"Well, I must go and get your lunch, Honeybun!" exclaimed Angela. "I have to go to Mr. Gioletti, the grocer, and to Mr. Ruggiere, the vegetable man." She laughed, for the Italian names amused her.
Eugene went back to his easel. He was thinking of Christina—where was she? At that moment, if he had known, she was looking at his pictures, only newly returned from Europe. She had seen a notice in the Evening Post.
"Such work!" Christina thought, "such force! Oh, what a delightful artist. And he was with me."
Her mind went back to Florizel and the amphitheatre among the trees. "He called me 'Diana of the Mountains,'" she thought, "his 'hamadryad,' his 'huntress of the morn.'" She knew he was married. An acquaintance of hers had written in December. The past was past with her—she wanted no more of it. But it was beautiful to think upon—a delicious memory.
"What a queer girl I am," she thought.
Still she wished she could see him again—not face to face, but somewhere where he could not see her. She wondered if he was changing—if he would ever change. He was so beautiful then—to her.
CHAPTER VIII
Paris now loomed bright in Eugene's imagination, the prospect mingling with a thousand other delightful thoughts. Now that he had attained to the dignity of a public exhibition, which had been notably commented upon by the newspapers and art journals and had been so generally attended by the elect, artists, critics, writers generally, seemed to know of him. There were many who were anxious to meet and greet him, to speak approvingly of his work. It was generally understood, apparently, that he was a great artist, not exactly arrived to the fullness of his stature as yet, being so new, but on his way. Among those who knew him he was, by this one exhibition, lifted almost in a day to a lonely height, far above the puny efforts of such men as Smite and MacHugh, McConnell and Deesa, the whole world of small artists whose canvases packed the semi-annual exhibition of the National Academy of Design and the Water color society, and with whom in a way, he had been associated. He was a great artist now—recognized as such by the eminent critics who knew; and as such, from now on, would be expected to do the work of a great artist. One phrase in the criticisms of Luke Severas in the Evening Sun as it appeared during the run of his exhibition remained in his memory clearly—"If he perseveres, if his art does not fail him." Why should his art fail him?—he asked himself. He was immensely pleased to hear from M. Charles at the close of the exhibition that three of his pictures had been sold—one for three hundred dollars to Henry McKenna, a banker; another, the East Side street scene which M. Charles so greatly admired, to Isaac Wertheim, for five hundred dollars; a third, the one of the three engines and the railroad yard, to Robert C. Winchon, a railroad man, first vice-president of one of the great railroads entering New York, also for five hundred dollars. Eugene had never heard of either Mr. McKenna or Mr. Winchon, but he was assured that they were men of wealth and refinement. At Angela's suggestion he asked M. Charles if he would not accept one of his pictures as a slight testimony of his appreciation for all he had done for him. Eugene would not have thought to do this, he was so careless and unpractical. But Angela thought of it, and saw that he did it. M. Charles was greatly pleased, and took the picture of Greeley Square, which he considered a masterpiece of color interpretation. This somehow sealed the friendship between these two, and M. Charles was anxious to see Eugene's interests properly forwarded. He asked him to leave three of his scenes on sale for a time and he would see what he could do. Meanwhile, Eugene, with thirteen hundred added to the thousand and some odd dollars he had left in his bank from previous earnings, was convinced that his career was made, and decided, as he had planned to go to Paris, for the summer at least.