VERY COLD
When Dennis entered Mr. Ludolph's store Christine was absent on a visit
to New York. On her return she resumed her old routine. At this time
she and her father were occupying a suite of rooms at a fashionable
hotel. Her school-days were over, Mr. Ludolph preferring to complete
her education himself in accordance with his peculiar views and tastes.
She was just passing into her twentieth year, and looked upon the world
from the vantage points of health, beauty, wealth, accomplishments of
the highest order, and the best social standing. Assurance of a long
and brilliant career possessed her mind, while pride and beauty were
like a coronet upon her brow. She was the world's ideal of a queen.
And yet she was not truly happy. There was ever a vague sense of unrest
and dissatisfaction at heart. She saw that her father was proud and
ambitious in regard to her, but she instinctively felt that he neither
loved nor trusted her to any great extent. She seemed to be living in
a palace of ice, and at times felt that she was turning into ice
herself; but her very humanity and womanhood, deadened and warped
though they were, cried out against the _cold_ of a life without God or
love. In the depths of her soul she felt that something was wrong, but
what, she could not understand. It seemed that she had everything that
heart could wish, and that she ought to be satisfied.
She had at last concluded that her restlessness was the prompting of
a lofty ambition, and that if she chose she could win world-wide
celebrity as an artist. This, with the whole force of her strong nature,
she had determined to do, and for over two years had worked with an
energy akin to enthusiasm. She had resolved that painting should be
the solid structure of her success, and music its ornament.
Nor were her dreams altogether chimerical, for she had remarkable
talent in her chosen field of effort, and had been taught to use the
brush and pencil from childhood. She could imitate with skill and
taste, and express with great accuracy the musical thought of the
composer; but she could not create new effects, and this had already
begun to trouble her. She worked hard and patiently, determined to
succeed. So great had been her application that her father saw the
need of rest and change, and therefore her visit to New York. She had
now returned strengthened, and eager for her former studies, and resumed
them with tenfold zest.
The plan of rearranging the store on artistic principles daily grew
in favor with her. It was just the exercise of taste she delighted in,
and she hoped some day to indulge it on palace walls that would be her
own. Her father's pride caused him to hesitate for some time, but she
said: "Why, Chicago is not our home; we shall soon be thousands of
miles away. You know how little we really care for the opinions of the
people here: it is only our own pride and opinion that we need consult.
I see nothing lowering or unfeminine in the work. I shall scarcely
touch a thing myself, merely direct; for surely among all in your
employ there must be one or two pairs of hands not so utterly awkward
but that they can follow plain instructions. My taste shall do it all.
We are both early risers, and the whole change can be made before the
store is opened. Moreover," she added (with an expression indicating
that she would have little difficulty in ruling her future German
castle, and its lord also), "this is an affair of our own. Those you
employ ought to understand by this time that it is neither wise nor
safe to talk of our business outside."
After a moment's thought she concluded: "I really think that the proper
arrangement of everything in the store as to light, display, and effect,
so that people of taste will be pleased when they enter, would add
thousands of dollars to your sales; and this rigid system of old
Schwartz's, which annoys us both beyond endurance, will be broken up."
Won over by arguments that accorded with his inclinations, Mr. Ludolph
gave his daughter permission to carry out the plan in her own way.
She usually accompanied her father to the store in the morning. He,
after a brief glance around, would go to his private office and attend
to correspondence. She would do whatever her mood prompted. Sometimes
she would sit down for a half-hour before one picture; again she would
examine most critically a statue or a statuette. Whenever new music
was received, she looked it over and carried off such pieces as pleased
her fancy.
She evidently was a privileged character, and no one save her father
exercised the slightest control over her movements. She treated all
the clerks, save old Schwartz, as if they were animated machines; and
by a quiet order, as if she had touched a spring, would set them in
motion to do her bidding. The young men in the store were of German
descent, and rather heavy and undemonstrative. Mr. Schwartz's system
of order and repression had pretty thoroughly quenched them. They were
educated to the niches they filled, and seemed to have no thought
beyond; therefore they were all unruffled at Miss Ludolph's air of
absolute sovereignty. Mr. Schwartz was as obsequious as the rest, but,
as second to her father in power, was permitted some slight familiarity.
In fact this heavy, stolid prime-minister both amused and annoyed her,
and she treated him with the caprice of a child toward an elephant--at
times giving him the sugar-plum of a compliment, and oftener
pricking him with the pin of some caustic remark. To him she was the
perfection of womankind--her reserved, dispassionate manner, her steady,
unwearied prosecution of a purpose, being just the qualities that he
most honored; and he worshipped her reverently at a distance, like an
old astrologer adoring some particularly bright fixed star. No whisking
comets or changing satellites for old Schwartz.
As for Dennis, she treated him as she probably had treated Pat Murphy,
and for several days had no occasion to notice him at all. In fact he
kept out of her way, choosing at first to observe rather than be
observed. She became an artistic study to him, for her every movement
was grace itself, except that there was no softness or gentleness in
her manner. Her face fascinated him by its beauty, though its expression
troubled him--it was so unlike his mother's, so unlike what he felt
a woman's ought to be. But her eager interest in that which was becoming
so dear to him--art--would have covered a multitude of sins in his
eyes, and with a heart abounding in faith and hope, not yet diminished
by hard experience, he believed that the undeveloped angel existed
within her. But he remembered her frown when she had first noticed his
observation of her. The shrewd Yankee youth saw that her pride would
not brook even a curious glance. But while he kept at a most respectful
distance he felt that there was no such wide gulf between them as she
imagined. By birth and education he was as truly entitled to her
acquaintance as the young men who sometimes came into the store with
her and whom she met in society. Position and wealth were alone wanting,
and in spite of his hard experience and lowly work he felt that there
must be some way for him, as for others, to win these.
He longed for the society of ladies, as every right-feeling young man
does, and to one of his nature the grace and beauty of woman
were peculiarly attractive. If, before she came, the lovely faces of the
pictures had filled the place with a sort of witchery, and created
about him an atmosphere in which his artist-soul was awakening into
life and growth, how much more would it be true of this living vision
of beauty that glided in and out every day!
"She does not notice me," he at first said to himself, "any more than
do these lovely shadows upon the canvas. But why need I care? I can
study both them and her, and thus educate my eye, and I hope my hand,
to imitate and perhaps surpass their perfections in time."
But this cool, philosophic mood did not last long. It might answer
very well in regard to the pictures on the walls, but there was a
magnetism about this living, breathing woman that soon caused him to
long for the privilege of being near her and speaking to her of that
subject that interested them both so deeply. Though he had never seen
any of her paintings to know them, he soon saw that she was no novice
in such matters and that she looked at works of art with the eye of
a connoisseur. In revery he had many a spirited conversation with her,
and he trusted that some day his dreams would become real. He had the
romantic hope that if she should discover his taste and strong love
of art she might at first bestow upon him a patronizing interest which
would gradually grow into respect and acknowledged equality.