Thus the influence of a false education, a proud, selfish, ambitious life, decided her choice. She plunged as resolutely into the whirl of fashionable gayety about her as she had in the dissipations of New York, determined to forget the past, and kill the time that must intervene before she could sail away to her brilliant future in Germany. But she gradually learned that, if conscience had robbed her of peace before, something else disturbed her now, and rendered her efforts futile. She found that there was a principle at work in her heart stronger even than her resolute will. In spite of her purpose to the contrary, she caught herself continually thinking of Dennis, and indulging in strange, delicious reveries in regard to him. At last she ceased to shun the store as she had done at first, but with increasing frequency found some necessity for going there. After the interview in the show-room, Dennis was driven to the bitter conclusion that Christine was utterly heartless, and cared not a jot for him. His impression was confirmed by the fact that she shunned the store, and that he soon heard of her as a belle and leader in the ultra-fashionable world. He, too, bitterly lamented that he had ever seen her, and was struggling with all the power of his will to forget her. He fiercely resolved that, since she wished him dead, she should become dead to him. Almost immediately after his return he had discovered that the two emblematical pictures had been removed from the loft over the store. He remembered that he had spoken of them to Christine, and from Ernst he gathered that she herself had taken them away. It was possible, he believed, that she had made them the subject of ridicule. At best she must have destroyed them in order to blot out all trace of a disagreeable episode. Whatever may have been their fate, they had, as he thought, failed in their purpose, and were worthless to him, and he was far too proud to make inquiries. As the weeks passed on, he apparently succeeded better than she. There was nothing in her character, as she then appeared, that appealed to anything gentle or generous. She seemed so proud, so strong and resolute in her choice of evil, so devoid of the true womanly nature, as he had learned to reverence it in his mother, that he could not pity, much less respect her, and even his love could scarcely survive under such circumstances. When she began coming to the store again, though his heart beat thick and fast at her presence, he turned his back and seemed not to see her, or made some errand to a remote part of the building. At first she thought this might be accident, but she soon found it a resolute purpose to ignore her very existence. By reason of a trait peculiar to Christine, this was only the more stimulating. She craved all the more that which was seemingly denied.