Richmond, coming along the corridor leading into the entrance hall from the east, stopped short at sight of her artist.

[99]

She herself, in an evening gown of pale silver, with lovely shoulders bare and graceful head looking exquisite under its crown of simply arranged, yellow hair, was quite a different person from the rather hoydenish elf of wood and stream whom Roger had been painting. But she had lost, instead of gaining, in the transformation. She was more beautiful, but much less fascinating. She had been leveled down toward the conventional. She merely looked what the newspapers call “a beautiful, young, society girl.” Roger, on the other hand, had gained. He was retaining all his charm of the large, the free, the sincere, the natural; he now had in addition a certain refinement that yet had nothing of conventionality’s cheapness. It was somewhat like the difference between a thoroughbred uncurried and curried. His natural proportions showed to better advantage in this sleekness than they had in the rough.

“What’s the matter?” demanded Roger, as he took her hand. “Am I late, or is it the wrong evening?”

“Neither,” she assured him, and it delighted her to note that he did not dream of taking to himself her pale and trembling joy in his splendor of manhood. “Nothing[100] much. Just—I was thinking this is the first time we’ve seen each other in civilized dress.”

[100]

“Oh!” Roger evidently thought this not worth pursuing. “This is a wonderful place you’ve got here. It’d be hard to blame anybody for making any sort of sacrifice to keep it.” He glanced round with the expression of a man used to such surroundings. In fact, there was nothing about him which in the remotest degree suggested the ill-at-easeness she had anticipated and feared. She felt humbled. He was again—and where she had least expected it—rebuking her nervousness over trifles and exaggeration of them. As they stood in the corridor, talking, she could discover not a trace of the awe she had confidently expected and hoped for. He treated her precisely as he had in the woods. But she was not discouraged. She felt that he must be deeply impressed, that he must be understanding now why she had taken the proposing upon herself—and must be appreciating what a fine thing that proposal was. He was concealing his feelings, reasoned she—was perhaps unconscious of them; later on they would show in results.

“I’ll take you to mother,” said she.

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