“It’s true, Paul, really. If I had been well, don’t you think I should have come and admired your talent? Come, tell me—tell me all about it,” and she drew him with her to the sofa and threw the pictures on the floor.
Paul had some difficulty in freeing himself from Ben, who clung to his legs.
“Come, let go, Ben. And is the headache better now?”
“Oh yes; quite gone. This afternoon I’ll go round to Mr. Verstraeten to give my congratulations. But, Paul, do tell me——”
“I was just about to tell you that I was not coming to sing this afternoon; do you hear, Elly? I couldn’t bring out a note; I am quite hoarse with the howling and screaming of yesterday. But we managed splendidly,” and he commenced describing the tableaux.
It was all his idea, and much of it the work of his own hands; but the girls too had been hard at it for the last month—getting [[24]]up the dresses, attending to a thousand trifles. That afternoon Losch was coming to take a photograph of the last group; so that, even had he been in good voice, he could not have come to sing. And how stiff in his joints he felt! for he had slaved away like a navvy, and the girls must be quite exhausted also. No; he had formed no part in the grouping, he was too busy making all the arrangements. He fell back a little on the rich damask cushions of the sofa, under the shading branches of the azalea, and stroked his hair.
Eline thought how much he resembled Henk, although he was ten years younger, more slender in figure, livelier, with more delicate features, and an expression of much greater intelligence. But a simple gesture or movement, a raising of the eyebrows, would now and again very distinctly illustrate that resemblance, and although his lips were thinner under his light moustache than Henk’s heavily-bearded upper lip, his laugh was deep and full as that of his brother.
“Why don’t you take painting lessons of a good master, Paul?” asked Eline. “Surely if you have talent——”
“But I have not,” he laughed. “It would not be worth the trouble. I just dabble a bit in it, just as I do with my singing. It amounts to nothing at all, any of it.” And he sighed at his Lick of energy to make the most of the little talent he might possess.
“You remind me of papa,” she said, and her words assumed a tone of sadness, as the idealized image of her father rose to her memory. “Yes; he had great talents, but latterly his health failed him, and he could not produce the great creation of which his soul was capable. I well remember that he was engaged on an immense canvas, a scene from Dante’s Paradiso I believe, when—when he died. Poor papa! But you are young and strong, and I can’t understand why you don’t do something great, something out of the common.”