Artists -- Relations with women -- Fiction; Artists -- United States -- Fiction
On the train next day Eugene had nearly three hours of what he deemed
most delightful talk with her. They had not journeyed far before he had
told her how he had traveled this way, on this train, at this hour, two
years before; how he had walked about the streets of the big city,
looking for a place to sleep, how he had got work and stayed away until
he felt that he had found himself. Now he was going to study art and
then to New York or Paris, and do magazine illustrating and possibly
paint pictures. He was truly your flamboyant youth of talent when he got
to talking--when he had a truly sympathetic ear. He loved to boast to
someone who really admired him, and he felt that he had admiration here.
Angela looked at him with swimming eyes. He was really different from
anything she had ever known, young, artistic, imaginative, ambitious. He
was going out into a world which she had longed for but never hoped to
see--that of art. Here he was telling her of his prospective art
studies, and talking of Paris. What a wonderful thing!
As the train neared Chicago she explained that she would have to make an
almost immediate connection with one which left over the Chicago
Milwaukee and St. Paul, for Blackwood. She was a little lonely, to tell
the truth, a little sick at heart, for the summer vacation was over and
she was going back to teach school. Alexandria, for the two weeks she
had been there visiting Mrs. King (formerly a Blackwood girl and
school-day chum of hers), was lovely. Her girlhood friend had tried to
make things most pleasant and now it was all over. Even Eugene was over,
for he said nothing much of seeing her again, or had not so far. She was
wishing she might see more of this world he painted in such glowing
colors, when he said:
"Mr. Bangs said that you come down to Chicago every now and then?"
"I do," she replied. "I sometimes come down to go to the theatres and
shop." She did not say that there was an element of practical household
commercialism in it, for she was considered one of the best buyers in
the family and that she was sent to buy by various members of the family
in quantities. From a practical household point of view she was a
thoroughbred and was valued by her sisters and friends as someone who
loved to do things. She might have come to be merely a family pack
horse, solely because she loved to work. It was instinct to do
everything she did thoroughly, but she worked almost exclusively in
minor household matters.
"How soon do you expect to come down again?" he asked.
"Oh, I can't tell. I sometimes come down when Opera is on in the winter.
I may be here around Thanksgiving."
"Not before that?"
"I don't think so," she replied archly.
"That's too bad. I thought maybe I'd see you a few times this fall. When
you do come I wish you could let me know. I'd like to take you to the
theatre."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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