A Face Illumined | Page 7

might seem to have been the natural product of evolution, and her soul to be as truly of the earth as her body.
It was evident that she had been made familiar too early and thoroughly with conventional and fashionable society, and, although this fraction of the world is seldom without its gloves, its touch nevertheless had soiled her nature. Her face did not express any active or malignant principle of evil; but a close observer, like Van Berg, in whom the man was in the ascendant over the animal, could detect the absence of the serene, maidenly purity of expression, characteristic of those girls who have obtained their ideas of life from good mothers, rather than from French novels, French plays, and a phase of society that borrows its inspiration from fashionable Paris.
With the ending of the symphony the chatting and flirting at the table began again, to Van Berg's increased disgust. Indeed, he was so irritated that he could no longer control himself, and rose abruptly, saying to his companion:
"Come, let us walk outside."
His sudden movement drew the young lady's attention, but by this time he had only his broad shoulders turned towards her. She saw Ik Stanton looking at her, however, with a face full of mischief, and she recognized him with a nod and a smile.
He, with the familiarity that indicated relationship, but with a motion too slight to be noticed by others, threw her a kiss from the tips of his fingers, as one might toss a sugar-plum to a child, and then followed his friend.
Chapter II.
Ida Mayhew.

What is the matter, Van? You remind me of a certain horned beast that has seen a red flag," said Ik Stanton, linking his arm in that of Van Berg's.
"An apt illustration. I have been baited and irritated for the last twenty minutes."
"I thought you enjoyed Beethoven's music, and surely Thomas rendered it divinely to-night."
"That is one of the chief of my grievances. I haven't been able to hear a note," was the wrathful response.
"That's strange," said Stanton with mock gravity. "Were I not afraid you would take it amiss I would hint that your ears are of goodly size. How comes it that they have so suddenly failed you?"
"Having seen your dinner you have no eyes for anything else. If you had, you would have seen a face near us."
"I saw a score of faces near us. A German had one with the area of an acre."
"Was he the one who said, 'hist,' like a blast from the North?"
"From a porpoise rather."
"Did you observe the girl towards whom his gusty rebuke was directed?"
"Yes, an inoffensive young lady."
"Inoffensive, indeed!" interrupted Van Berg. "She has put me into purgatory."
"You do seem quite ablaze. Well, you are not the first one that she has put there. But really, Van, I did not know that you were so inflammable."
"If you had any of the instincts of an artist you would know that I am inflamed with no gentler feeling than anger."
"Why! what has the poor child done to you?"
"She is not a child. She knows too much about some things."
"I've no doubt she is better than either you or I," said Stanton, sharply.
"That fact would be far from proving her a saint."
"What the dickens makes you so vindictive against the girl?"
"Because she has the features of an angel and the face of a fool. What business has a woman to mock and disappoint one so! When I first saw her I thought I had discovered a prize--a new revelation of beauty; but a moment later she looked so ineffably silly that I felt as if I had bitten into an apple of Sodom. Of course the girl is nothing to me. I never saw her before and hope I may never see her again; but her features were so perfect that I could not help looking at them, and the more I looked the more annoyed I became to find that, instead of being blended together into a divine face by the mind within, they were the reluctant slaves of as picayune a soul as ever maintained its microscopic existence in a human body. It is exasperating to think what that face might be, and to see what it is. How can nature make such absurd blunders? The idea of building so fair a temple for such an ugly little divinity!"
"I thought you artists were satisfied with flesh and blood women, if only put together in a way pleasing to your fastidious eyes."
"If nature had designed that women should consist only of flesh and blood women, if only put together in a way pleasing to your fastidious eyes."
"If nature had designed that women should consist only of flesh and blood, one would have to be content; but no one save the 'unspeakable