Dennis, like many another, thought he saw G.o.d"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 G.o.d"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 any one"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 a.s.surances 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. "Good-by."
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 to-day 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 pa.s.s. 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 G.o.d, and I may add love for some good man."
Christine stopped a moment and almost stamped her foot impatiently.
"You discourage me more than any one else," she cried. "As to loving G.o.d, 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 n.o.ble, the representative of one of the most ancient and honorable families. We shall soon have sufficient wealth to resume our true position there.
A husband will then be found for me. I only stipulate that he shall be able to give me position among the first, and gratify my bent for art to the utmost."
"Well, Christine, you are a strange girl, and your dream of the future is stranger still."
"Sometimes I think that all is a dream, and may end like one. Nothing seems certain or real, or turns out as one expects. Think of it. A n.o.body who swept my father"s store the other day has this morning made such havoc in my dream that I am sick at heart."
"But you cannot blame Mr. Fleet. He did it unconsciously; he was goaded on to do it. No _man_ could have done otherwise. You surely do not feel hardly toward him?"
"We do not naturally love the lips and bless the voice that tell us of an incurable disease. Oh, no," she added, "why should I think of him at all? He merely happened to point out what I half suspected myself. And yet the peculiar way this stranger crosses my path from time to time almost makes me superst.i.tious."
"And you seem to have peculiar power over him. He would have a.s.suredly left us in the lurch at our tableau party had it not been for you, and I should not have blamed him. And to-day he seemed troubled and pained beyond expression when he read from your face, as I imagine, that you were the author of the picture."
"Yes, I saw that he discovered the fact, and this provokes me also.
If he should speak his thoughts--"
"I do not think he will. I am sure he will not if you caution him."
"That I will not do; and I think on the whole he has too much sense to speak carelessly of what he imagined he saw in a lady"s face. And now, Susie, good-by. I shall not inflict my miserable self longer upon you to-day, and I am one who can best cure my wounds in solitude."
"Do you cure them, Christine? or do you only cover them up? If I had your creed nothing could cure my wounds. Time might deaden the pain, and I forget them in other things, but I do not see where any cure could come from. Oh, Christine! you did me good service when in the deepening twilight of Miss Brown"s parlor you showed me my useless, unbelieving life. But I do believe now. The cross is radiant to me now--more radiant than the one that so startled us then. Mr. Fleet"s words were true, I know, as I know my own existence. I could die for my faith."
Christine frowned and said, almost harshly: "I don"t believe in a religion so full of crosses and death. Why could not the all-powerful Being you believe in take away the evil from the world?"
"That is just what He came to do. In that very character he was pointed out by His authorized forerunner: "Behold the Lamb of G.o.d, that taketh away the sin of the world.""
"Why does he not do it then?" asked Christine, petulantly. "Centuries have pa.s.sed. Patience itself is wearied out. He has had time enough, if He ever meant or had the power to fulfil the promise. But the world is as full of evil and suffering as ever. Susie, I would not disturb your credulous faith, for it seems to do you good; but to me Christ was a n.o.ble but mistaken man, dead and buried centuries ago. He can do for me no more than Socrates. They vigorously attacked evil in their day, but evil was too much for them, as it is for us. We must just get the most we can out of life, and endure what we cannot prevent or escape. An angel could not convert me to-day--no, not even Susie Winthrop, and that is saying more still;" and with a hasty kiss she vanished.
Susie looked wistfully after her, and then bent her steps homeward with a pitying face.
Christine at once went to her own private room. Putting on a loose wrapper she threw herself on a lounge, and buried her face in the cushions. Her life seemed growing narrow and meagre. Hour after hour pa.s.sed, and the late afternoon sun was shining into her room when she arose from her bitter revery, and summed up all in a few words spoken aloud, as was her custom when alone.
"Must I, after all, come down to the Epicurean philosophy, "Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die"? I seem on a narrow island, the ocean is all around me, and the tide is rising, _rising_. It will cover _soon_ my standing-place, and then what becomes of Christine Ludolph?"
A look of anguish came into the fair young face, and a slight shudder pa.s.sed over her. She glanced around a room furnished in costly elegance.
She saw her lovely person in the mirror opposite, and exclaimed: "What a mystery it all is! I have so much, and yet so utterly fail of having that which contents. I have all that wealth can purchase; and mult.i.tudes act as if that were enough. I know I am beautiful. I can see that yonder for myself, as well as read it in admiring eyes. And yet my maid is better contented than I, and the boy who blacks the boots better satisfied with his lot than either of us. I am raised so high that I can see how much more there is or might be beyond. I feel like one led into a splendid vestibule, only to find that the palace is wanting, or that it is a mean hovel. All that I have only mocks me, and becomes a means of torture. All that I am and have ought to be, might be, a mere prelude, an earnest and a preparation for something better beyond. But I am told, and must believe, that this is all, and I may lose this in a moment and forever. It is as if a n.o.ble strain of music commenced sweetly, and then suddenly broken down into a few discordant notes and ceased. It is like my picture--all very well; but that which would speak to and move the heart, year after year, when the mere beauty ceased to please--that life or something is wanting.
What were his words?--"This picture is but the beautiful corpse of the other"; and my life is but a cold marble effigy of a true life.
And yet is there any true and better life? If there is nothing better beyond, I have been carried forward too far. Miss Brown thoroughly enjoys champagne and flirtations. Susie Winthrop is happy in her superst.i.tion, as any one might be who could believe what she does.
But I have gone past the power of taking up these things, as I have gone past my childhood"s sports. And now what is there for me? My most dear and cherished hope--a hope that shone above my life like a sun--has been blown away by the breath of my father"s clerk (it required no greater power to bring me down to my true level), and I hoped to be a queen among men, high-born, but crowned with the richer coronet of genius. I, who hoped to win so high a place that men would speak of me with honest praise, now and in all future time, must be contented as a mere accomplished woman, deemed worthy perhaps in time to grace some n.o.bleman"s halls who in the nice social scale abroad may stand a little higher than myself. I meant to shine and dazzle, to stoop to give in every case; but now I must take what I can get, with a humble "Thank you";" and she clenched her little powerless hands in impotent revolt at what seemed very cruel destiny.
She appeared at the dinner-table outwardly calm and quiet. Her father did not share in her bitter disappointment, and she saw that he did not, and so felt more alone. He regarded her success as remarkable (as it truly was), having never believed that she could copy a picture so exactly as to deceive an ordinarily good observer. When, therefore, old Schwartz and others were unable to distinguish between the pictures, he was more than satisfied. He was sorry that Dennis had spoiled the triumph, but could not blame him. At the same time he recognized in Fleet another and most decided proof of intelligence on questions of art, for he knew that his criticism was just. He believed that when the true knight that his ambition would choose appeared, with golden spurs and jewelled crest, then her deeper nature would awaken, and she far surpa.s.s all previous effort. Moreover, he did not fully understand or enter into her lofty ambition. To see her settled in life, t.i.tled, rich, and a recognized leader in the aristocracy of his own land, was his highest aspiration so far as she was concerned.
He began, therefore, in a strain of compliment to cheer his daughter and rally her courage; but she shook her head sadly, and said so decidedly, "Father, let us change the subject," that with some surprise at her feelings he yielded to her wish, thinking that a little time and experience would moderate her ideas and banish the pain of disappointment. It was a quiet meal, both being occupied by their own thoughts. Soon after he was absorbed for the evening by his cigar and some business papers.
It was a mild, summer-like night, and a warm, gentle rain was falling.