"Enough!" interrupted the youth. Rushing to the picture, he thrust his maul-stick through it, then kicked easel and painting to the floor.
Coello, shaking his head, watched him, and tried to soothe him with kindly words, but Ulrich paid no heed, exclaiming:
"It is all over with art, all over. A Dios, Master! Your daughter does not care for love without art, and art and I have nothing more to do with each other."
At the door he paused, strove to regain his self-control, and at last held out his hand to Coello, who was gazing sorrowfully after him.
The artist gladly extended his, and Ulrich, pressing it warmly, murmured in an agitated, trembling voice:
"Forgive this raving….It is only….I only feel, as if I was bearing all that had been dear to me to the grave. Thanks, Master, thanks for many kindnesses. I am, I have—my heart—my brain, everything is confused. I only know that you, that Isabella, have been kind to me. and I, I have—it will kill me yet! Good fortune gone! Art gone! A Dios, treacherous world! A Dios, divine art!"
As he uttered the last sentence he drew his hand from the artist's grasp, rushed back into the studio, and with streaming eyes pressed his lips to the palette, the handle of the brush, and his ruined picture; then he dashed past Coello into the street.
The artist longed to go to his child; but the king detained him in the park. At last he was permitted to return to the Alcazar.
Isabella was waiting on the steps, before the door of their apartments.
She had stood there a long, long time.
"Father!" she called.