“How I would like to copy it! Well, you can—‘You can copy anything you see.’ ” Then like a flash came a suggestion—“You can make him love you, and copy feeling, passion, life—from the living face. Whether I can believe or feel, myself, is very doubtful. This I can do: he himself said so. I cannot love, myself—I must not; I do not wish to now, but perhaps I can inspire love in him, and then make his face a study. As to my believing, he can never know how utterly impossible his faith is to me.”
Then conscience entered a mild protest against the cruelty of the project. “Nonsense!” she said to herself; “most girls flirt for sport, and it is a pity if I cannot with such a purpose in view. He will soon get over a little puncture in his heart after I have sailed away to my bright future beyond the sea, and perhaps Susie will comfort him;” and she smiled at the thought. Dennis saw the smile and was entranced by its loveliness. How little he guessed the cause!
Having resolved, Christine acted promptly. When their eyes again met, she gave him a slight smile. He caught it instantly and looked bewildered, as if he could not believe his eyes. Again, when a little later, at the urgent request of many, he sang alone for the first time, and again moved his hearers deeply by the real feeling in his tones, he turned from the applause of all, with that same questioning look, to her. She smiled an encouragement that she had never given him before. The warm blood flooded his face instantly. All thought that it was the general chorus of praise. Christine knew that she had caused it, and surprise and almost exultation came into her face. “I half believe he loves me now,” she said. She threw him a few more kindly smiles from time to time, as one might throw some glittering things to an eager child, and every moment assured her of her power.
“I will try one more test,” she said, and by a little effort she lured to her side the offended Mr. Mellen, and appeared much pleased by his attention. Then unmistakably the pain of jealousy was stamped on Dennis’s face, and she was satisfied. Shaking off the perplexed Mr. Mellen again, she went to the recess of a window to hide her look of exultation.
“The poor victim loves me already,” she said. “The mischief is done. I have only to avail myself of what exists from no fault of mine, and surely I ought to; otherwise the passion of the infatuated youth will be utterly wasted, and do no one any good.”
Thus in a somewhat novel way Christine obtained a new master in painting, and poor Dennis and his love were put to use somewhat as a human subject might be if dissected alive.
XXX
The Two Heights
Dennis went home in a strange tumult of hopes and fears, but hope predominated, for evidently she cared little for Mr. Mellen. “The ice is broken at last,” he said. It was, but he was like to fall through into a very cold bath, though he knew it not. He was far too excited to sleep, and sat by his open window till the warm June night grew pale with the light of coming day.
Suddenly a bright thought struck him; a moment more and it became an earnest purpose. “I think I can paint something that may express to her what I dare not put in words.”
He immediately went up into the loft and prepared a large frame, so proportioned that two pictures could be painted side by side, one explanatory and an advance upon the other. He stretched his canvas over this, and sketched and outlined rapidly under the inspiration of his happy thought.
Christine came with her father to the store, as had been her former custom, and her face had its old expression. The listless, disappointed look was gone. She passed on, not appearing to see him while with her father, and Dennis’s heart sank again. “She surely knew where to look for me if she cared to look,” he said to himself. Soon after he went to the upper showroom to see to the hanging of a new picture.
“I am so glad your taste, instead of old Schwartz’s mathematics, has charge of this department now,” said a honeyed voice at his side. He was startled greatly.
“What is the matter? Are you nervous, Mr. Fleet? I had no idea that a lady could so frighten you.”
He was blushing like a girl, but said, “I have read that something within, rather than anything without, makes us cowards.”
“Ah, then you confess to a guilty conscience?” she replied, with a twinkle in her eye.
“I do not think I shall confess at all till I have a merciful confessor,” said Dennis, conscious of a deeper meaning than his light words might convey.
“ ‘The quality of mercy is not strained,’ therefore it is unfit for my use. I’ll none of it, but for each offence impose unlimited penance.”
“But suppose one must sin?”
“He must take the consequences then. Even your humane religion teaches that;” and with this parting arrow she vanished, leaving him too excited to hang his picture straight.
It all seemed a bewildering dream. Being so thoroughly taken by surprise and off his guard, he had said far more than he meant. But had she understood him? Yes, better than he had himself, and laughed at his answers with their covert meanings.
She spent the next two days in sketching and outlining his various expressions as far as possible from memory. She would learn to catch those evanescent lines—that something which makes the human face eloquent, though the lips are silent.
Dennis was in a maze, but he repeated to himself jubilantly again, “The
