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"Can I fail with such encouragement?" asked Prochnow, in an intonation unwontedly tender, as he tried to look under those long curling lashes. Preciosa flushed a thing those great, over-admired marble women would have tried in vain to do. Yes, she was no closer to him than she was necessary to him.
Was it all that Mr. Prochnow's lively little friend seemed to think? Prochnow, putting away his palette and brushes, grandly overlooked the late irruption of trivialities. He glanced across to Preciosa, and she felt that he was thanking her for having held herself quite aloof from them. Preciosa went away not completely reassured, yet on the whole pretty well pleased.
Roscoe Orlando suddenly turned aside toward an old fellow who sat on a pink brocade sofa. "See, there's her grandfather," whispered Prochnow. Old Jeremiah had instinctively taken refuge on the one piece of furniture that reminded him of home. Here he sat, awkwardly twisting his hands and blinking every now and then at the great light that shone afar off.
He gave one look at Prochnow's face, drawn, haggard, black with disappointment and anger, and began to work himself out of his blouse. "Where is my hat?" he muttered wildly. "Where are you going?" asked Prochnow. His voice was hoarse. O'Grady looked at him a second time, to make sure who was speaking. "I got you into this, Ignace; and now I " "You did not," said Prochnow.
"And that girl with him is Miss Jeffreys, the one he's going to marry." Prochnow looked at the tall handsome figure in the long frock-coat with the bunch of violets, and felt abashed by his own short jacket and indifferent shoes. He noted too the assumption of ease and suavity with which the other was entertaining a little knot of ladies.
She had but one idea, an idea a bit obscured by Prochnow's absence, yet she held it fast. "You will not marry me, then?" "No." "You have a reason?" "The best." "What is it?" "I am engaged to marry some one else." "Who is he?" Prochnow appeared in the hall, with Little O'Grady close behind him.
Yes, at a second glance old Jeremiah appeared to be less the victim of society than of circumstances; and when Roscoe Orlando Gibbons bowed over him and whispered and they both looked toward the illumination while Eudoxia Pence looked at them, Little O'Grady was surer than ever that something was in the air. He felt Prochnow suddenly slipping behind him. "Her mother!" the young fellow explained.
I ah, in fact, I may say," he went on, with some little grandiloquence, "that I have just been the means of bringing such a talent to light myself an absolute discovery, and one of no little importance." "Indeed?" said Virgilia coldly. "Yes; a young Pole a young Bohemian a young I-don't-know-what." Roscoe Orlando waved his fingers with a vague, easy carelessness. "His name is Prochnow.
Little O'Grady rocked to and fro in melancholy mood and the cot creaked and swayed in unison. "Show me something," he said suddenly, jerking himself back to his own bright humour. "I've smelt your coffee and I've heard your mandolin, and now I want to see your pictures." "I've just sold one or two of my best ones," said Prochnow. "That's why I was able to come here."
"What!" she was thinking to herself, "have I been taken in by that viper, that traitress? by a child who looked like an innocent flower and is turning out to be the serpent under it? Prochnow! the hard name that nobody could pronounce! It's easy enough: Prochnow; Prochnow. She could have pronounced it fast enough if she had wanted to!
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