She justly feared that, should he see her work, he might discover her plan; for, however she might disguise it, something suggesting himself entered into all her studies. "I hope you will succeed, but doubt it." "Why?" she asked, quickly. "Because we cannot portray what we cannot feel. The stream cannot rise higher than its fountain." Then he added, with heightened color and some hesitation, "I fear--your heart is still sleeping"; and he watched with deep anxiety how she would take the questioning remark. At first she flushed almost angrily; but, recovering self-possession in a moment, she threw upon him an arch smile, suggesting all that a lover could wish, and said: "Be careful, Mr. Fleet; you are seeking to penetrate mysteries that we most jealously guard. You know that in the ancient temple there was an inner sanctuary which none might enter." "Yes, _one_ might," said Dennis, significantly. With her long lashes she veiled the dark blue eyes that expressed anything but tender feeling, and yet, so shaded, they appeared as a lover would wish, and in a low tone she answered, "Well, he could not enter when he would, only when permitted." She raised her eyes quickly to see the effect; and she did see an effect that she would have given thousands to be able to transfer to canvas. His face, above all she had ever seen, seemed designed to express feeling, passion; and his wearing life had made it so thin, and his eyes were so large and lustrous, that the spiritual greatly predominated, and she felt as if she could almost see the throbs of the strong, passionate heart. Apart from her artistic purposes, contact with such warm, intense life had for Christine a growing fascination. She had not realized that in kindling and fanning this flame of honest love to sevenfold power and heat, she might be kindled herself. When, therefore, she saw the face of Dennis Fleet eloquent with the deepest, strongest feeling that human features can portray, another chord than the artistic one was touched, and there was a low, faint thrill of that music which often becomes the sweetest harmony of life. "And at some time in the future may I hope to enter?" he asked, tremulously. She threw him another smile over her shoulder as she turned to her easel--a smile that from a true woman would mean, You may, but which from many would mean nothing, and said, vaguely, "What is life without hope?" and then, as matters were going too fast and far, decisively changed the subject. Seated at her easel she painted eagerly and rapidly, while he measured the space over and around the fireplace with a view to its ornamentation. She kept the conversation on the general subject of art, and, though Dennis knew it not, every glance at his face was that of a portrait-painter. CHAPTER XXXII BITTER DISAPPOINTMENT