It would be pleasant."

"It you will permit me," he blushed and stammered, wondering at her
ready acquiescence, "if you will permit me to call upon you
sometimes--here, if you will allow me, or anywhere else. You know my
name. I am by profession an artist, and I have a studio close at hand
in Tite Street."

"To call upon me here?" she repeated.

Now, when one is a tutor, and has been reading with a pupil for two
years, one regards that pupil with a feeling which may not be exactly
parental, but which is unconventional. If Arnold had said, "Behold me!
May I, being a young man, call upon you, a young woman?" she would
have replied: "No, young man, that can never be." But when he said,
"May I, your pupil, call sometimes upon you, my tutor?" a distinction
was at once established by which the impossible became possible.

"Yes," she said, "I think you may call. My grandfather has his tea
with me every evening at six. You may call then if it will give you
any pleasure."

"You really will let me come here?"

The young man looked as if the permission was likely to give him the
greatest pleasure.

"Yes; if you wish it."

She spoke just exactly like an Oxford Don giving an undergraduate
permission to take an occasional walk with him, or to call for
conversation and advice at certain times in his rooms. Arnold noticed
the manner, and smiled.

"Still," he said, "as your pupil."

He meant to set her at her ease concerning the propriety of these
visits. She thought he meant a continuation of a certain little
arrangement as to fees, and blushed.

"No," she said; "I must not consider you as a pupil any longer. You
have put an end to that yourself."

"I do not mind, if only I continue your friend."

"Oh," she said, "but we must not pledge ourselves rashly to
friendship. Perhaps you will not like me when you once come to know
me."

"Then I remain your disciple."

"Oh no," she flushed again, "you must already think me presumptuous
enough in venturing to give you advice. I have written so many foolish
things--"

"Indeed, no," he interrupted, "a thousand times no. Let me tell you
once for all, if I may, that you have taught me a great deal--far more
than you can ever understand, or than I can explain. Where did you get
your wisdom? Not from the Book of Human Life. Of that you cannot know
much as yet."

"The wisdom is in your imagination, I think. You shall not be my pupil
nor my disciple, but--well--because you have