'No, dear. You are very just. But you are more drawn to him.'
'Yes—strangely more—and for something in him which no one sees. It is his likeness to you, I think.'
'Together with a certain feminility.'
Giovanni did not speak contemptuously, but he had always resented Ippolito's gentle grace a little. He himself and his other three sons had the strongly masculine temperament of the Saracinesca family. He often thought that Ippolito should have been a girl.
'Do not say that, Giovanni,' answered his wife. 'He is not rugged, but he is strong-hearted. The artistic temperament has a certain feminine quality on the surface, by which it feels; but the crude creative force by which it acts is purely masculine.'
'That sounds clever,' laughed Giovanni.
'Well, there is dear old Guache, whom we have known all our lives. He is an instance. You used to think he had a certain feminility, too.'
'So he had.'
'But he fought like a man at Mentana; and he thinks like a man, and he certainly paints like a man.'