"That is very--very generous, very noble of you!" she exclaimed, flushing with excitement and delight. "It means a great deal to me--it means, perhaps, a fame that I scarcely dared dream of even in my most enthusiastic years. I am too grateful to express my gratitude coherently; I am trying to say to you that I thank you; that I recognize in you those broad, liberal, generous qualities which, from your appearance and bearing, I--I thought perhaps you must possess."
She colored again very prettily; he bowed, and ventured to remind her that she had not yet given him the privilege of naming himself.
"That is true!" she said, surprised. "I had quite forgotten it." But when he named himself she raised her head, startled.
"Victor Carden!" she repeated. "You are the _artist_, Victor Carden!"
"Yes," he said, watching her dilated eyes like two violet-tinted jewels.
For a minute she sat looking at him; and imperceptibly a change came into her face, and its bewildering beauty softened as the vivid tints died out, leaving her cheeks almost pale.
"It is--a pity," she said under her breath. All the excitement, all the latent triumph, all the scarcely veiled eager enthusiasm had gone from her now.
"Yes. I wish it had been only an ordinary man. I--why should this happen to you? You have done so much for us all--made us forget ourselves in the beauty of what you offer us. Why should this happen to _you_!"
"But you have not told me yet what has happened to me, Miss Hollis."
"_Are_ you our Victor Carden? I do not wish to believe it! You have done so much for the world--you have taught us to understand and desire all that is noble and upright and clean and beautiful!--to desire it, to aspire toward it, to venture to live the good, true, wholesome lives that your penciled creations must lead--_must_ lead to wear such beautiful bodies and such divine eyes!"
"Do _you_ care for my work?" he asked, astonished and moved.
At first his overwhelming desire was to tell her of the deception practiced upon her; but he could not do that, because in exposing himself he must fail in loyalty to the Tracer of Lost Persons. Besides, she would not believe him. She would think him mad if he told her that the old gentleman she had taken for Dr. Atwood was probably Mr. Keen, the Tracer of Lost Persons. Also, he himself was not absolutely certain about it. He had merely deduced as much.