"No,"she replied decisively;"you have not enough time as it is,before Saturday,to do justice to your work,and I want you to make Miss Mayhew's friend look as if he were speaking to her.""Miss Jennie,"said the artist rather impulsively,"you haven't a drop of selfish blood in your little body.""I am under the impression that Mr.Van Berg's estimates of his lady acquaintances are not always correct.Not that I was any wiser,but then such positive assertions seem hardly the thing from people who have shown themselves so fallible.""I'm right for once,"Van Berg insisted."Do you know that Miss Mayhew and I nearly had a falling out.Indeed she has been rather cool towards me ever since,and you were the cause.I believed with absolute certainty that the new Ida Mayhew that I had learned to know in Mr.Eltinge's garden would gravitate towards you as surely as two drops of dew run together when brought sufficiently near,and I began to speak quite enthusiastically of what friends you would surely become,when Miss Mayhew's manner taught me I had better change the subject.Oddly enough,she has never liked you,and yet,in justice to her,I must add that she acted conscientiously,and I have never heard one lady speak of another more favorably and sincerely,than she spoke of you,though it seemingly cost her an effort."A sudden moisture came into Jennie Burton's eyes,and she said under her breath:"Poor child!that was noble and generous of her to speak so of me.Oh,how blind he is!"But with mock gravity she answered him:
"Your rather sentimental figure of speech,Mr.Van Berg,shows where your error lies.Miss Mayhew and myself are not pellucid drops of dew that you look through at a glance.We are women:and the one thing in this world which men never will learn to understand is a woman.I'm going to puzzle you still further.I am learning to have a very thorough respect for Miss Mayhew.I am beginning to admire her exceedingly,and to think that she is growing exquisitely beautiful;and yet were she here this week you would find that Iwould not seek her society.Give your mind to your art,and never hope to untangle the snarl of a woman's mind.Men,in attempting such folly,have become hopelessly entangled.Take a woman's word for it--what you see you can't reason out.I've no doubt but that Miss Mayhew has excellent reasons for disliking me,and the fact that you can't understand them is nothing against them.""Miss Jennie,"said Van Berg resolutely,"for once I cannot take your word for it.You two ladies have puzzled me all summer,and I'll never be content till I solve the mysteries which so baffle me.My interest is not curiosity,but friendship,to say the least,that I hope will last through life.You will tell me some day all your trouble,and you will feel the better for telling me."She became very pale at these words,and said gravely:"I cannot promise that--I doubt it.You may have to trust me blindly till you forget me.""I do not trust you blindly;I never will forget you,"he began,impetuously.
"Good-night,Mr.Van Berg,"she said,and in a moment he was alone on the piazza.
"She is an angel of light,he muttered,"and not a woman.I could worship her,but I'm too earthy in my nature to lover her as Iought."
He took the earliest train to New York,and so had a long afternoon in his studio.He was surprised to find how absorbed he soon became in his work."Miss Jennie is right,"he thought;"I'm an artist,and not a reformer or a metaphysician,and I had better spend my time here than in trying to solve feminine enigmas;"and he worked like a beaver until the fading light compelled him to desist.
"There,"he said,"that is a fair beginning.Two or three more days of work like this will secure me,I think,a friendlier glance than Miss Ida gave me last."From which words it might be gathered that he was thinking of other rewards than mere success in his art.
In the evening the wand of Theodore Thomas had a spell which he never thought of resisting,and it must be admitted that there lurked in his mind the hope that Ida and her father might be drawn to the concert garden also.If so,he was sure he would pursue his investigations.
He was rewarded,for Mr.Mayhew and his daughter soon entered and took seats in the main lobby,where he and Stanton had sat nearly three months before.Van Berg congratulated himself that he was outside in the promenade,and so had not been observed;and he sought a dusky seat from which he might seek some further knowledge of a character that had won and retained a deepening interest from the time of their first meeting,which now seemed an age ago.Events mark time more truthfully than the course of the sun.
At first she seemed only solicitous about her father,who lighted a cigar and said something to her that must have been very reassuring and pleasant,for a glad smile broke over her pale face.But it vanished quickly,and the artist saw that her habitual expression was sad,and even dejected.She did not look around with the breezy alertness natural to a young girl in such a place.The curiously diverse people around her excited no interest,and she appeared inclined to lapse into deep reveries,even when the music was light and gay,as was the character of the earlier part of the entertainment.At times she would start perceptibly when her father spoke to her,and hesitate in her answer,as if she had to recall her thoughts from far-off wanderings.It would seem that Mr.
Mayhew was troubled by her sad face and absent manner.He justly felt that the brilliant music ought to enliven her like sunlight;and that it did not proved the presence of some intervening cloud.