but were softened in a melting tenderness of sympathy, and her
whole person seemed to be carried into the stream of the great life
passion. When it ceased she sank back in her seat, and blushed still
more, as if in fear that some one had discovered her secret.
Afterwards, when Philip had an opportunity of knowing Evelyn Mavick, and
knowing her very well, and to some extent having her confidence, he used
to say to himself that he had little to learn--the soul of the woman was
perfectly revealed to him that night of "Siegfried."
As the curtain went down, Mrs. Mavick, whose attention had not been
specially given to the artists before, was clapping her hands in a great
state of excitement.
"Why don't you applaud, child?"
"Oh, mother," was all the girl could say, with heaving breast and
downcast eyes.
X
All winter long that face seemed to get between Philip and his work. It
was an inspiration to his pen when it ran in the way of literature,
but a distinct damage to progress in his profession. He had seen Evelyn
again, more than once, at the opera, and twice been excited by a passing
glimpse of her on a crisp, sunny afternoon in the Mavick carriage in
the Park-always the same bright, eager face. So vividly personal was
the influence upon him that it seemed impossible that she should not be
aware of it--impossible that she could not know there was such a person
in the world as Philip Burnett.
Fortunately youth can create its own world. Between the secluded
daughter of millions and the law clerk was a great gulf, but this did
not prevent Evelyn's face, and, in moments of vanity, Evelyn herself,
from belonging to Philip's world. He would have denied--we have a habit
of lying to ourselves quite as much as to others--that he ever dreamed
of possessing her, but nevertheless she entered into his thoughts and
his future in a very curious way. If he saw himself a successful lawyer,
her image appeared beside him. If his story should gain the public
attention, and his occasional essays come to be talked of, it was
Evelyn's interest and approval that he caught himself thinking about.
And he had a conviction that she was one to be much more interested
in him as a man of letters than as a lawyer. This might be true. In
Philip's story, which was very slowly maturing, the heroine fell in love
with a young man simply for himself, and regardless of the fact that he
was poor and had his career to make. But he knew that if
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