Her Faithful Knight — page 13: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Hour and the Woman. 9 lay far from hers. He was a man of resource, and ac- customed by his sub-editorial work on a great newspaper to keep his wits about him in an emergency. ‘There was only one course open to him—he must become an art student. _ Aylmer Read could not draw. He could criticise other men’s drawings, but would have been sore put to it to rival the productions of even an inferior pavement artist in colored chalks. He resolved to make a tour of the sculpture galleries to discover for himself how much tal- ent was displayed by the embryo Raphaels and Michael Angelos assembled there, and to learn whether such ele- mentary attempts as his were likely to prove would be startlingly conspicuous. The students were trooping through the galleries, mak- ing first for a room off the corridors devoted to Assyrian bas reliefs in search of the easels, drawing boards, and ob- long wooden boxes which served as seats and were stacked there. Aylmer’s fair lady came thither in course of time. She had removed her hat and scarf, and the light from the glass roofing fell on her hair which even on this dullest of days lent color and brightness to the scene. Fine, glossy, and abundant, typically English gold-brown hair it was, beautifully brushed, and twisted into shining coils with care more suggestive of a French than an Anglo-Saxon maiden. The outline of her broad, white forehead was softened by a wave of fair hair, but Ayl- mer’s lady wore no set “fringe,” and he found himself wondering how he could ever have admired any girl whose coiffure was destitute of parting and who sported a ~ curled “bang.” : She passed him again, easel in hand, on her way to the Greek sculptures. Following her was a sharpfaced un- dersized youth, against whom Aylmer instantly conceived a violent dislike, for he was carrying her drawing board GoOmicbdoo “S (S@)