The Glory of the Conquered Part 15

His eyes were hidden, but his face, in this bright light, made her want to cry, it told so plainly of his suffering. He reached out his hand for hers. "I didn't want him any longer, liebchen,"--he said it much like a little child--"I want--you."

"Of course you do,"--tenderly--"and I'm the one for you to have. But not up here. The light is too bright up here."

She pulled at his hand as if to induce him to rise. But he made no movement to do so, and he did not seem to have heard what she said.

"Ernestine," he said, in a low voice--there was something not just natural in Karl's voice, a tiredness, a something gone from it--"will you do something for me?"

She sat down on the arm of his chair, her arm about him with her warm impulsiveness. "Why Karl, dear"--a light kiss upon his hair--"you know I would do anything in the world for you."

"I want you to show me your pictures,"--he said it abruptly, shortly. "I want to look at them this morning;--all of them."

"But--but Karl," she gasped, rising in her astonishment--"not _now_!"

"Yes--now. You promised. You said you'd do anything in the world for me."

"But not something that will hurt you!"

"It won't hurt me,"--still abruptly, shortly.

"But I know better than that! Why any one knows that eyes in bad condition mustn't be used. And looking at pictures--up here in this bright light--so needless--so crazy,"--she laughed, though she was puzzled and worried.

He was silent, and something in his bearing went to her heart. His head, his shoulders, his whole being seemed bowed. It was so far from Karl's real self. "Any other time, dear," she said, very gently. "You know I would love to do it, but some time when you are better able to look at them."

"I'm just as able to look at them now as I will ever be," he said, slowly. "Ernestine--please."

"But Karl,"--her voice quivering--"I just can't bear to do a thing that will do you harm."

"It won't do me harm. I give you my word of honour it won't make any serious difference."

"But Dr. Parkman said--"

"I give you my word of honour," he repeated, a little sharply.

"All right, then," she relented, reluctantly, and darkened the room a little.

"Dear,"--sitting on a stool beside him--"you're perfectly sure this trouble with your eyes isn't any more serious than you think?"

"Yes," he answered, firmly enough, but something in his voice sounded queer, "I'm perfectly sure of that."

"Show me your pictures, Ernestine," laying his hand upon her hair; "I've taken a particular notion that I want to see them."

"But first"--carried back to it--"I want to tell you something." She laughed, excitedly. "I was coming down to tell you as soon as the doctor left. Oh Karl--my picture in Paris--I heard from it this morning, and its success has been--tremendous!" She laughed happily over the word and did not think why it was Karl's hand gripped her shoulder in that quick, tight way. "Shall I read you all about it, dear? And then will you promise to cheer right up?"

Still that tight grip upon her shoulder! It hurt a little, but she did not mind--it just showed how much Karl cared. The hand was still there as she read the letter, and then the clippings which told of the rare quality of her work, predicted the great things she was sure to do,--sometimes it tightened a little, and sometimes it relaxed, and once, with a quick movement he stooped down and turned her ring around, turning the stone to the inside of her hand.

When she had finished he was quite still for a long minute. He was breathing hard;--Karl was excited about it too! And then he stooped over and kissed her forehead, and it startled her to feel that his lips were very cold.

"Liebchen," he said, his voice trembling a bit--Karl did care so much!--"I am glad." For a minute he was very still again, and then he added, seeming to mean a different thing by it--"I am very glad."

"It's gone to my head a little, Karl! Oh I'm perfectly willing to admit it has. I don't think I should appreciate the Gloria Victis very much myself this morning," she laughed, happily.

She was too absorbed to notice the quick little drawing in of his breath, or his silence. "After all, it would be a sorry thing if I didn't succeed," she pursued, gayly, "for you stand so for success that we couldn't be so close together--could we, dear--if I were a dismal failure?"

"You think not?" he asked--and she wondered if he had taken a little cold; his voice sounded that way.

"Oh I don't mean that too literally. But I like the idea of our going through the same experiences--both succeeding. It seems to me I can understand you better this morning than I ever did before. I read a little poem last night, and at the time I liked it so much. It is about success, or rather about not succeeding. But I'm afraid it wouldn't appeal to me very much just now,"--again she laughed, happily, and it was well for the happiness that she was not looking at him then.

"What was it?" he asked, as he saw she was going to turn around to him.

"Say it."

"Part of it was like this":

'Not one of all the purple host Who took the flag to-day Can tell the definition So clear, of victory,

As he, defeated, dying, On whose forbidden ear The distant strains of triumph Break agonized and clear.'

"Say that last verse again," he said, his voice thick and low;--Karl was so different when he was sick!

"As he, defeated, dying, On whose forbidden ear The distant strains of triumph Break agonized and clear."

"It is beautiful, isn't it?" she said, as he did not speak.

"Beautiful? I don't know. I suppose it is. I was thinking that quite likely it is true."

"But I didn't suppose you would care about it, Karl. I supposed you would feel about it as you did about the statue."

"I wonder," he began, slowly, not seeming sure of what he wanted to say--"how much the comprehension, the understanding of things, that the loss would bring, would make up for the success taken away? I wonder just what the defeated fellow could work out of that?"

"But dearie, _is_ it true? Why can failure comprehend success any more than success can comprehend failure?"

"It's different," he said, shortly.

"How do you know?" she asked banteringly. "What do you know about it? You don't even know how to spell the word failure!"

He started to say something, but stopped, and then he stooped over and rested his head for a minute upon her hair. "Tell me about your picture, Ernestine," he said, quietly, after that. "Tell me just what it is."

"The Hidden Waterfall? Why you know it, Karl."

"Yes, but I want to hear you talk about it. I want to hear you tell just what it means."

"Well, you remember it is a child standing in a beautiful part of the woods. It is spring-time, as it seems best it should be when you are painting a child in the woods. I tried to make the picture breathe spring, and you know one of the writers said that the delicious thing about it was the way you got the smell of the woods;--that pleased me.

Behind the child, visible in the picture, but invisible to the child, is a waterfall. The most vital thing in the universe to me was to have that waterfall make a sound. I think it does, or the picture wouldn't mean anything at all. And then of course the heart of the picture is in the child's face--the puzzled surprise, the glad wonder, and then deeper than that the response to something which cannot be understood. It might have been called 'Wondering,' or even 'Mystery,' but I liked the simpler t.i.tle better. And I like that idea of painting, not just nature, but what nature means to man. I want to get at the response--the thing awakened--the things given back. Don't you see how that translates the spirit there is between nature and man--stands for the oneness?"

He nodded, seeming to be thinking. "I see," he said at last. "I wonder if you know all that means?"

"Why, yes, I think I do. My next picture will get at it in a--um--a more mature way."