Her Faithful Knight

This 1899 serial romance by Gertrude Warden follows Aylmer Read, a seven-and-twenty-year-old journalist newly returned to London from provincial employment. Dissatisfied with the limited romantic prospects of his former town, Read seeks educated, graceful women of his own social standing. On a rainy May morning near the British Museum, he glimpses an exceptionally beautiful young woman in blue serge—pale, fair-haired, gray-eyed, and about twenty years old—crossing Great Russell Street. Captivated instantly, Read follows her into the Museum, determines she is an art student, and impulsively enrolls as a student himself to remain near her. He observes her copying a marble Hermes in the sculpture gallery, exchanges information with a cockney art student named Mr. Smith, and contrives to position himself where their eyes finally meet across the gallery, establishing the narrative's romantic foundation.