“An artist!” repeated the Master, with a bitter laugh. “Your mother—” here he paused and looked keenly into Lynn’s eyes. Something was stirred; some far-off memory. “She believes in you, is it not so?”
“Yes, she does—she has always believed in me.”
“Well,” said the Master, with an indefinable shrug, “we must not disappoint her. You work on like one faithful parrot, and I continue with your instruction. It is good that mothers are so easy to please.”
“Herr Kaufmann,” pleaded the boy, “tell me. Shall I ever be an artist?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“When?”
“When the river flows up hill and the sun rises in the west.”
Suddenly, Lynn’s face turned white. “I will!” he cried, passionately; “I will! I will be an artist! I tell you, I will!”
“Perhaps,” returned the Master. He was apparently unmoved, but afterward, when Lynn had gone, he regretted his harshness. “I may be mistaken,” he admitted to himself, grudgingly. “There may be something in the boy, after all. He is young yet, and his mother, she believes in him. Well, we shall see!”