It had come! The topmost letter had a foreign stamp, and she recognised
the writing of Laplace.
Heart beating very fast, she started up to her studio. She wanted to be
up there, all by herself, when she read this letter. As she passed Karl's
door she heard Dr. Parkman telling about having punctured a tire on his
machine the night before. Of course then everything really was all right,
or he would not have talked about trivial things like that.
Her fingers fumbled so that she could scarcely open the envelope. And
then she tried to laugh herself out of that, prepare for disappointment.
Why, what in the world did she expect?
As she read the letter her face went very white, her fingers trembled
more and more. Then she had to go back and read it sentence by sentence.
It was too much to take in all at once.
It was not so much that it had been awarded a medal; not so much that a
great London collector--Laplace said he was the most discriminating
collector he knew--wanted to buy it. The overwhelming thing was that the
critics of Paris treated it as something entitled to their very best
consideration.
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