Her hair was prematurely grey; her quick eyes brown; her mouth twisted at one corner; she held her face, kind-looking, but long and narrow, rather to one side, and wore on it a look of apology.Her quick sentences sounded as if she kept them on strings, and wanted to draw them back as soon as she had let them forth.
"Greta, how can, you do such things? I don't know what your father would say! I am sure I don't know how to--so extraordinary--""Please!" said Harz.
"You must come at once--so very sorry--so awkward!" They were standing in a ring: Harz with his eyebrows working up and down; the little lady fidgeting her parasol; Greta, flushed and pouting, her eyes all dewy, twisting an end of fair hair round her finger.
"Oh, look!" The coffee had boiled over.Little brown streams trickled spluttering from the pan; the dog, with ears laid back and tail tucked in, went scurrying round the room.A feeling of fellowship fell on them at once.
"Along the wall is our favourite walk, and Scruff--so awkward, so unfortunate--we did not think any one lived here--the shutters are cracked, the paint is peeling off so dreadfully.Have you been long in Botzen? Two months? Fancy! You are not English? You are Tyrolese? But you speak English so well--there for seven years?
Really? So fortunate!--It is Greta's day for English."Miss Naylor's eyes darted bewildered glances at the roof where the crossing of the beams made such deep shadows; at the litter of brushes, tools, knives, and colours on a table made out of packing-cases; at the big window, innocent of glass, and flush with the floor, whence dangled a bit of rusty chain--relic of the time when the place had been a store-loft; her eyes were hastily averted from an unfnished figure of the nude.
Greta, with feet crossed, sat on a coloured blanket, dabbling her fnger in a little pool of coffee, and gazing up at Harz.And he thought: 'I should like to paint her like that."A forget-me-not."'
He took out his chalks to make a sketch of her.
"Shall you show me?" cried out Greta, scrambling to her feet.
"'Will,' Greta--'will'; how often must I tell you? I think we should be going--it is very late--your father--so very kind of you, but Ithink we should be going.Scruff!" Miss Naylor gave the floor two taps.The terrier backed into a plaster cast which came down on his tail, and sent him flying through the doorway.Greta followed swiftly, crying:
"Ach! poor Scrufee!"
1
Harz was left alone, his guests were gone; the little girl with the fair hair and the eyes like forget-me-nots, the little lady with kindly gestures and bird-like walk, the terrier.He looked round him; the room seemed very empty.Gnawing his moustache, he muttered at the fallen cast.
Then taking up his brush, stood before his picture, smiling and frowning.Soon he had forgotten it all in his work.
II
It was early morning four days later, and Harz was loitering homewards.The shadows of the clouds passing across the vines were vanishing over the jumbled roofs and green-topped spires of the town.
A strong sweet wind was blowing from the mountains, there was a stir in the branches of the trees, and flakes of the late blossom were drifting down.Amongst the soft green pods of a kind of poplar chafers buzzed, and numbers of their little brown bodies were strewn on the path.
He passed a bench where a girl sat sketching.A puff of wind whirled her drawing to the ground; Harz ran to pick it up.She took it from him with a bow; but, as he turned away, she tore the sketch across.
"Ah!" he said; "why did you do that?"
This girl, who stood with a bit of the torn sketch in either hand, was slight and straight; and her face earnest and serene.She gazed at Harz with large, clear, greenish eyes; her lips and chin were defiant, her forehead tranquil.
"I don't like it."
"Will you let me look at it? I am a painter.""It isn't worth looking at, but--if you wish--"He put the two halves of the sketch together.
"You see!" she said at last; "I told you."Harz did not answer, still looking at the sketch.The girl frowned.
Harz asked her suddenly:
"Why do you paint?"
She coloured, and said:
"Show me what is wrong."
"I cannot show you what is wrong, there is nothing wrong--but why do you paint?""I don't understand."
Harz shrugged his shoulders.
"You've no business to do that," said the girl in a hurt voice; "Iwant to know."
"Your heart is not in it," said Harz.
She looked at him, startled; her eyes had grown thoughtful.
"I suppose that is it.There are so many other things--""There should be nothing else," said Harz.
She broke in: "I don't want always to be thinking of myself.
Suppose--"
"Ah! When you begin supposing!"
The girl confronted him; she had torn the sketch again.
"You mean that if it does not matter enough, one had better not do it at all.I don't know if you are right--I think you are."There was the sound of a nervous cough, and Harz saw behind him his three visitors--Miss Naylor offering him her hand; Greta, flushed, with a bunch of wild flowers, staring intently in his face; and the terrier, sniffing at his trousers.
Miss Naylor broke an awkward silence.
"We wondered if you would still be here, Christian.I am sorry to interrupt you--I was not aware that you knew Mr.Herr--""Harz is my name--we were just talking"
"About my sketch.Oh, Greta, you do tickle! Will you come and have breakfast with us to-day, Herr Harz? It's our turn, you know."Harz, glancing at his dusty clothes, excused himself.
But Greta in a pleading voice said: "Oh! do come! Scruff likes you.
It is so dull when there is nobody for breakfast but ourselves."Miss Naylor's mouth began to twist.Harz hurriedly broke in:
"Thank you.I will come with pleasure; you don't mind my being dirty?""Oh no! we do not mind; then we shall none of us wash, and afterwards I shall show you my rabbits."Miss Naylor, moving from foot to foot, like a bird on its perch, exclaimed: