"She begins to see that my motives are a little mixed, and that is what is embarrassing her," he thought as he bent over his work to hide his own confusion.
"Mr. Van Berg, I'm getting tired of sitting still," Ida exclaimed. "It's contrary to my restless disposition. May I not make an exploring tour around your studio? You have no idea what a constraint I've been putting on my feminine curiosity."
"I give you a 'carte-blanche' to do as you please. Have you much curiosity?"
"I'm a daughter of Eve."
"Well, I'm coming to the conclusion that there is a good deal of 'old Adam' in me," and he felt that as she then appeared she could tempt him to almost anything.
Now that her back was towards him she felt safer, and her mellow laugh trilled out as she said, "We may have to dub this place a confessional rather than a studio of you talk in that way."
"If I confessed all my sins against you, Miss Mayhew, it would, indeed, be a confessional." He spoke so earnestly that she gave him a quick glance of surprise.
"There is no need," she said, hesitatingly, "since I have given you full absolution," and she suddenly became interested in something in the farthest corner of the apartment. After a moment she added, "If I am to come here I must say to you again, as I did on the day I so disgusted you by my behavior in the stage—you must let by-gones be by-gones."
It was now the artist's turn to laugh, and his merriment was so hearty and prolonged that she turned a vexed and crimson face towards him and said, "I think it's too bad in you to laugh at me so."
"Miss Mayhew, I assure you I'm not laughing at you at all. But your words suggest a good omen. Didn't that stage teach you that fate means us to be good friends in spite of all you can do? Before we met in that car of fortune I had been trying for a week or more to make your acquaintance, and made a martyr of myself in the effort. I played the agreeable to nearly every lady in the hotel, and perspired on picnics and boating parties that I did not enjoy. I played croquet and other games till I was half bored to death, and all in the effort to produce such a genial atmosphere of enjoyment and good-feeling that you would thaw a little towards me; but you wouldn't speak to me, nor even look at me. At last I gave up in despair and went off among the hills with my sketch-book, and when returning that blessed old stage overtook me. Wasn't I pleased when I found you were a fellow-passenger! and let me now express my thanks that you looked so resolutely away from me, for it gave me a chance to contrast a profile in which I could detect no fault with the broad, sultry visage of the stout woman opposite me. And then, thank heaven, the horses ran away. Whoever heard of stage horses running away before? It was a smile of fortune—a miracle. Submit to destiny, Miss Mayhew, for it's decreed that we should be good friends," and he laughed again in huge enjoyment of the whole scene.