"In pursuit of an _ignis-fatuus_?" asked he, stooping over her an
instant, and suddenly snatching himself erect, as she looked up with a
certain sweetness in her smile, and pushed back the drooping tress,
that, streaming along the temple and lying in one large curve upon the
cheek, sometimes fell too low for order, though never for grace.
"And all in vain," she said, laughingly. "I've worked an hour, I can get
the violet edges, I can get the changing bend,--but there 'a no lustre,
no flicker,--I can't find out the secret of painting flame."
"It is a secret you found out long ago!" muttered Mr. St. George,
unintelligibly, and strode out, banging the door behind him.
And Eloise, astonished and dismayed, abruptly put up her pencils, and
went to bed.
So that, when Mr. St. George returned a half-hour afterward for a
cheerful fireside-season over nuts and wine, there was nobody there but
Mrs. Arles, who picked herself up out of her nap, and went placidly on
with her tatting and contrivances.
Two stragglers on the ice-fields of the polar seas would have met each
other with less frozen chill than St. George and Eloise did on the
succeeding morning. And in that chill a long period elapsed, during
which Mr. St. George attended to his affairs, and Eloise silently cast
up her accounts.
Pages:
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167