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Barriers Burned Away, a novel by Edward Payson Roe |
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Chapter 30. The Two Heights |
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_ CHAPTER 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 show-room 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 ice is broken." That evening at Mr. Bruder's he asked for studies in ice. "Vy, dat is out of season," said Mr. Bruder, with a laugh. "No, now is just the time. It is a nice cool subject for this hot weather. Please oblige me; for certain reasons I wish to be able to paint ice perfectly." Arctic scenery was Mr. Bruder's forte, on which he specially prided himself. He was too much of a gentleman to ask questions, and was delighted to find the old zest returning in his pupil. They were soon constructing bergs, caves, and grottoes of cold blue ice. Evening after evening, while sufficient light lasted, they worked at this study. Dennis's whole soul seemed bent on the formation of ice. After a month of labor Mr. Bruder said, "I hope you vill get over dis by fall, or ve all freeze to death." "One of these days I shall explain," said Dennis, smiling. The evening of the second day after the little rencounter in the show-room, Mr. Ludolph sat enjoying his cigar, and Christine was at the piano playing a difficult piece of music. "Come, father," she said, "here is a fine thing just from Germany. There is a splendid tenor solo in it, and I want you to sing it for me." "Pshaw!" said her father, "why did I not think of it before?" and he rang the bell. "Here, Brandt, go down to the store, and if Mr. Fleet is there ask him if he will come up to my rooms for a little while." Brandt met Dennis just starting for his painting lesson, but led him a willing captive, to give Christine instruction unconsciously. She, whose strategy had brought it all about, smiled at her success. It was not her father's tenor she wanted, but Dennis's face; and her father should unknowingly work her will. The girl had learned so much from the wily man of the world that she was becoming his master. Dennis came and entered with a thrill of delight what was to him enchanted ground. Mr. Ludolph was affable, Christine kind, but she looked more than she said. Dennis sang the solo, after one or two efforts, correctly. Then Mr. Ludolph brought out a piece of music that he wished to try; Christine found others; and before they knew it the evening had passed. Quite a knot of delighted listeners gathered in the street opposite. This Christine pointed out to her father with evident annoyance. "Well, my dear," he said, "hotel life in a crowded city renders escape from such things impossible." But a purpose was growing in her mind of which she spoke soon after. Throughout the evening she had studied Dennis's face as much as she could without attracting notice, and the thought grew upon her that at last she had found a path to the success she so craved. "You seem to have gone to work with your old interest," said her father, as he came out of his room the next morning and found Christine at her easel. "I shall try it again," she said, briefly. "That is right," said he. "The idea of being daunted by one partial failure! I predict for you such success as will satisfy even your fastidious taste." "We shall see," she said. "I hope, too." But she would not have her father know on what grounds. He might regard the experiment as a dangerous one for herself as well as for Dennis, and she decided to keep her plan entirely secret. She now came to the store daily, and rarely went away without giving Dennis a smile or word of recognition. But he noticed that she ever did this in a casual manner, and in a way that would not attract attention. He also took the hint, and never was obtrusive or demonstrative, but it was harder work for his frank nature. When unobserved, his glances grew more ardent day by day. So far from checking these, she encouraged them, but, when in any way he sought to put his feelings into words, she changed the subject instantly and decidedly. This puzzled him, for he did not understand that looks could be painted, but not words. The latter were of no use to her. But she led him on skilfully, and, from the unbounded power his love gave her, played upon his feelings as adroitly as she touched her grand piano. Soon after the company at Miss Winthrop's, she said to him, "You received several invitations the other evening, did you not?" "Yes." "Accept them. Go into society. It will do you good." Thus he soon found himself involved in a round of sociables, musicales, and now and then a large party. Christine was usually present, radiant, brilliant, the cynosure of all eyes, but ever coolly self-possessed. At first she would greet him with distant