CHAPTER XLI
FIRE! FIRE!
"Will Dennis Fleet come forward?" cried Dr. Arten. Very pale, andtrembling with excitement, Dennis stepped out before them all.
"Take heart, my young friend; I am not about to read yourdeath-warrant," said the doctor, cheerily. "Permit me to present youwith this check for two thousand dollars, and express to you what isof more value to the true artist, our esteem and appreciation of yourmerit. May your brush ever continue to be employed in the presentationof such noble, elevating thoughts."
And the good doctor, quite overcome by this unusual flight of eloquence,blew his nose vigorously and wiped from his spectacles the moisturewith which his own eyes had bedewed them.
Dennis responded with a low bow, and was about to retire; but his fewfriends, and indeed all who knew him, pressed forward with theircongratulations.
Foremost among these were the professor and his wife. Tears of delightfairly shone in Mrs. Leonard's eyes as she shook his hand again andagain. Many others also trooped up for an introduction, till he wasquite bewildered by strange names, and compliments that seemed strangerstill.
Suddenly a low, well-known voice at his side sent a thrill to his heartand a rush of crimson to his face.
"Will Mr. Fleet deign to receive my congratulations also?"
He turned and met the deep blue eyes of Christine Ludolph lifted timidlyto his. But at once the association that had long been uppermost inregard to her--the memory of her supposed treatment of hismother--flashed across him, and he replied, with cold and almost statelycourtesy, "The least praise or notice from Miss Ludolph would be amost unexpected favor."
She thought from his manner that he might as well have said"unwelcome favor," and with a sad, disappointed look she turned away.
Even in the excitement and triumph of the moment, Dennis was oppressedby the thought that he had not spoken as wisely as he might. Almostabruptly he broke away and escaped to the solitude of his own room.
He did not think about his success. The prize lay forgotten in hispocketbook. He sat in his arm-chair and stared apparently at vacancy,but in reality at the picture that he was sure Christine had painted.He went over and over again with the nicest scrutiny all her actionsin the gallery, and now reproached himself bitterly for the repellinganswer he had given when she spoke to him. He tried to regain his oldanger and hardness in view of her wrongs to him and his, but couldnot. The tell-tale picture, and traces of sorrow and suffering in herface in accord with it, had disarmed him. He said to himself, and halfbelieved, that he was letting his imagination run away with his reason,but could not help it. At last he seized his hat and hastened to thehotel where Mrs. Leonard was staying. She at once launched out intoa eulogistic strain descriptive of her enjoyment of the affair.
"I never was so proud of Chicago," she exclaimed. "It is the greatestcity in the world. Only the other day her streets were prairies. Ibelieve my husband expected to find buffalo and Indians just outsidethe town. But see! already, by its liberality and attention to art,it begins to vie with some of our oldest cities. But what is the matter?You look so worried."
"Oh, nothing," said Dennis, coming out of his troubled, abstractedmanner.
With her quick intuition, Mrs. Leonard at once divined his thoughts,and said soon after, when her husband's back was turned: "All I cansay is, that she was deeply, most deeply affected by your picture, butshe said nothing to me, more than to express her admiration. My friend,you had better forget her. They sail for Europe very soon; and, besides,she is not worthy of you."
"I only wish I could forget her, and am angry with myself but I cannot,"he replied, and soon after said "good-night."
Wandering aimlessly through the streets, he almost unconsciously madehis way to the north side, where the Ludolph mansion was situated. Thena strong impulse to Go to it came over him, and for the first timesince the far-off day when, stunned and wounded by his bitterdisappointment, he had gone away apparently to die, he found himselfat the familiar place. The gas was burning in Mr. Ludolph's library.He went around on the side street (for the house was on a corner), anda light shone from what he knew to be Christine's studio. Sheundoubtedly was there. Even such proximity excited him strangely, andin his morbid state he felt that he could almost kiss the feeble raysthat shimmered out into the darkened street. In his secret soul heutterly condemned his folly, but promised himself that he would beweak no longer after that one night. The excitements of the day hadthrown him off his balance.
Suddenly he heard, sweet and clear, though softened by distance andintervening obstacles, the same weird, pathetic ballad that had somoved him when Christine sang it at Le Grand Hotel, on the eveningafter he had pointed out the fatal defect in her picture. At shortintervals, kindred and plaintive songs followed.
"There is nothing exultant or hopeful about those strains," he saidto himself. "For some reason she is not happy. Oh, that I might haveone frank conversation with her and find out the whole truth! But itseems that I might just as well ask for a near look at yonder starthat glimmers so distantly. For some reason I cannot believe her soutterly heartless as she has seemed; and then mother has prayed. Canit all end as a miserable dream?"
Late at night the music ceased, and the room was darkened.
Little dreamed Christine that her plaintive minstrelsy had fallen onso sympathetic an ear, and that the man who seemingly had repelled herslightest acquaintance had shivered long hours in the cold, dark street.
So the divine Friend waits and watches, while we, in ignorance andunbelief, pay no heed. Stranger far, He waits and watches when we know,but yet, unrelenting, ignore His presence.
With heavy steps, Dennis wearily plodded homeward. He was oppressedby that deep despondency which follows great fatigue and excitement.
In the southwest he saw a brilliant light. He heard the alarm-bells,and knew there was a fire, but to have aroused him that night itmust have come scorchingly close. He reached his dark little room, threwhimself dressed on the couch, and slept till nearly noon of the nextday.
