Barriers Burned Away Part 50

He was calling at their house, and they were discussing the coming exhibition of the pictures which would compete for the prize.

"By the way, your former clerk and porter is among the compet.i.tors; at least he entered the lists last spring, but I have lost sight of him since. I imagine he has given it up, and betaken himself to tasks more within the range of his ability."

The eyes of father and daughter met, but she turned to Mr. Cornell, and said, coolly, though with a face somewhat flushed, "And has Chicago so much artistic talent that a real genius has no chance here?"

"I was not aware that Mr. Fleet was a genius," answered Mr. Cornell.

"I think that he will satisfy you on that point, and that you will hear from him before the exhibition takes place."

Mr. Ludolph hastily changed the subject, but he had forebodings as to the future.

Christine went to her room, and thought for a long time; suddenly she arose, exclaiming, "He told me his story once on canvas; I will now tell him mine."

She at once stretched the canvas on a frame for a small picture, and placed it on an easel, that she might commence with dawn of day.

During the following weeks she worked scarcely less earnestly and patiently than Dennis. The door was locked when she painted, and before she left the studio the picture was hidden.

She meant to send it anonymously, so that not even her father should know its authorship. She hoped that Dennis would recognize it.

When she was in the street her eyes began to have an eager, wistful look, as if she was seeking some one. She often went to galleries, and other resorts of artists, but in vain, for she never met him, though at times the distance between them was less than between Evangeline and her lover, when she heard the dip of his oar in her dream. Though she knew that if she met him she would probably give not one encouraging glance, yet the instinct of her heart was just as strong.

Mr. Ludolph told the maid that she must find out what Christine was painting, and she tried to that degree that she wakened suspicion.

On one occasion Christine turned suddenly on her, and said: "What do you mean? If I find you false--if I have even good reason to suspect you--I will turn you into the street, though it be at midnight!"

And the maid learned, as did Mr. Ludolph, that she was not dealing with a child.

During Monday, October 2, Dennis was employed all the long day in giving the finishing touches to his picture. It was not worked up as finely as he could have wished; time did not permit this. But he had brought out his thought vividly, and his drawings were full of power.

On the following Sat.u.r.day the prize would be given.

In the evening he walked out for air and exercise. As he was pa.s.sing one of the large hotels, he heard his name called. Turning, he saw on the steps, radiant with welcome, his old friend, Susie Winthrop. Her hand was on the arm of a tall gentleman, who seemed to have eyes for her only. But in her old impulsive way she ran down the steps, and gave Dennis a grasp of the hand that did his lonely heart good. Then, leading him to the scholarly-looking gentleman, who was gazing through his gla.s.ses in mild surprise, she said: "Professor Leonard, my husband, Mr. Fleet. This is the Dennis Fleet I have told you about so often."

"Oh-h," said the professor, in prolonged accents, while a genial light shone through his gold spectacles. "Mr. Fleet, we are old acquaintances, though we have never met before. If I were a jealous man, you are the only one I should fear."

"And we mean to make you wofully jealous to-night, for I intend to have Mr. Fleet dine with us and spend the evening. Wo, I will take no excuse, no denial. This infatuated man will do whatever I bid him, and he is a sort of Greek athlete. If you do not come right along I shall command him to lay violent hands on you and drag you ignominiously in."

Dennis was only too glad to accept, but merely wished to make a better toilet.

"I have just come from my studio," he said.

"And you wish to go and divest yourself of all artistic flavor and become commonplace. Do you imagine I will permit it? No! so march in as my captive. Who ever heard of disputing the will of a bride? This man" (pointing up to the tall professor) "never dreams of it."

Dennis learned that she was on her wedding trip, and saw that she was happily married, and proud of her professor, as he of her.

With feminine tact she drew his story from him, and yet it was but a meagre, partial story, like the play of Hamlet with Hamlet left out, for he tried to be wholly silent on his love and disappointment. But in no respect did he deceive Mrs. Leonard. Her husband went away for a little time. In his absence she asked, abruptly, "Have you seen Miss Ludolph lately?"

"No!" said Dennis, with a tell-tale flush. Seeing her look of sympathy, and knowing her to be such a true friend, the impulsive young man gave his confidence almost before he knew it. She was just the one to inspire trust, and he was very lonely, having had no one to whom he could speak his deeper feelings since his mother died.

"Miss Ludolph wronged me in a way that a man finds it hard to forget or forgive," he said, in a low, bitter tone; "but I should have tried to do both had she not treated my mother most inhumanly;" and he told his story over again with Hamlet in.

Mrs. Leonard listened with breathless interest, and then said: "She is a strange girl, and that plan of making you her unconscious model is just like her, though it was both cruel and wicked. And yet Mr.

Fleet, with shame for my s.e.x I admit it, how many would have flirted with you to the same degree from mere vanity and love of excitement!

I have seen Miss Ludolph, and I cannot understand her. We are no longer the friends we once were, but I cannot think her utterly heartless.

She is bent upon becoming a great artist at any cost, and I sometimes think she would sacrifice herself as readily as any one else for this purpose. She looks to me as if she had suffered, and she has lost much of her old haughty, cold manner, save when something calls it out.

