"Confound it!" muttered Lozoncyi, "not a visitor, I trust."
It was no visitor, but a letter brought by Lozoncyi's gondolier, a handsome dark-skinned lad in a sailor dress, with a red scarf about his waist. Involuntarily Erika glanced at the letter. The address was in a feminine hand; the post-mark was Paris.
Lozoncyi gave an impatient shrug at sight of the handwriting; then, crushing the letter in his hand, he slipped it unopened into his pocket. "Will you not look into my workshop?" he asked the ladies.
"I was just about to ask you to show us your studio," replied the old Countess. "I am curious with regard to your 'Bad Dreams.'"
"Yes,"--he shivered,--"'bad dreams,'--that is the word!"
The atelier, which they entered from the garden by a glass door, was an unusually high and spacious apartment, but very plainly furnished, and in dusty confusion,--the workshop of a very nervous artist, who can endure no 'clearing up,' who cannot do without the rubbish of his art. Erika's gaze was instantly attracted by a remarkable and horrible picture.
A single figure in a close, clinging garment of undecided hue, the head thrust forward, the arms stretched out, the whole form expressing yearning, torturing desire, was groping its way towards a swamp above which hovered a will-o'-the-wisp. Above in the dark heavens gleamed the pure light of the stars. It was all a marvel of tone and expression,--the sad harmony of colour, the star-lit sky, the dreary swamp, and above all the figure, its every feature, every fingertip, every fold even of its garment, expressing desire.
"What did you mean it to represent?" asked the old Countess.
"Can you not guess?"
No, she could not guess; but Erika instantly exclaimed, "Blind Love!"