A Face Illumined Part 66

"Well, the Fates are against me once more. Why I left that book there I don't know, for I'm not usually so careless. Mr. Van Berg, I scarcely need to remind you of a fact that you discovered long ago--I don't know anything. Do you not remember how you tried to talk with me one evening? You touched on almost as many subjects as that huge volume contains, and my face remained as vacant through them all as the blank pages in that book before the printed matter begins."

"But now, Miss Ida, your face is to me like this book after the printed matter begins, only I read there that which interests me far more than anything which this bulky tome contains, even under the word Amsterdam."

"You imagine far more than you see. I think artists are like poets, and are given to great flights. Besides, you are becoming versed in my small talk. When you tried it on the evening I referred to, you were just a trifle ponderous."

"Yes, I can now see myself performing like a lame elephant. Did you propose to read this encyclopaedia entirely through?"

"I might have skipped art as a subject far too deep for me."

"When you come to that let me take the place of the encyclopaedia.

I will sit just here where you keep your book and give you a series of familiar lectures."

"I never enjoyed being lectured, sir!"

"Then I'll teach you after the Socratic method, and ask you questions."

"I fear some of them might be too personal. You have such a mania for solving everything."

"And did you fear that at some of the many sittings I shall need this fall I might again broach every subject under the sun, and so you were led to read an encyclopaedia to be prepared?"

"Is that what you mean by the Socratic method? I decline any lessons concerning art or anything else on that plan, for you would find out everything."

"I shall, anyway. How long ago it seems since we took that stupid walk together on Mr. Burleigh's piazza! We are nearer together now, Miss Ida, than we were then."

"Oh! no, indeed," she replied quickly; "I had your arm on that occasion."

"But you have my sincere friends.h.i.+p and respect now. I can't tell you how pleased I was when I saw how you had honored the little emblematic flower I gave you this morning. That you wear it to-night as your only ornament gives me hope that you do value my respect and regard."

"I think I had better let the rose-bud answer you, and I confess I like to think how perfect it is when I remember the meaning you gave to it, though how you can respect me at all I cannot understand.

Still, I am like father--next to G.o.d's favor the respect of those I esteem does most to sustain and rea.s.sure me. But, oh! Mr. Van Berg, you can't know what an honest sense of ill-desert I have. It is so hard just to do right, no matter what the consequences may be."

"The trouble with me is that I am not trying as you are. But I know, with absolute certainty, that the strongest impulse of true friends.h.i.+p, or at least of mine, in this instance, is to render some service to my friend. You will make me very happy if you will tell me something I can do for you."

"You are helping me very much in your manner towards father, and I do thank you from the very depths of my heart. In no way could you have won from me a deeper grat.i.tude. And--well--your kindness almost tempts me to ask for another favor, Mr. Van Berg."

He sprang to her side and took her hand.

Quickly withdrawing it, she said with a little decisive node: "You must sit down and sit still, for I have along, tiresome story to tell, and a very prosaic favor to ask;" for she had resolved, "he shall go forward now with his eyes open, and he shall never say I won him by seeming what I was not. If I can't deal right by Jennie Burton, I will by him."

"I shall find no service prosaic; see, I'm all attention," and he did look very eager indeed.

"That encyclopaedia suggests my story, and I may have to refer incidentally to myself."

"Leave the book out; I'll listen for ages."

"I should be out of breath before that. Mr. Van Berg, I'm in earnest; I don't know anything worth knowing. My life has been worse than wasted, and the only two things I understand well are dancing and flirting. Now I know you are disgusted, but its the truth. My old, fas.h.i.+onable life seems to me like the tawdry scenes of a second-rate theatre, where everything is for effect and nothing is real. I have hosts of acquaintances, but I haven't any friends except Mr.

Eltinge."

"And Harold Van Berg," put in the artist, promptly.

"It's good of you to say that after such confessions," she continued, with a shy glance. "I hope it wasn't out of politeness. Well, I've waked up at last. I think you first startled me out of my insufferable stupidity and silliness at the concert garden, and I'm very much obliged to you for the remark you made to Cousin Ik on that occasion."