Even in the drawing-room she was abstracted, as if her thoughts were far away. You are a man of honor, and it is due that you should know the following facts. Indeed I do not think that they are a secret any longer, and at any rate they will soon be known. If Mr. Ludolph were in Germany he would be a n.o.ble. It is his intention to go there this fall, and take his wealth and Christine with him, and a.s.sert his ancestral t.i.tles and position. Christine could not marry in this land without incurring her father's curse, and I think she has no disposition to do that--her ambition is fully in accord with his."

"Yes," said Dennis, bitterly, "and where other women have hearts, she has ambition only."

The professor returned and the subject was dropped.

Dennis said, on taking his leave: "I did not expect to show any one my picture till it was placed on exhibition with the others, but, if you care to see it, you may to-morrow. Perhaps you can make some suggestions that will help me."

They eagerly accepted the invitation, and came the following morning.

Dennis watched them with much solicitude. When once they understood his thought, their delight and admiration knew no bounds. The professor turned and stared at him as if he were an entirely different person from the unpretending youth who had been introduced on the preceding evening.

"If you do not get the prize," he said, sententiously, "you have a great deal of artistic talent in Chicago."

"'A Daniel come to judgment!'" cried his wife.

CHAPTER XL

SUGGESTIVE PICTURES AND A PRIZE

At last the day of the exhibition dawned. Dennis had sent his picture, directed to Mr. Cornell, with his own name in an envelope nailed to its back. No one was to know who the artists were till after the decision was given. Christine had sent hers also, but no name whatever was in the envelope attached to it.

At an early hour, the doors were thrown open for all who chose to come.

The committee of critics had ample time given them for their decision, and at one o'clock this was to be announced.

Although Dennis went rather early, he found that Christine was there before him. She stood with Professor and Mrs. Leonard, Mr. Cornell, and her father, before his picture, fie could only see her side face, and she was glancing from the printed explanation in the catalogue to the painting. Mrs. Leonard was also at her side, seeing to it that no point was unnoted. Christine's manner betrayed intense interest and excitement, and with cause, for again Dennis had spoken to her deepest soul in the language she best loved and understood.

As before, she saw two emblematic pictures within one frame merely separated by a plain band of gold.

The first presented a chateau of almost palatial proportions, heavy, ornate, but stiff and quite devoid of beauty. It appeared to be the abode of wealth and ancestral greatness.

Everything about the place indicated lavish expenditure. The walks and trees were straight and formal, the flowers that bloomed here and there, large and gaudy. A parrot hung in a gilded cage against a column of the piazza. No wild songsters fluttered in the trees, or were on the wing. Hills shut the place in and gave it a narrow, restricted appearance, and the sky overhead was hard and brazen. On the lawn stood a graceful mountain ash, and beneath it were two figures. The first was that of a man, and evidently the master of the place. His appearance and manner chiefly indicated pride, haughtiness, and also sensuality.

He had broken a spray from the ash-tree, and with a condescending air was in the act of handing it to a lady, in the portraiture of whom Dennis had truly displayed great skill. She was very beautiful, and yet there was nothing good or n.o.ble in her face. Her proud features showed mingled shame and reluctance to receive the gift in the manner it was bestowed, and yet she was receiving it. The significance of the mountain ash is "Grandeur." The whole scene was the portrayal, in the beautiful language of art, of a worldly, ambitious marriage, where the man seeks mere beauty, and the woman wealth and position, love having no existence.

It possessed an eloquence that Christine could not resist, and she fairly loathed the alliance she knew her father would expect her to make after their arrival in Germany, though once she had looked forward to it with eagerness as the stepping-stone to her highest ambition.

The second picture was a beautiful contrast. Instead of the brazen glare of the first, the air was full of glimmering lights and shades, and the sky of a deep transparent blue. Far up a mountain side, on an overhanging cliff, grew the same graceful ash-tree, but its branches were entwined with vines of the pa.s.sion-flower that hung around in slender streamers. On a jutting rock, with precarious footing, stood a young man reaching up to grasp a branch, his glance bold and hopeful, and his whole manner full of daring and power. He had evidently had a hard climb to reach his present position; his hat was gone; his dress was light and simple and adapted to the severest effort.

But the chief figure in this picture also was that of a young girl who stood near, her right hand clasping his left, and steadying and sustaining him in his perilous footing. The wind was in her golden hair, and swept to one side her light, airy costume. Her pure, n.o.ble face was lilted up toward _him_, rather than toward the spray he sought to grasp, and an eager, happy light shone from her eyes. She had evidently climbed _with_ him to their present vantage-point, and now her little hand secured and strengthened him as he sought to grasp, for her, success and prosperity joined with unselfish love. The graceful wind-flowers tossed their delicate blossoms around their feet, and above them an eagle wheeled in its majestic flight.

Below and opposite them on a breezy hillside stood a modern villa, as tasteful in its architecture as the former had been stiff and heavy.

A fountain played upon the lawn, and behind it a cascade broke into silver spray and mist. High above this beautiful earthly home, in the clear, pure air rose a palace-like structure in shadowy, golden outline, indicating that after the dwelling-place of time came the grander, the perfect mansion above.