After short visits to one and another of the many works of art in the studio, their attention concentrated itself on a faun without arms. It stood laughing at them. They talked about this fragment of antique sculpture merely that there might not be silence. Where had it been found? To what age did it belong? It must surely have been an animal. They spoke in subdued tones, with caressing voices, and unsteady eyes. Nor were their feet steadier. They felt themselves lighter than before, as if they were in higher air. And it seemed to them as if their thoughts lay bare, and they themselves were transparent.
Presently Alice joined them again. She looked at them with eyes that awoke both. "Have you done with marriage now?" she asked. It was about marriage they had been talking when she left them.
Mary remembered that she had an errand, and that her carriage was waiting. Frans Röy also remembered what he ought to be doing. They went off together, across the court and through the outer gate, to her carriage. But they could not strike the same tone as before, so they did not speak.
Hat in hand, Frans opened the carriage-door. Mary got in without raising her eyes. When, after seating herself, she turned to bow, the strongest eyes she had ever looked into were waiting for her—full of passion and reverence.
Two hours later Frans was with Alice again. He could not remain longer alone with his heaven-storming hopes.
Where had he been in the interval? In town, buying a cast of Donatello's St. Cecilia. He had been obliged to compare. But Alice of course knew, he said, how wretchedly inferior Donatello's Cecilia was.
Alice began to be seriously alarmed. "My dear friend, you will spoil everything for yourself. It is in your nature."
He answered proudly: "Never yet have I seriously set myself an aim which I have not accomplished."
"I quite believe that. You can work, you can overcome difficulties, and you can also wait."
"I can."