We cannot accredit M. Linders with any profound
penetration, or with any subtle perception of what was working
in his little daughter's mind, but with the most far-reaching
wisdom he could hardly have devised better means, at this
crisis in her life, for maintaining his old hold upon her, and
keeping up the sense of sympathy between them, which had in
one instance been disturbed and endangered.
She was just beginning to be conscious of the existence of a
new and glorious world, where money-making was, on the whole,
in abeyance, and roulette-tables and croupiers had apparently
no existence at all; and the sight of her father at his easel
day after day, at once connected him with it, as it were,
since he also could produce pictures--_tout comme un autre_. Then
M. Linders could talk well on most subjects, and in the
discussions that the two men would not unfrequently hold
concerning pictures, Madelon was too young, and had too strong
a conviction of her father's perfect wisdom, to discern
between his mere clever knowledge of art and the American's
pure love and enthusiasm; or if, with some instinctive sense
of the difference, she turned more readily to the latter for
information, that was because it was his _metier;_ whereas with
papa----Oh! with papa it was only an amusement; his business was
of quite another kind.
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