politeness, or pretend not to see him at all, but before the evening was over would manage to give him a half-hour in which she would be kind and even gentle at times, but very observant. Then for the rest of the evening he would find no chance to approach. It appeared that she was deeply interested in him, enjoyed his society, and was even becoming attached to him, but that for some reason she determined that no one should notice this, and that matters should only go so far. Poor Dennis could not know that he was only her unconscious instructor in painting, paid solely in the coin of false smiles and delusive hopes. At times, though, she would torture him dreadfully. Selecting one of her many admirers, she would seem to smile upon his suit, and poor Dennis would writhe in all the agonies of jealousy, for he was very human, and had all the normal feeling of a strong man. She would then watch his face grow pale and his manner restless, as quietly and critically as an entomologist regards the struggles of an insect beneath his microscope. Again, she would come to him all grace and sweetness, and his fine face would light up with hope and pleasure. She would say honeyed nothings, but study him just as coolly in another aspect. Thus she kept him hot and cold by turns--now lifting him to the pinnacle of hope, again casting him down into the valley of fear and doubt. What she wanted of him was just what she had not--feeling, intense, varied feeling, so that, while she remained ice, she could paint as if she felt; and with a gifted woman's tact, and with the power of one loved almost to idolatry, she caused every chord of his soul, now in happy harmony, now in painful discord, to vibrate under her skilful touch. But such a life was very wearing, and he was failing under it. Moreover, he was robbing himself of sleep in the early morning, that he might work on his picture in the loft of the store, for which he asked of poor Mr. Bruder nothing but ice. Mrs. Bruder worried over him continually. "You vork too hart. Vat shall we do for you? Oh, my fren, if you love us do not vork so hart," she would often say. But Dennis would only smile and turn to her husband in his insatiable demand for painted ice. At last Mr. Bruder said, "Mr. Fleet, you can paint ice, as far as I see, as veil as myself." Then Dennis turned around short and said, "Now I want warm rosy light and foliage; give me studies in these." "By de hammer of Thor, but you go to extremes." "You shall know all some day," said Dennis, entering on his new tasks with increasing eagerness. But day by day he grew thinner and paler. Even Christine's heart sometimes relented; for, absorbed as she was in her own work and interests, she could not help noticing how sadly he differed from the vigorous youth who had lifted the heavy pictures for her but a few short weeks ago. But she quieted herself by the thought that he was a better artistic subject, and that he would mend again when the cool weather came. "Where shall we go for the two hot months?" asked her father the morning after the Fourth. "I have a plan to propose," replied Christine. "Suppose we go to housekeeping." "What!" said her father, dropping his knife and fork, and looking at her in astonishment. "Go to all the expense of furnishing a house, when we do not expect to stay here much more than a year? We should hardly be settled before we left it." "Listen to me patiently till I finish, and then I will abide by your decision. But I think you will give me credit for having a slight turn for business as well as art. You remember Mr. Jones's beautiful house on the north side, do you not? It stands on ---- Street, well back, surrounded by a lawn and flowers. There is only one other house on the block. Well, Mr. Jones is embarrassed, and his house is for sale. From inquiry I am satisfied that a cash offer would obtain the property cheaply. The furniture is good, and much of it elegant. What we do not want--what will not accord with a tasteful refurnishing--can be sent to an auction-room. At comparatively slight expense, if you can spare Mr. Fleet to help me during the time when business is dull, I can make the house such a gem of artistic elegance that it will be noted throughout the city, and next fall some rich snob, seeking to vault suddenly into social position, will give just what you are pleased to ask. In the meantime we have a retired and delightful home. "Moreover, father," she continued, touching him on his weak side, "it will be a good preparation for the more difficult and important work of the same kind awaiting me in my own land." "Humph!" said Mr. Ludolph, meditatively, "there is more method in your madness than I imagined. I will think of it, for it is too important a step to be taken hastily." Mr. Ludolph did think of it, and, after attending to pressing