aimed 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 hims