In the absorption of his task he withdrew utterly from society, and, with the exception of his mission class, Christian worship on the Sabbath, and attendance on a little prayer-meeting in a neglected quarter during the week, he permitted no other demands upon his time and thoughts.
His pictures had sold for sufficient to provide for his sisters and enable him to live, with close economy, till after the prize was given, and then, if he did not gain it (of which he was not at all sure), his painting would sell for enough to meet future needs.
And so we leave him for a time earnestly at work. He was like a ship that had been driven hither and thither, tempest-tossed and in danger. At last, under a clear sky and in smooth water, it finds its true bearings, and steadily pursues its homeward voyage.
The Christine whom he had first learned to love in happy unconsciousness, while they arranged the store together, became a glorified, artistic ideal. The Christine whom he had learned to know as false and heartless was now to him a strange, fascinating, unwomanly creature, beautiful only as the Sirens were beautiful, that he might wreck himself body and soul before her unpitying eyes. He sought to banish all thought of her.
Christine returned about midsummer. She was compelled to note, as she neared her native city, that of all the objects it contained Dennis Fleet was uppermost in her thoughts. She longed to go to the store and see him once more, even though it should be only at a distance, with not even the shadow of recognition between them. She condemned it all as folly, and worse than vain, but that made no difference to her heart, which would have its way.
Almost trembling with excitement she entered the Art Building the next day, and glanced around with a timidity that was in marked contrast to her usual cold and critical regard. But, as the reader knows, Dennis Fleet was not to be seen. From time to time she went again, but neither he nor Ernst appeared. She feared that for some reason he had gone, and determined to learn the truth. Throwing off the strange timidity and restraint that ever embarrassed her where he was concerned, she said to Mr. Schwartz one day: “I don’t like the way that picture is hung. Where is Mr. Fleet? I believe he has charge of that department.”
“Why, bless you! Miss Ludolph,” replied Mr. Schwartz, with a look of surprise, “Mr. Ludolph discharged him over two months ago.”
“Discharged him! what for?”
“For being away too much, I heard,” said old Schwartz, with a shrug indicating that that might be the reason and might not.
Christine came to the store but rarely thereafter, for it had lost its chief element of interest. That evening she said to her father, “You have discharged Mr. Fleet?”
“Yes,” was the brief answer.
“May I ask the reason?”
“He was away too much.”
“That is not the real reason,” she said, turning suddenly upon him. “Father, what is the use of treating me as a child? What is the use of trying to lock things up and keep them from me? I intend to go to Germany with you this fall, and that is sufficient.”
With a courtly smile Mr. Ludolph replied, “And I have lived long enough, my daughter, to know that what people intend, and what they do are two very different things.”
She flushed angrily and said: “It was most unjust to discharge him as you did. Do you not remember that he offered his mother’s services as nurse when I was dreading the smallpox?”
“You are astonishingly grateful in this case,” said her father, with a meaning that Christine understood too well; “but, if you will read the records of the Ludolph race, you will find that its representatives have often been compelled to do things somewhat arbitrarily. Since you have been gone, I have received letters announcing the death of my brother and his wife. I am now Baron Ludolph!”
But Christine was too angry and too deeply wounded to note this information, which at one time would have elated her beyond measure. She coldly said, “It is a pity that noblemen are compelled to aught but noble deeds;” and, with this parting arrow, she left him.
Even her father winced, and then with a heavy frown said, “It is well that this Yankee youth has vanished; still, the utmost vigilance is required.”
Again he saw the treacherous maid and promised increased reward if she would be watchful, and inform him of every movement of Christine.
In the unobtrusive ways that her sensitive pride permitted, Christine tried to find out what had become of Dennis, but vainly. She offered her maid a large reward if she would discover him, but she had been promised a larger sum not to find him, and so did not. The impression was given that he had left the city, and Christine feared, with a sickening dread, that she would never see him again. But one evening Mr. Cornell stated a fact in a casual way that startled both Mr. and Miss Ludolph.
He was calling at their house, and they were discussing the coming exhibition of the pictures which would compete for the prize.
“By the way, your former clerk and porter is among the competitors; at least he entered the lists last spring, but I have lost sight of him since. I imagine he has given it up, and betaken himself to tasks more within the range of his ability.”
The eyes of father and daughter met, but she turned to Mr. Cornell, and said, coolly, though with a face somewhat flushed, “And has Chicago so much artistic talent that a real genius has no chance here?”
“I was not aware that Mr. Fleet was a genius,” answered Mr. Cornell.
“I think that he will satisfy you on that point, and