matters in the store, went over to see the property. A few days afterward he came up to dinner and threw the deed for it into his daughter's lap. She glanced it over, and her eyes grew luminous with delight and triumph. "See how comfortable and happy I will make you in return for this kindness," she said. "Oh, come," replied her father, laughing, "that is not the point. This is a speculation, and your business reputation is at stake." "I will abide the test," she answered, with a significant nod. Christine desired the change for several reasons. There was a room in the house that would just suit her as a studio. She detested the publicity of a hotel. The furnishing of an elegant house was a form of activity most pleasing to her energetic nature, and she felt a very strong wish to try her skill in varied effect before her grand effort in the Ludolph Hall of the future. But in addition to these motives was another, of which she did not speak to her father. In the privacy of her own home she could pursue that peculiar phase of art study in which she was absorbed. Her life had now become a most exciting one. She ever seemed on the point of obtaining the power to portray the eloquence of passion, feeling, but there was a subtile something that still eluded her. She saw it daily, and yet could not reproduce it. She seemed to get the features right, and yet they were dead, or else the emotion was so exaggerated as to suggest weak sentimentality, and this of all things disgusted her. Every day she studied the expressive face of Dennis Fleet, the mysterious power seemed nearer her grasp. Her effort was now gaining all the excitement of a chase. She saw before her just what she wanted, and it seemed that she had only to grasp her pencil or brush, and place the fleeting expressions where they might always appeal to the sympathy of the beholder. Nearly all her studies now were the human face and form, mainly those of ladies, to disarm suspicion. Of course she took no distinct likeness of Dennis. She sought only to paint what his face expressed. At times she seemed about to succeed, and excitement brought color to her cheek and fire to her eye that made her dazzlingly beautiful to poor Dennis. Then she would smile upon him in such a bewitching, encouraging way that it was little wonder his face lighted up with all the glory of hope. If once more she could have him about her as when rearranging the store, and, without the restraint of curious eyes, could play upon his heart, then pass at once to her easel with the vivid impression of what she saw, she might catch the coveted power, and become able to portray, as if she felt, that which is the inspiration of all the highest forms of art--feeling. That evening, Dennis, at Mr. Ludolph's request, came to the hotel to try some new music. During the evening Mr. Ludolph was called out for a little time. Availing himself of the opportunity, Dennis said, "You seem to be working with all your old zest and hope." "Yes," she said, "with greater hope than ever before." "Won't you show me something that you are doing?" "No, not yet. I am determined that when you see work of mine again the fatal defect which you pointed out shall be absent." His eyes and face became eloquent with the hope she inspired. Was her heart, awakening from its long winter of doubt and indifference, teaching her to paint? Had she recognized the truth of his assurance that she must feel, and then she could portray feeling? and had she read in his face and manner that which had created a kindred impulse in her heart? He was about to speak, the ice of his reserve and prudence fast melting under what seemed good evidence that her smiles and kindness might be interpreted in accordance with his longings. She saw and anticipated. "With all your cleverness, Mr. Fleet, I may prove you at fault, and become able to portray what I do not feel or believe." "You mean to say that you work from your old standpoint merely?" asked Dennis, feeling as if a sunny sky had suddenly darkened. "I do not say that at all, but that I do not work from yours." "And yet you hope to succeed?" "I think I am succeeding." Perplexity and disappointment were plainly written on his face. She, with a merry and half-malicious laugh, turned to the piano, and sung:
She complied, and he sang:
"Do you refer to Christ's weeping over Jerusalem?" she asked. "Yes." She sat for a little time silent and thoughtful, and Dennis watched her keenly. Suddenly her brow darkened, and she said, bitterly: "Delusion! If He had been a God He would not have idly wept over sorrow. He would have banished it." Dennis was about to reply eagerly, when Mr. Ludolph entered, and music was resumed. But it was evident that Dennis's lines had disturbed the fair sceptic's equanimity. _ |
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