Again the shadow of night proved most friendly to Christine. Her face had a frightened, guilty look that it was well her father did not see, or he would have wrung from her the whole story. She felt the chill of a terrible dread at heart. If he should die, her conscience would give a fearful verdict against her. She stood trembling, feeling almost powerless to move.
“Come,” said her father, sharply, “I am hungry and tired.”
“I will ring for lights and supper,” said Christine hastily, and then fled to her own room.
When she appeared, her father was sitting at the table impatiently awaiting her. But her face was so white, and there was such an expression in her eyes, that he started and said, “What is the matter?”
His question irritated her, and she replied as sharply as he had spoken.
“I told you I was tired, and I don’t feel well. I have been a month in constant effort to get this house in order, and I am worn out, I suppose.”
He looked at her keenly, but said more kindly, “Here, my dear, take this wine;” and he poured out a glass of old port.
She drank it eagerly, for she felt she must have something that would give her life, warmth, and courage. In a way she could not understand, her heart sank within her.
But she saw her father was watching her, and knew she must act skillfully to deceive him. Rallied and strengthened by the generous wine, her resolute will was soon on its throne again, and Mr. Ludolph with all his keen insight was no match for her. In a matter-of-fact tone she said:
“I do not see how we have worked Mr. Fleet to death. Does he charge anything of the kind?”
“Oh, no! but he too seems possessed with the idea of becoming an artist. That drunken old Bruder, whom he appears to have reformed, was giving him lessons, and after working all day he would study much of the night and paint as soon as the light permitted in the morning. He might have made something if he had had a judicious friend to guide him” (“And such you might have been,” whispered her conscience), “but now he drops away like untimely fruit.”
“It is a pity,” said she, coolly, and changed the subject, as if she had dismissed it from her mind.
Mr. Ludolph believed that Dennis was no more to his daughter than a useful clerk.
The next morning Christine rose pale and listless.
Her father said, “I will arrange my business so that we can go off on a trip in a few days.”
When left alone she sat down at her easel and tried to restore the expression that had so delighted her on the preceding day. But she could not. Indeed she was greatly vexed to find that her tendency was to paint his stern and scornful look, which had made a deeper impression on her mind than any she had even seen on his face, because so unexpected and novel. She became irritated with herself, and cried, fiercely: “Shame on your weakness! You are unworthy of your blood and ancestry. I will reproduce that face as it was before he so insolently destroyed it;” and she bent over her easel with an expression not at all in harmony with her work. Unconsciously she made a strange contrast, with her severe, hard face and compressed lips, to the look of love and pleading she sought to paint. For several days she wrought with resolute purpose, but found that her inspiration was gone.
At last she threw down her brush in despair, and cried: “I cannot catch it again. The wretch either smiles or frowns upon me. I fear he was right: I have made my first and last success;” and she leaned her head sullenly and despairingly on her hand. Again the whole scene passed before her, and she dwelt upon every word, as she was beginning often to do now, in painful revery. When she came to the words, “I too mean to be an artist. I could show you a picture that would tell you far more of what I mean than can my poor words,” she started up, and, hastily arraying herself for the street, was soon on her way to the Art Building.
No one heeded her movements there, and she went directly upstairs to his room. Though simple and plain, it had unmistakably been the abode of a gentleman and a person of taste. It was partially dismantled, and in disorder from his hasty departure, and she found nothing which satisfied her quest there. She hastened away, glad to escape from a place where everything seemed full of mute reproach, and next bent her steps to the top floor of the building. In a part half-filled with antiquated lumber, and seldom entered, she saw near a window facing the east an easel with canvas upon it. She was startled at the throbbing of her heart.
“It is only climbing these long stairs,” she said; but her words were belied by the hesitating manner and eager face with which she approached and removed the covering from the canvas.
She gazed a moment and then put out her hand for something by which to steady herself. His chair was near, and she sank into it, exclaiming: “He has indeed painted more than he—more than anyone—could put into words. He has the genius that I have not. All here is striking and original;” and she sat with her eyes riveted to a painting that had revealed to her—herself.
Here was the secret of Dennis’s toil and early work. Here were the results of his insatiable demand for the incongruous elements of ice and sunlight.
Side by side were two emblematic pictures. In the first there opened before Christine a grotto of ice. The light was thin and cold but very clear. Stalactites hung glittering from the vaulted roof. Stalagmites in strange fantastic forms rose
