"
"Why, that's good, sweet news, Joan; and Nature told me the truth after
all! We're bound to love one another. She made us for that very reason!"
He knew that her mind was full of the tangles of life and that she wanted
him to solve some of the riddles just then uppermost in her own existence.
He felt that Joe was in her thoughts, and he easily divined her unuttered
question as to why Nature had sent Joe before she had sent him. But, though
answers and explanations of her troubles were not likely to be difficult,
he had no wish to make them or to pursue the subject just then. Indeed, he
bid Joan depart an hour before she need have done so. Her face was spoiled
for that sitting, and matters had progressed up to the threshold of the
barrier. Before that could be broken down, she must be made to feel that
she was necessary to the happiness of his life; as he already felt that she
was necessary to the completion of his picture. She loved him very dearly,
and he, though love was not possible to his nature, could feel the
substitute. He had fairly stepped out of his impersonal shell into reality.
Presently he would return to his shell again. For a moment a model had
grown more to him than a picture; and he told himself that he must obey
Nature in order adequately to serve Art.
He picked up the handkerchief he had lent Joan, looked at the dampness of
the tear-stains, and then spread it in the sun to dry.
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