"Yes, I remember," Van Berg groaned. "I waked you up as if I were trying to put your shoulder out of joint. Well, I'm waking up also."

"You have no idea what a perfect sham of a life I led," and she told him frankly of her wasted school days and of her trip abroad, for which she had no preparation of mind or character. "A b.u.t.terfly might have flown over the same ground and come back just as wise,"

she said. "But I have suddenly entered a new world of truth and duty, and I am bewildered; I am anxious to fit myself for the society of sensible, cultivated people, and I am discouraged by the task before me. I went to father's library yesterday and was perfectly appalled by the number of books and subjects that I know nothing about. The fact that I stumbled into that encyclopaedia, which gave you the laugh against me, shows how helpless I am.

Indeed, I'm like a little child trying to find its way through a wilderness of knowledge. I blundered on as far as Amsterdam, and there I stopped in despair. I didn't know what was before me, and I was getting everything I had been over confused and mixed up in my mind. And now, Mr. Van Berg, with your thorough education and wide experience you can tell me what to read and how to read."

Van Berg's face was fairly alive with interest, and he said eagerly: "The favor you ask suggests a far greater one on my part. Let me go with you through this wilderness of knowledge. We can take up courses of reading together."

At this moment Mr. Mayhew entered, and the artist hesitated to go on with his far-reaching offers, and, indeed, he suddenly began to realize, with some embarra.s.sment, how much they did involve.

But Ida maintained her presence of mind, and said, simply: "That would be impossible, though no doubt exceedingly helpful to me.

Here, as in the instance of the pictures, your good-nature and kindness carry you far beyond what I ever dreamed of asking. I merely thought that in some of your moments of leisure you could jot down some books and subjects that would be the same as if you had pointed out smooth and shady paths. You see, in my ignorance, I've tried to push my way through the wilderness straight across everything. Last evening I pestered my father with so many questions about politics and the topics of the day, that he thought I had lost my wits."

Mr. Mayhew leaned back in his chair and laughed heartily, as he mentally e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed: "Well done, little girl!"

"I will brush up my literary ideas, and do the best I can, very gladly," said Van Berg. "But you greatly underrate yourself and overrate my ability. I am still but on the edge of this wilderness of knowledge myself, and in crossing a wilderness one likes company."

"Oh, I could never keep up with your manly strides," said Ida, with a sudden trill of laughter. "Having secured my wish, I shall now reward you with some very poor music, which will suggest my need of lessons in that direction also."

Van Berg was not long in discovering that she would never become a great musician, no matter how many lessons she had. But she played with taste and a graceful rhythm, which proved that music in its simplest forms might become a language by which she could express her thought and feeling.

"Ida," said Mr. Mayhew, a little abruptly, "I wish to see a friend at the club. I'll be back before the evening is over."

"Please don't stay long," Ida answered, looking wistfully after him.

Then they found some ballad-music that they could sing together, and Van Berg expressed great pleasure in finding how well their voices blended.

"You have modestly kept quite all summer, and I am just finding out that you play and sing," he said.

"I would not have the confidence to do either at a hotel. I shall never be able to do any more than furnish a little simple home music to friends, not critics."

"I'm content with that arrangement, for I have finally dropped my character of critic."

"But true friends never flatter," she said. "If you won't help me overcome my faults I shall have to find another friend."

"As you recommended an ancient woman as nurse, so I will recommend the venerable friend you have already found, and ask you to let him do all the fault-finding."

She turned to him and said earnestly: "Mr. Van Berg, are you not a sufficiently sincere friend to tell me my faults?"

"Yes, Miss Ida, if you ask me to."

"Only as you do so can you keep my respect."

"You are very much in earnest. I never saw greater fidelity to conscience before; and I should be very sorry if, for any cause, your conscience were arrayed against me."

She suddenly buried her face in her hands and trembled. Then turning from him to her piano again she faltered: "I disregarded conscience once and I suffered deeply," and in the depths of her soul she added, "and I fear I shall again."