And the good doctor, quite overcome by this unusual flight of eloquence, blew his nose vigorously and wiped from his spectacles the moisture with which his own eyes had bedewed them.
Dennis responded with a low bow, and was about to retire; but his few friends, and indeed all who knew him, pressed forward with their congratulations.
Foremost among these were the professor and his wife. Tears of delight fairly shone in Mrs. Leonard’s eyes as she shook his hand again and again. Many others also trooped up for an introduction, till he was quite bewildered by strange names, and compliments that seemed stranger still.
Suddenly a low, well-known voice at his side sent a thrill to his heart and a rush of crimson to his face.
“Will Mr. Fleet deign to receive my congratulations also?”
He turned and met the deep blue eyes of Christine Ludolph lifted timidly to his. But at once the association that had long been uppermost in regard to her—the memory of her supposed treatment of his mother—flashed across him, and he replied, with cold and almost stately courtesy, “The least praise or notice from Miss Ludolph would be a most unexpected favor.”
She thought from his manner that he might as well have said “unwelcome favor,” and with a sad, disappointed look she turned away.
Even in the excitement and triumph of the moment, Dennis was oppressed by the thought that he had not spoken as wisely as he might. Almost abruptly he broke away and escaped to the solitude of his own room.
He did not think about his success. The prize lay forgotten in his pocketbook. He sat in his armchair and stared apparently at vacancy, but in reality at the picture that he was sure Christine had painted. He went over and over again with the nicest scrutiny all her actions in the gallery, and now reproached himself bitterly for the repelling answer he had given when she spoke to him. He tried to regain his old anger and hardness in view of her wrongs to him and his, but could not. The telltale picture, and traces of sorrow and suffering in her face in accord with it, had disarmed him. He said to himself, and half believed, that he was letting his imagination run away with his reason, but could not help it. At last he seized his hat and hastened to the hotel where Mrs. Leonard was staying. She at once launched out into a eulogistic strain descriptive of her enjoyment of the affair.
“I never was so proud of Chicago,” she exclaimed. “It is the greatest city in the world. Only the other day her streets were prairies. I believe my husband expected to find buffalo and Indians just outside the town. But see! already, by its liberality and attention to art, it begins to vie with some of our oldest cities. But what is the matter? You look so worried.”
“Oh, nothing,” said Dennis, coming out of his troubled, abstracted manner.
With her quick intuition, Mrs. Leonard at once divined his thoughts, and said soon after, when her husband’s back was turned: “All I can say is, that she was deeply, most deeply affected by your picture, but she said nothing to me, more than to express her admiration. My friend, you had better forget her. They sail for Europe very soon; and, besides, she is not worthy of you.”
“I only wish I could forget her, and am angry with myself but I cannot,” he replied, and soon after said “good night.”
Wandering aimlessly through the streets, he almost unconsciously made his way to the north side, where the Ludolph mansion was situated. Then a strong impulse to go to it came over him, and for the first time since the far-off day when, stunned and wounded by his bitter disappointment, he had gone away apparently to die, he found himself at the familiar place. The gas was burning in Mr. Ludolph’s library. He went around on the side street (for the house was on a corner), and a light shone from what he knew to be Christine’s studio. She undoubtedly was there. Even such proximity excited him strangely, and in his morbid state he felt that he could almost kiss the feeble rays that shimmered out into the darkened street. In his secret soul he utterly condemned his folly, but promised himself that he would be weak no longer after that one night. The excitements of the day had thrown him off his balance.
Suddenly he heard, sweet and clear, though softened by distance and intervening obstacles, the same weird, pathetic ballad that had so moved him when Christine sang it at Le Grand Hotel, on the evening after he had pointed out the fatal defect in her picture. At short intervals, kindred and plaintive songs followed.
“There is nothing exultant or hopeful about those strains,” he said to himself. “For some reason she is not happy. Oh, that I might have one frank conversation with her and find out the whole truth! But it seems that I might just as well ask for a near look at yonder star that glimmers so distantly. For some reason I cannot believe her so utterly heartless as she has seemed; and then mother has prayed. Can it all end as a miserable dream?”
Late at night the music ceased, and the room was darkened.
Little dreamed Christine that her plaintive minstrelsy had fallen on so sympathetic an ear, and that the man who seemingly had repelled her slightest acquaintance had shivered long hours in the cold, dark street.
So the divine Friend waits and watches, while we, in ignorance and unbelief, pay no heed. Stranger far, He waits and watches
