The Art Building contained two or three small showrooms, where the more valuable pictures could be exhibited in a good light. Into one of these the large box was carried, and most carefully opened. The two clerks who were helping Dennis laughed at his eager interest, and called him under their breath a “green ’un.” Mr. Schwartz looked upon him as a mild sort of lunatic. But Mr. Ludolph, who stood near, to see if the picture was safe and right, watched him with some curiosity. His manner was certainly very different from Pat Murphy’s at such a time, and his interest both amused and pleased his employer.
When at last the picture was lifted from the box and placed on a large easel, all exclaimed at its beauty save Dennis. On looking at him, they saw that his eyes had filled with tears, and his lips were quivering so that he could not have spoken.
“Is she a relation of yours?” asked Mr. Schwartz, in a matter-of-fact tone.
A loud laugh followed this sally from such an unusual source. Dennis turned on his heel, left the room, and busied himself with duties in a distant part of the store the rest of the day. It seemed to him that they were like savages bartering away gold and pearls, whose value they could not understand; much less could they realize his possession of a nature of exquisite sensibility to beauty.
When all were gone he returned to the room, and sat down before the picture in rapt attention. It was indeed a fine work of art, finished in that painstaking manner characteristic of the Germans.
The painting was a winter scene in Germany. In the far background rose wooded and snow-clad hills. Nearer in the perspective was a bold bluff, surmounted by a half-ruined castle. At the base of the bluff flowed a river, now a smooth glare of ice, and in the distance figures were wheeling about upon skates. In the immediate foreground were two persons. One was a lovely young girl, dressed in black velvet trimmed with ermine. The basque fitted closely to her person, revealing its graceful outlines, and was evidently adapted to the active sport in which she was engaged. While the rich warm blood mantled her cheeks, the snow was not whiter than her temples and brow. Down her shoulders flowed a profusion of wavy hair, scattered threads of which glistened like gold in the slanting rays of the sun. Her eyes, of a deep violet, were turned, in sympathy with the scorn of the full, smiling mouth, upon the figure of a young man kneeling before her, making awkward attempts to fasten her skate to the trim little foot. It was evident that the favor was too much for him, and that his fluttering heart made his hands trembling and unskilful. But the expression of the maiden’s face clearly indicated that her heart was as cold toward him as the ice on which he kneeled.
The extreme beauty of the picture and its exquisite finish fascinated Dennis, while the girl’s face jarred upon his feelings like a musical discord. After gazing fixedly for a long time, he said, “What possessed the man to paint such a lovely face and make its expression only that of scorn, pride, and heartless merriment?”
All the long night the face haunted and troubled him. He saw it in his dreams. It had for him a strong interest that he could not understand—that strange fascination which a very beautiful thing that has been marred and wronged has for some natures. So powerful was this impression upon his sensitive nature that he caught himself saying, as of a living being, “Oh, that I could give to that face the expression God meant it to have!”
And then he laughed at his own folly. His watchfulness caused him to oversleep the next morning, and he was later than usual in getting through the routine duties of the store. At length, about nine o’clock, dusty and begrimed from mopping, feeding the furnace, etc., he stood with duster and brush in hand before the painting that had so disturbed his rest. He was in his shirtsleeves, and in careful economy had a large coarse apron of ticking girded about his person. His black, dishevelled locks looked like an inverted crow’s nest, and altogether he was unpresentable, appearing more like the presiding divinity of a dust-heap than of an “Art Building.”
After gazing a few moments on the scornful, beautiful face that might have obtained its haughty patrician lineaments from the old barons of the ruined castle just above, he seemed to grow conscious of this himself, and shrunk behind the picture half ashamed, as if the fair girl could see him.
While engaged in cleaning off some stains and marks upon the frame, he did not hear a light footstep in the room. Finishing his task, he stepped out from behind the picture with the purpose of leaving the apartment, when a vision met his gaze which startled him to that degree that he dropped his brush and duster upon the floor, and stood transfixed. There before him, in flesh and blood it seemed, stood the lady of the picture—the same dress, the same beautiful blond face, and, above all, the same expression. He was made conscious of his absurd position by a suppressed titter from the clerks at the door, and a broad laugh from Mr. Ludolph. The beautiful face turned toward him for a moment, and he felt himself looked over from head to foot. At first there was an expression of vexation at the interruption, and then, as if from the ludicrousness of his appearance, the old laughing, scornful look returned. Casting a quick, furtive glance at the picture, which seemed to satisfy
