers.
“Please do not think me very bold, and forgive the horrid way in which I am forced to put things, when I tell you, dear Miss Brown, that I am very much interested in you, and, indeed—will you forgive a comparative stranger saying so?—that I have never felt so much attracted by any one as I do by you.”
Anne Brown did not answer; she seemed literally petrified by sheer astonishment.
“The time has come when our acquaintance must come to an end,” went on Hamlin, rapidly; “but I cannot let this happen without making an effort to prolong it. I have no brothers or sisters—no one, at least, living with me, except distant relations. I have never taken much interest in anybody. But now I want to know—would you, instead of our parting company altogether—would you let me be‐ page: 150 come become your guardian for the next few years, and as such, would you let me take charge of your education and send you to school? It seems a very ridiculous thing to suggest. But still you must not be angry with me for doing so.”
Anne’s big onyx eyes had opened wider and wider. She flushed purple in the middle of his speech, then turned ashy‐white, while she picked convulsively at the fringe of the armchair. Then suddenly a sort of convulsion came across her face, and, as if from sheer unbearable tension of feeling, she burst into tears.
She gave way only one second, immediately trying to stop herself, but in vain. Hamlin felt that he was making a horrible mess of it. He came close up to the chair where the poor girl was thrown back, shaken with sobs.
“Miss Brown,” he cried, taking her hand—“Anne—oh, don’t be unhappy! I did not mean to offend you. Don’t you understand my meaning? I wish you to be what you have a right to be. I wish you to be in page: 151 such a position that of all the men in the world you may choose the one who deserves you most. Anne, I love you—and I hope that perhaps some day you may love me; but I want you to be able to love whoever may best deserve you, and merely to do my best that you should care for me. I want you to have a future independent of me—to possess the education and the fortune which shall enable you to marry whomsoever you will, or not to marry at all. Will you let me, for the time being, be your guardian, your father, your brother; let me provide for you, take care of your money, see to your education? I do not ask you to love me, but merely to give me a chance of trying to make you prefer me.”
Anne did not cease sobbing; and every convulsive heaving of her body made Hamlin feel a sort of sickening terror. He slid down on his knees and kissed her hand.
This action seemed suddenly to awaken her. She started up, and making a tremendous effort, stopped her crying.
page: 152He stood aside while she went to the mirror and looked at her swollen eyes and convulsed face.
“May I have a glass of water?” she asked; then, stopping Hamlin, “never mind,” she said—“never mind—I must go;” and she pulled her blue veil hurriedly over her eyes and huddled on her cloak.
“Miss Brown,” cried Hamlin, “why don’t you answer me?” and he laid hold of her arm as she was about to open the door.
“Because you do not deserve it,” she answered, trying to loosen his grasp. “Let me go, please.”
“I cannot let you go,” answered Hamlin calmly, standing before the door, “until you have listened to me. Will you let me provide for your future, send you to school, and then place you in the care of my aunt? Will you let me act as if I were your guardian for the next three years, and at the end of them you shall have enough to live and marry as befits a lady, and be as free as air, or become my page: 153 wife—whichever you shall choose? Answer me, for I am serious.”
Anne Brown paused.
“Don’t ask me for an answer now,” she said; “I am not sure that you are in earnest.”
“I am—indeed I am!” cried Hamlin; “I have intended asking you this ever since my return to Florence. I returned merely in order to ask you. I am in earnest; cannot you give me a serious answer?”
“Not now—I can’t think about anything; I must ask; I don’t know what is right to do.”
He opened the door, and Anne Brown walked out rapidly, through the anteroom and downstairs.
