University of Virginia Library

30. CHAPTER XXX.
LIFE WITHOUT LOVE.

As Dennis realized the truth, and remembered what
he had said, his face was scarcely less full of pain than
Christine's. He saw that her whole soul was bent on an
imitation that none could detect, and that he had spoiled it
all. But Christine's wound was deeper than that. She
had been told again, clearly and correctly, that the sphere
of high, true art was beyond her reach. She felt that the
verdict was true, and her own judgment confirmed every
word Dennis uttered. But she had done her best; therefore
her suffering was truly agony—the pain and despair at
failure in the most cherished hope of life. There seemed
a barrier which, from the very limitations of her being, she
could not pass. She did not fail from the lack of taste,
culture, or skill, but in that which was like a sixth sense—
something she did not possess. Lacking the power to
touch and move the heart, she knew she could never be a
great artist.

Abruptly and without a word she left the room and
store, accompanied by the Winthrops. Dennis felt as if
he could bite his tongue out, and Christine's face haunted
him like a dreadful apparition. Wherever he turned he

saw it so distorted by pain, and almost hate, that it scarcely
seemed the same that had smiled on him as he entered at
her invitation.

“Truly God is against all this,” groaned he to himself;
“and what I in my weakness could not do, He has accomplished
by this unlooked-for scene. She will now ever
regard me with aversion.”

Dennis, like many another, thought he saw God's plan
clearly from a mere glimpse at a part of it. He at once
reached this miserable conclusion, and suffered as greatly
as if it had been God'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 departures.

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' 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. Consoor.

“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. Frame. “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 also pressed that point no farther.

“Well, really, Mr. Ludolph,” said one of the gentlemen
“you deal in wonders, mysteries, and all sorts of astonishing
things here. 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 and out of work, and
knew nothing of him. But he proved 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 more for Mr.
Frame's benefit than any one else. He intended that his
rival should knowingly violate all courtesy if he sought to
lure Dennis away. After admiring the paintings and other
new things recently received, the gentlemen bowed themselves
out.

At the entrance of the store Mr. Winthrop—feeling
awkwardly in the presence of the disappointed girl —
pleaded business, and bade adieu with a warm grasp of
the hand, and many assurances 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-bye.”

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 got 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.”

“O 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 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 pass. I can see beyond what I want, but
cannot reach it. O Susie, if you knew what I suffered when
sick! 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 God, 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 God, 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 noble, 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 will 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 nobody 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 it. No man would have
done otherwise. You surely do not feel hardly towards
him?”

“We do not naturally love the lips and bless the voice
that tell us of an incurable disease. O 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 superstitious.”

“And you seem to have peculiar power over him.
He would have assuredly left us in the lurch at our tableau
party had it not been for you, and I would 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-bye; 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. O 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 Him.”

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 God that taketh away the sin of
the world.'”

“Why does He not do it then?” asked Christine petulantly.
“Centuries have passed; 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 noble 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 passed, 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 where
I stand, and then what becomes of Christine Ludolph?”

A look of anguish came into the fair young face, and a
slight shudder passed over her. She glanced around a

room furnished in costly elegance. She saw her lovely
person in the mirror opposite, and exclaimed:

“What mystery it all is! I have so much, and yet so
utterly fail in having that which contents. I have all that
wealth can purchase; and multitudes 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
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 noble strain of music
commenced sweetly, and then suddenly broke down into a
few discordant notes and ceased. It is like my picture, all
very well, but with that which would speak to and move
the heart, year after year, when the mere beauty ceased to
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 superstition, as
any one might be, could they believe what she does. But
I have gone past the power of taking up these things, as I
have gone past my childhood 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 nobleman'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 an 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 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 surpass
all previous effort. Moreover, he did not fully understand
or enter into her lofty ambition. To see her settled in life,
titled, rich, and a recognized leader in the aristocracy of
his own land, was his highest aspiration as far as she was
concerned.

He commenced, 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, each being occupied
by their own thoughts. Soon after he was immersed
in his cigar and some business papers for the evening.

It was a mild, summer-like night, and a warm, gentle
rain was falling. Even in the midst of a great city, the
sweet odors of spring found their way to the private parlor
where Christine sat by the window, still lost in painful
thoughts.

“Nature is full of hope, and the promise of coming life.
So ought I to be in this my spring-time. Why am I not?
If I am sad and disappointed in my spring, how dreary
will be my autumn, when leaf after leaf of beauty, health,
and strength drop away.”

A muffled figure, seemingly regardless of the rain,
passed slowly down the opposite side of the street.
Though the person cast but a single quick glance toward
her window, and though the twilight was deepening, something
in the passer-by suggested Dennis Fleet. For a
moment she wished she could speak to him. She felt very
lonely. Solitude had done her no good. Her troubles
only grew darker and more real as she brooded over them.
She instinctively felt that her father could not understand
her, and she had never been able to go to him for sympathy.
He was not the kind of person that any one would
seek for such a purpose. Christine was not inclined to
confidence, and there was really no one who knew her
deeper feelings, and who could enter into her real hopes
for life. She was so proud and cold that few ever thought
of giving confidence, much less of asking hers.

Up to the time of her last sickness she had been strong,
self-confident, almost assured of success. At times she
recognized dimly that something was wrong, as when singing
her best she could only secure noisy, transient applause,
while she saw another on the same occasion, touch the
heart; but she shut her eyes to the unwelcome truth, and
determined to succeed. But her sickness and fears at that
time, and now a failure that seemed to destroy the ambition
of her life, all united in greatly shaking her self-confidence.

This evening, as never before, she was conscious of
weakness and dependence. With the instinct of one sinking,
her spirit longed for help and support. Then the
thought suddenly occurred to her, “Perhaps this young
stranger who so clearly pointed out the disease, may also
show the way to some remedy.”

But the figure had passed on. In a moment more
pride and conventionality resumed sway, and she smiled
bitterly, saying to herself:

“What a weak fool I am to-night. Of all things do not
become a romantic Miss again.”

She went to her piano and struck into a brilliant strain.
For a few moments the music was of a forced and defiant
character, loud, gay, but no real or rollicking mirth in it,
and it soon ceased. Then in sharp contrast came a sad,
weird German ballad, and this was real. In its pathos
her burdened heart found expression, and whoever listened
then would not merely have admired, they would have felt.
One song followed another. All the pent-up feeling of the
day seemed to find natural flow in the plaintive minstrelsy
of her own land.

Suddenly she ceased and went to her window. The
muffled figure stood in the shadow of an angle in the attitude
of a listener. A moment later it vanished in the dusk

toward the business part of the city. The quick footsteps
died away and only the patter of the falling rain broke the
silence. Christine felt sure that it was Dennis. At first
her feeling was one of pleasure. His coming and evident
interest took somewhat, she scarcely knew why, from her
sense of loneliness. Soon her pride awoke, however, and
she said:

“He has no business here to watch and listen. I will
show him, with all his taste and intelligence, we have no
ground in common on which he can presume.”

Her father had also listened to the music, and said to
himself:

“Christine is growing a little sentimental. She takes
this disappointment too much at heart. I must touch her
pride with the spur a little, and that will make her ice and
steel in a moment. It is no slight task to keep a girl's
heart safe till you want to use it. I will wait till the practical
daylight of to-morrow, and then she shall look at the
world through my eyes again.”