"Well, my dear, if all goes well, we can enter on our true career a year from next fall—a short year and a half. Do not blame the delay, for it will enable us to live in Germany in almost royal style. I never was making money so rapidly as now. I have invested in that which cannot depreciate, and thus far has advanced beyond belief—buildings in the business part of the city. Rents are paying me from twenty to a hundred per cent. At the same time I could sell out in a month. So you see you have only to co-operate with me—to preserve health and strength—to enjoy all that money can insure; and money can buy almost everything."
Christine's eyes sparkled as the future opened before her, and she said, with emphasis, "If I could preserve health and strength, I would live a thousand years."
"You can do much toward it. Every chance is in favor of prudence and wise action;" and, much relieved, her father went to the store.
Business had accumulated, and in complete absorption he gave himself to it. With an anxiety beyond expression, Dennis, flushed and trembling, ventured to approach. Merely glancing to see who it was, Mr. Ludolph, with his head bent over his writing, said, "Miss Ludolph is better—no fear of smallpox, I think—you need not write to your mother—greatly obliged."
It was well for Dennis that his employer did not look up. The open face of Mr. Ludolph's clerk expressed more than friendly interest in his daughter's health. The young man went to his tasks with a mountain of fear lifted from his heart.
But the thought of the beloved one lying alone and sick at the hotel seemed very pathetic to him. Love filled his heart with more sympathy for Christine upon her luxurious couch, in rapid convalescence, than for all the hopeless suffering of Chicago. What could he do for her? She seemed so far off, so high and distant, that he could not reach her. If he ventured to send anything, prudence whispered that she would regard it as an impertinence. But love can climb every steep place, and prudence is not its grand-vizier.
Going by a fruit-store in the afternoon he saw some fine strawberries, the first in from the South. He bought a basket, decorated it with German ivy obtained at a flower-stand, and spirited it upstairs to his room as if it were the most dangerous of contraband. In a disguised hand he wrote on a card, "For Miss Ludolph." Calling Ernst, who had little to do at that hour of the day, he said: "Ernst, my boy, take this parcel to Le Grand Hotel, and say it is for Miss Christine Ludolph. Tell them to send it right up, but on no account—remember, on no account—tell any one who sent it. Carry it carefully in just this manner."
Ernst was soon at his destination, eager to do anything for his friend.
After all, the day had proved a long one for Christine. Unaccustomed to the restraints of sickness, she found the enforced inaction very wearisome. Mind and body both seemed weak. The sources of chief enjoyment when well seemed powerless to contribute much now. In silken robe she reclined in an arm-chair, or languidly sauntered about the room. She took up a book only to throw it down again. Her pencil fared no better. Ennui gave to her fair young face the expression of one who had tried the world for a century and found it wanting. She was leaning her elbow on the window-sill, gazing vacantly into the street, when Ernst appeared.
"Janette," she said, suddenly, "do you see that boy? He is employed at the store. Go bring him up here; I want him;" and with more animation than she had shown that day she got out materials for a sketch.