When he awoke, and realized how the first hours of the Sabbath hadpassed, he started up much vexed with himself, and after a briefretrospect said: "Such excitements as those of yesterday are littlebetter than a debauch, and I must shun them hereafter. God has blessedand succeeded me, and it is but a poor return I am making. However myunfortunate attachment may end, nothing is gained by moping around inthe hours of night. Henceforth let there be an end of such folly."
He made a careful toilet and sat down to his Sabbath-school lesson.
To his delight he again met Mrs. Leonard, who came to visit herold mission class. She smiled most approvingly, and quoted, "He that isfaithful in that which is least is faithful also in much."
He went home with her, and in the evening they all went to churchtogether.
He cried unto the Lord for strength and help, and almost lostconsciousness of the service in his earnest prayer for true manhoodand courage to go forward to what he feared would be a sad and lonelylife. And the answer came; for a sense of power and readiness to doGod's will, and withal a strange hopefulness, inspired him. Trustingin the Divine strength, he felt that he could meet his future now,whatever it might be.
Again the alarm-bells were ringing, and there was a light on thesouthwest.
"There seems to be a fire over there in the direction of my poor Germanfriend's house. You remember Mrs. Bruder. I will go and call on them,I think. At any rate I should call, for it is owing to her husbandthat I won the prize;" and they parted at the church-door.
Christine had left the picture-gallery soon after Dennis's abruptdeparture. Her gay friends had tried in vain to rally her, and ratherwondered at her manner, but said, "She is so full of moods of late,you can never know what to expect."
Her father, with a few indifferent words, left her for his place ofbusiness. His hope still was to prevent her meeting Dennis, and tokeep up the estrangement that existed.
Christine went home and spent the lo
ng hours in bitter revery, whichat last she summed up by saying, "I have stamped out his love by myfolly, and now his words, 'I despise you,' express the whole wretchedtruth." Then clenching her little hands she added, with livid lips anda look of scorn: "Since I can never help him (and therefore no one)win earthly greatness, I will never be the humble recipient of it fromanother. Since his second picture cannot be true of my experience,neither shall the first."
And she was one to keep such a resolve. The evening was spent, as weknow, in singing alone in her studio, this being her favorite, indeedher only way, of giving expression to her feelings. Very late shesought her bed to find but little sleep.
The day of rest brought no rest to her, suggested no hope, no sacredprivilege of seeking Divine help to bear up under life's burdens. Toher it was a relic of superstition, at which she chafed as interferingwith the usual routine of affairs. She awoke with a headache, and along miserable day she found it. Sabbath night she determined to havesleep, and therefore took an opiate and retired early.
Mr. Ludolph sat in his library trying to construct some plan by whichChristine could be sent to Germany at once.
When Dennis reached the neighborhood of the fire he found it muchlarger than he supposed, and when he entered Harrison Street, nearMrs. Bruder's home, he discovered that only prompt action could savethe family. The streets were fast becoming choked with fugitives andteams, and the confusion threatened to develop into panic and widespread danger. The fire was but a block away when he rushed upstairsto the floor which the Bruders occupied. From the way in which blazingbrands were flying he knew that there were was not a moment to spare.
He found Mrs. Bruder startled, anxious, but in no way comprehendingthe situation.
"Quick!" cried Dennis. "Wake and dress the children--pack up what youcan lay your hands on and carry--you have no time to do anything more."
"Ah! mine Gott! vat you mean?"
"Do as I say--there's no time to explain. Here, Ernst, help me;" andDennis snatched up one child and commenced dressing it before it couldfairly wake. Ernst took up another and followed his example. Mrs.Bruder, recovering from her bewilderment, hastily gathered a few thingstogether, saying in the meantime, "Surely you don't dink our home burnup?"
"Yes, my poor friend, in five minutes more we must all be out of thisbuilding."
"Oh, den come dis minute! Let me save de schilder;" and, throwing ablanket around the youngest, the frightened woman rushed downstairs,followed by Ernst and his little brother, while Dennis hastened withthe last child and the bundle.
Their escape was none too prompt, for the blazing embers were fallingto such a degree in the direct line of the fire as to render thatposition very perilous. But though their progress was necessarily slow,from the condition of the streets, the breadth of the fire was notgreat at this spot, and they soon reached a point to the west andwindward that was safe. Putting the family in charge of Ernst, andtelling them to continue westward, Dennis rushed back, feeling thatmany lives depend upon stout hands and brave hearts that night. Moreoverhe was in that state of mind which made him court rather than shundanger.
He had hardly left his humble friends before Mrs. Bruder stopped, puther hand on her heart and cried: "Oh, Ernst! Oh, Gott forgive me! dotI should forget him--your fader's picture. I must go back."
"Oh, moder, no! you are more to us than the picture" The woman's eyeswere wild and excited, and she cried, vehemently: "Dot picture savedmine Berthold life--yes, more, more, him brought back his artist soul.Vithout him ve vould all be vorse dan dead. I can no live vidout him.Stay here"; and with the speed of the wind the devoted wife rushedback to the burning street, up the stairs, already crackling andblazing, to where the lovely landscape smiled peacefully in the dreadfulglare, with its last rich glow of beauty. She tore it from itsfastenings, pressed her lips fervently against it, regained the street,but with dress on fire. She staggered forward a few steps in the hotstifling air and smoke, and then fell upon her burden. Spreading herarms over it, to protect it even in death, the mother's heart went outin agony toward her children.
"Ah, merciful Gott! take care of dem," she sighed, and the prayer andthe spirit that breathed it went up to heaven together.
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