When Van Berg left the garden he thought he had learned to understand Ida almost as clearly as he saw the pebbly bed of the little brook through the limpid current that flowed over it,and yet within a brief half-hour another baffling mystery had arisen.Why did she dislike Jennie Burton?Why she HAD disliked her was plain,but it seemed to follow inevitably that one who could love old Mr.Eltinge must also find a congenial friend in the woman he so greatly admired.
As the remainder of the day passed,this new cloud darkened and seemed to shadow even himself.While he could detect no flaw in her courtesy,he could not help feeling that she made a conscious effort to avoid them both.At dinner she conversed chiefly with her cousin.Van Berg's eyes would wander often to her face,but she never looked towards him unless he spoke to her.When he or Miss Burton addressed her there was not a trace of coldness in her manner of responding;a superficial observer would merely think they were people in whom she was not especially interested.
"Poor child,"thought Jennie Burton,"she acts her part well,"and she puzzled the artist still further by taking less notice of Ida than usual.
"But when I think of it,"he mused,"it's just like my unique little friend.Only those in trouble interest her,and Miss Mayhew is on a straight road to happiness now,she believes,although the young lady herself seems to dread a world full of thorns and thistles,and her father and mother,at least,will insure an abundance of both in her own home.But her repulsion from Miss Burton,the very one towards whom I supposed she would be attracted in her new life,is what perplexes me most.I imagine all women are mysteries when you come to scrutinize their motives and impulses closely.The two who have occupied my thoughts this summer certainly are,and I'll stick to painting if I ever get out of this muddle."After dinner he found a chance to ask Stanton if Mr.Mayhew was expected that evening.
"Yes,"was the reply."In memory of last Sunday he wrote he would not come,but Ida sent a telegram asking him to be here without fail.I took it over to the station for her,and made sure that my uncle received it.She will puzzle him more than she has the rest of us,I suppose,and I am quite curious to see the result."The artist made no reply,but went to his room and tried to work on his pictures.He was more than curious--he was deeply interested,but felt that he was trenching on delicate ground.The relations between the father and daughter were too sacred,he believed,for even sympathetic observation on his part.
He soon threw aside his work.The inspiration of the morning was all gone,and in its place had come an unaccountable dissatisfaction with himself and the world in general.He had left the garden with a sense of exhilaration that made life appear beautiful and full of richest promise.He had been saved from disaster that would have been crushing;his object in coming to the country had been accomplished,and the Undine he discovered HAD received a woman's soul that was blending the perfect but discordant features into an exquisitely beautiful face.The result,certainly,had not been brought about as he expected,nor in a way tending to increase his self-complacency,but he felt that he would be a broader and better man for the ordeal through which he had passed.He also realized that the changes in Ida were not the superficial ones he had contemplated.he had regarded her face and character as little better than a piece of canvas on which there was already a drawing of great promise,but very defective.By erasures here and skillful touches there he had hoped to assist nature in carrying out her evident intentions.The tragedy that well-nigh resulted taught him that human lives are dangerous playthings,and that quackery in attempting spiritual reform involved more peril than ignorant interference with physical laws.
And yet that morning had proved that the desired change had been accomplished,even more thoroughly than he had hoped.The dangerous period of transition had been safely passed,and the beautiful face expressed that which was more than womanly refinement,thought and culture.These elements would develop with time.But the countenance on which he had seen the impress of vanity,pride,and insincerity,and later the despair of a wronged and desperate woman,had grown open and childlike again as she told him her story and read to Mr.Eltinge;and in it,as through a clear transparency,he had witnessed the kindling light of the Christian faith his mother had taught him to respect at least,long years before.
He had left the garden with the belief that he had secured the friendship of this rare Undine,and that she would bring to his art an inspiration like that of which he was so grandly conscious while making the picture in which she formed the loveliest feature.
He had expected with instinctive certainty that she would now be drawn towards the woman he hoped to make his wife,and that friendships would be cemented that would last through life.
But in suggesting this hope and expectation to Ida it had been as if a cloud had suddenly passed before the sun,and now the whole sky was darkening.Jennie Burton seemed more shadowy and remote than ever--more wrapped up in a past in which she had no part;and the maiden into whose very soul he thought he had looked became inscrutable again in the distant courtesy of her manner.Even during the brief hour of dinner he was led to feel that he had no inevitable place in the thoughts of either of the ladies,and this impression was increased as he sought their society later in the day.