Dennis, like many another, thought he saw God’s plan clearly from a mere glimpse of a part of it. He at once reached this miserable conclusion, and suffered as greatly as if it had been God’s will, instead of his own imagination. To wait and trust is often the latest lesson we learn in life.
Mr. Ludolph’s guests, absorbed in the pictures, at first scarcely noticed the departure of the others.
Christine, with consummate skill and care, kept her relationship to the picture unknown to all save the Winthrops, meaning not to acknowledge it unless she succeeded. But in Dennis’s startled and pained face she saw that he had read her secret, and this fact also annoyed her much.
“I should like to know the artist who copied this painting,” said Mr. Cornell.
“The artist is an amateur, and not willing to come before the public at present,” said Mr. Ludolph, so decidedly that no further questions were asked.
“I am much interested in that young clerk of yours,” said Mr. French. “He seems to understand himself. It is so hard to find a good discriminating judge of pictures. Do you expect to keep him?”
“Yes, I do,” said Mr. Ludolph, with such emphasis that his rival in trade pressed that point also no further.
“Well, really, Mr. Ludolph,” said one of the gentlemen, “you deal in wonders, mysteries, and all sorts of astonishing things yere. We have an unknown artist in Chicago deserving an ovation; you have in your employ a prince of critics, and if I mistake not he is the same who sang at Brown’s some little time ago. Miss Brown told me that he was your porter.”
“Yes, I took him as a stranger out of work and knew nothing of him. But he proved to be an educated and accomplished man, who will doubtless be of great use to me in time. Of course I promoted him when I found him out.” These last remarks were made for Mr. French’s benefit rather than for anyone’s else. He intended that his rival should knowingly violate all courtesy if he sought to lure Dennis away. After admiring the paintings and other things recently received, the gentlemen bowed themselves out.
On leaving the store Mr. Winthrop—feeling awkward in the presence of the disappointed girl—had pleaded business, and bidden her adieu with a warm grasp of the hand and many assurances that she had succeeded beyond his belief.
“I know you mean kindly in what you say,” said Christine, while not the slightest gleam lighted up her pale, sad face. “Goodbye.”
She, too, was relieved, and wished to be alone. Miss Winthrop sought to comfort her friend as they walked homeward.
“Christine, you look really ill. I don’t see why you take this matter so to heart. You have achieved a success that would turn any head but yours. I could not believe it possible had I not seen it. Your ambition and ideal are so lofty that you will always make yourself miserable by aiming at the impossible. As Mr. Fleet said, I do not believe there is another in the city who could have done so well, and if you can do that now, what may you not accomplish by a few years more of work?”
“That’s the terrible part of it,” said Christine, with a long sigh. “Susie, I have attained my growth. I can never be a real artist and no one living can ever know the bitterness of my disappointment. I do not believe in the immortality that you do, and this was my only chance to live beyond the brief hour of my life. If I could only have won for myself a place among the great names that the world will ever honor, I might with more content let the candle of my existence flicker out when it must. But I have learned today what I have often feared—that Christine Ludolph must soon end in a forgotten handful of dust.”
“Oh, Christine, if you could only believe!”
“I cannot. I tried in my last sickness, but vainly. I am more convinced than ever of the correctness of my father’s views.”
Miss Winthrop sighed deeply. “Why are you so despondent?” she at last asked.
As if half speaking to herself, Christine repeated the words, “ ‘Painted by one having never felt, or unable to feel, the emotions presented, and therefore one who cannot portray them.’ That is just the trouble. I tried to speak in a language I do not know. Susie, I believe I am about half ice. Sometimes I think I am like Undine, and have no soul. I know I have no heart, in the sense that you have.
“I live a very cold sort of life,” she continued, with a slight shudder. “I seem surrounded by invisible barriers that I cannot pass. I can see, beyond, what I want, but cannot reach it. Oh, Susie, if you knew what I suffered when so ill! Everything seemed slipping from me. And yet why I should so wish to live I hardly know, when my life is so narrowed down.”
“You see the disease, but not the remedy,” sighed Susie.
“What is the remedy?”
“Love. Love to God, and I may add love for some good man.”
Christine stopped a moment and almost stamped her foot impatiently.
“You discourage me more than anyone else,” she cried. “As to loving God, how can I love merely a name? and, even if He existed, how could I love a Being who left His world so full of vile evils? As to human love, faugh! I have had enough of romantic attachments.”
“Do you never intend to marry?”
“Susie, you are the friend of my soul, and I trust you and you only with our secret. Yes, I expect to marry, but not in this land. You know that in Germany my father will eventually be a noble, the representative of one of the most ancient and honorable families. We shall soon have
