Walter Besant - The Golden Butterfly

"Is that like him?"

Jack could hardly repress a cry of admiration.

"I am glad you think it good. Please write underneath, 'The Artist at work.' Thank you. Is that it? We will now pin it on the canvas. Think what he will say when he wakes up and sees it."

They stole out again as softly as a pair of burglars.

"Now you have seen the Twins. They are really very nice, but they drink too much wine, and sit up late. In the morning they are sometimes troublesome, when they won't take their breakfast; but in the evening, after dinner, they are quite tractable. And you see how they spend their day."

"Do they never do any work at all?"

"I will tell you what I think," she replied gravely. "Mr. Dyson used to tell me of men who are so vain that they are ashamed to give the world anything but what they know to be the best. And the best only comes by successive effort. So they wait and wait, till the time goes by, and they cannot even produce second-rate work. I think the Twins belong to that class of people."

By this time they were in the drawing-room.

"And now," said Phillis, "you are going to tell me all about my guardian."

"Tell me something more about yourself first," said Jack, not caring to bring Mr. Lawrence Colquhoun into the conversation just yet. "You said last night that you would show me your drawings."

"They are only pencil and pen-and-ink sketches." Phillis put a small portfolio on the table and opened it. "This morning Mr. Joseph took me to see an exhibition of paintings. Most of the artists in that exhibition cannot draw, but some can – and then – Oh!"

"They cannot draw better than you, Miss Fleming, I am quite sure."

She shook her head as Jack spoke, turning over the sketches.

"It seems so strange to be called Miss Fleming. Everybody used to call me Phillis."

"Was – was everybody young?" Jack asked, with an impertinence beyond his years.

"No; everybody was old. I suppose young people always call each other by their christian names. Yours seems to be rather stiff. Ronald, Ronald – I am afraid I do not like it very much."

"My brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, cousins and kinsfolk – the people who pay my debts and therefore love me most – call me Ronald. But everybody else calls me Jack."

"Jack!" she murmured. "What a pretty name Jack is! May I call you Jack?"

"If you only would!" he cried, with a quick flushing of his cheek. "If you only would! Not when other people are present, but all to ourselves, when we are together like this. That is, if you do not mind."

Could the Serpent, when he cajoled Eve, have begun in a more subtle and artful manner? One is ashamed for Jack Dunquerque.

"I shall always call you Jack, then, unless when people like Mrs. Cassilis are present."

"And what am I to call you?"

"My name is Phillis, you know." But she knew, because her French maid had told her, that some girls have names of endearment, and she hesitated a little, in hope that Jack would find one for her.

He did. She looked him so frankly and freely in the face that he took courage, and said with a bold heart:

"Phillis is a very sweet name. You know the song, 'Phillis is my only joy?' I ought to call you Miranda, the Princess of the Enchanted Island. But it would be prettier to call you Phil."

"Phil!" Her lips parted in a smile of themselves as she shaped the name. It is a name which admits of expression. You may lengthen it out if you like; you may shorten it you like. "Phil! That is very pretty. No one ever called me Phil before."

"And we will be great friends, shall we not?"

"Yes, great friends. I have never had a friend at all."

"Let us shake hands over our promise. Phil, say, 'Jack Dunquerque, I will try to like you, and I will be your friend.'"

"Jack Dunquerque," she placed her hands, both of them, in his and began to repeat, looking in his face quite earnestly and solemnly, "I will try – that is nonsense, because I do like you very much already; and I will always be your friend, if you will be mine and will let me."

Then he, with a voice that shook a little, because he knew that this was very irregular and even wrong, but that the girl was altogether lovable, and a maiden to be desired, and a queen among girls, and too beautiful to be resisted, said his say:

"Phil, I think you are the most charming girl I have ever seen in all my life. Let me be your friend always, Phil. Let me" – here he stopped, with a guilty tremor in his voice – "I hope – I hope – that you will always go on liking me more and more."

He held both her pretty shapely hands in his own. She was standing a little back, with her face turned up to his, and a bright fearless smile upon her lips and in her eyes. Oh, the eyes that smile before the lips!

"Some people seal a bargain," he went on, hesitating and stammering, "after the manner of the – the – early Christians – with a kiss. Shall we, Phil?"

Before she caught the meaning of his words he stooped and drew her gently towards him. Then he suddenly released her. For all in a moment the woman within her, unknown till that instant, was roused into life, and she shrank back – without the kiss.

Jack hung his head in silence. Phil, in silence, too, stood opposite him, her eyes upon the ground.

She looked up stealthily and trembled.

Jack Dunquerque was troubled as he met her look.

"Forgive me, Phil," he said humbly. "It was wrong – I ought not. Only forgive me, and tell me we shall be friends all the same."

"Yes," she replied, not quite knowing what she said; "I forgive you. But, Jack, please don't do it again."

Then he returned to the drawings, sitting at the table, while she stood over him and told him what they were.

There was no diffidence or mock-modesty at all about her. The drawings were her life, and represented her inmost thoughts. She had never shown them all together to a single person, and now she was laying them all open before the young man whom yesterday she had met for the first time.

It seemed to him as if she were baring her very soul for him to read.

"I like to do them," she said, "because then I can recall everything that I have done or seen. Look! Here is the dear old house at Highgate, where I stayed for thirteen years without once going beyond its walls. Ah, how long ago it seems, and yet it is only a week since I came away! And everything is so different to me now."

"You were happy there, Phil?"

"Yes; but not so happy as I am now. I did not know you then, Jack."

He beat down the temptation to take her in his arms and kiss her a thousand times. He tried to sit calmly critical over the drawings. But his hand shook.

"Tell me about it all," he said softly.

"These are the sketches of my Highgate life. Stay; this one does not belong to this set. It is a likeness of you, which I drew last night when I came home."

"Did you really draw one of me? Let me have it. Do let me have it."

"It was meant for your face. But I could do a better one now. See, this is Mr. Beck, the American gentleman; and this is Captain Ladds. This is Mr. Cassilis."

They were the roughest unfinished things, but she had seized the likeness in every one.

Jack kept his own portrait in his hand.

"Let me keep it."

"Please, no; I want that one for myself."

Once more, and for the last time in his life, a little distrust crossed Jack Dunquerque's mind. Could this girl, after all, be only the most accomplished of all coquettes? He looked up at her face as she stood beside him, and then abused himself for treachery to love.

"It is like me," he said, looking at the pencil portrait; "but you have made me too handsome."

She shook her head.

"You are very handsome, I think," she said gravely.