“Oh! do they do such things as that?” said Miss Dare with a shudder.
It was a warm day, a very warm day for the end of March; consequently the furnaces at “Prices” were several degrees hotter than usual. The shoemaker’s work-room, what with this heat, the smell of leather, and the presence of six overheated human beings, was stifling to a degree scarcely bearable to Louis’ youthful vitality. His hand, blackened with work and the soots of Micklegard, had several times brushed away the drops from his forehead, not without leaving traces of the operation; his face was pale, and his fair hair disordered; when suddenly a breath of cooler air made him look up, and there in the doorway, fresh and sweet as her own royal flower, stood Pinkie, as though fallen from heaven.
What happened next, Louis could never afterwards clearly recollect. Did he spring towards her? or was it only that his heart gave one glad, strong leap, to sink again heavy as lead—nay, heavy as sorrow and loneliness and a loveless old age—before the scorn, the horrified disgust upon her fair young face? In truth, Pinkie was to be pitied far more than he. An atmosphere of dainty, fastidious refinement may be best for one’s moral lungs; but it is surely not one of its consequences to prevent us from distinguishing the “Ding-an-sich” from mere phenomena. Such blindness is due to a spiritual indigestion, one would imagine, caused by—ah! who shall say by what admixture of mortal clay with the Bread of Life!
As in a dream, Louis went blindly on with his work, not of cream-hued kid and fairy-like proportions. It was a huge, heavy workman’s shoe into the sole of which he drove peg after peg, with such fierce, unconscious energy. There were words passing, something about permission to inspect the establishment, and a guide; then a whisper from Fritz Rolf, who sat beside him, to which he replied, without understanding it, by a shake of the head. Then he heard Fritz’s gay voice offering himself as a guide, in right, as he averred, of being one of the original founders; and then all were gone, and only the monotonous tap, tap, sounded again around him.
It seemed scarcely five minutes, though in fact nearly three hours had passed, and he had never worked better or faster, when Karl Metzerott rose, and said gruffly that he supposed they were all quite ready to dine with the aristocrats. In a second the men were gone; but Karl lingered to say slowly,—
“As for you, Louis”—
“I shall go to dinner,” said the boy, looking up with wide, bright eyes, dry lips, and burning cheeks. “You are not ashamed of me, father?”
The man gave a short, angry laugh.
“I should be,” he said, “if I saw you running after a girl who turns up her nose at your working clothes, and kisses you in your Sunday coat. She’s not worth a thought, Louis.”
“I have thought of her all my life,” the boy said simply; “but don’t speak of it, please, papa.”