As long as you are the man you have been since Sunday I
will stand proudly at your side. If you should ever be weak again
you will drag me down with you."
He held her from him and looked at her as a miser might gloat over
his treasure.
"Ida, my good angel," he murmured.
"Nonsense!" she exclaimed, trying to hide her feelings by a little
brusqueness, "I'm as human a girl as there is in this city, and will
try your patience a hundred times before the year is out. Come,
let us go and visit this proud artist. He had better beware, or
he may find an expression on my face that he won't like if I should
decide to give him a sitting."
But the artist did like the expression of Ida's face as he glanced
up from his work with great frequency and with an admiring glow in
his eyes that was anything but cool and business-like. Even her
jealous love had not detected a tone or act in his reception of
her father that was not all she could ask, and she had never seen
the poor man look so pleased and hopeful as when he left the studio
for his office. There had not been a particle of patronage in
Van Berg's manner, but only the cordial and respectful courtesy of
a younger gentleman towards an elderly one.
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