Christina shuddered; just then Mr. Deutch arrived with the luncheon basket. The ladies passed him in taking their leave and Christina slipped her hand through his arm. "Mr. Herrick," she said, "Herr Hermy does not look wise—no, Herr Hermy, you don't,—but if ever I puzzle you, ask him. Do not ask Tante Deutch, she will tell you something noble and solid, for she herself is wise, and so she can never understand me. But Herr Hermy is a little foolish, just as I am. He is flighty; he has the artistic temperament and understands us; he knows me to the core.—Herr Hermy, he is coming to see me act; tell him I am really Sal, not Evadne; tell him that I am a hardworking girl."
As he came to know her better, Herrick did not need to be told that. He had never seen any one work so hard nor take their work quite so seriously. But her advice remained with him and he began to listen more respectfully to Hermann Deutch on his favorite subject. "Wait till you see her, Mr. Herrick! She's like Patti, and the others were the chorus; you'll say so, too. And it don't seem but yesterday, hardly, she didn't know how she should go to faint, even! Drop herself, she would, about the house, and black and blue herself in bumps! We used to go in the family circle, when I had a half-a-dollar or two, and watch great actresses and when one did something she had a fancy for, she'd pinch me like a pair o' scissors! And she'd be up practising it all night, over and over, and the gas going! She'd wear herself out, and there's those that would expect she shouldn't wear them out, too!"
"She takes things too hard," said the lover fondly.
"Yes," said Mr. Deutch, after a pause, "she takes 'em hard, but she can drop 'em quick!" Herrick felt a little knife go through his heart; and then Deutch added, "Not that she's the way people talk—insincere. Oh, that's foolish talk! She's only quick-like; she sees all things and she feels all things, and not one of 'em will she keep quiet about! Those glass pieces, you know, hang from chandeliers?—when they flash first in the one light and then the way another strikes 'em, they ain't insincere. An' that's the way Miss Christina is—she's young, an' she's got curiosity, an' she wants she should know all things an' feel all things, so she can put 'em in her parts; she wants all the lights to go clean through her. And there's so many of 'em! So many to take in and so many to give out! There ain't one of 'em, Mr. Herrick, but what she'll reflect it right into your face."
Although, in this elaborate fancy, Herrick suspected an echo of Christina's own eloquence, he did not listen to it less eagerly on that account. "After all," he translated, "it's only that she's willingly and extraordinarily impressionable, and then willingly and extraordinarily expressive! In that case, instead of being less sincere than other people, she's more so!"
"You got it!" cried Mr. Deutch with satisfaction. "That's what these outsiders, they can't ever understand. The best friend she ever had says to me once, 'If ever Miss Hope gets enough really good parts to keep her interested, she'll take things more quietly around the house!' That's been a great comfort to me, Mr. Herrick.—She's got these emotions in her, I'll say to myself, and what harm is it she should let 'em off?"
"The best friend she ever had?"
"Well, now, Mr. Herrick, he was an old hand when she first came into the business. He taught her a lot; she'd be the first to say so. Often I've thought if she hadn't been so young then, what a match they might ha' made of it! But she never thought of it, nor, I shouldn't wonder, he neither, and now it's too late. But don't you worry because she takes all things hard; she's got a kind of a spring in her. When she's laid down to die of one thing, comes along another and she gets up again."
If Herrick did not complete this analysis, it was not for lack of opportunity. As soon as he was about again he found himself as merged in the life of the Hopes as were the Deutches themselves. "You interest Christina," Mrs. Hope told him. "You take her mind off these dreadful things. It's a very critical week with us. I hope you won't leave her alone."
Herrick did all that in him lay to justify this hope, and if Christina never urged nor invited, never made herself "responsible" for his presence, she accepted it unquestioningly. His first outing was a Sunday dinner at their house, and again Christina kept herself in the background, and only drew her mother's affectionate wrath upon herself by one remark; saying, as Herrick helped himself from the dish the maid was passing him, "I hope it's not poisoned!"