She sighed heavily, showing how much she felt the loss of Tim’s soul. Then she turned to me with one of those bright smiles, one of those charmingly bright smiles, which are the greatest achievements of serious women. Very religious women, women with artists’ souls and the intenser suffragists have these bright smiles. They work them up, I suppose, so as to show that they can be as cheerful as any one else when they choose to try.
“Come and see what I’m doing now,” she said.
I looked very carefully at the man’s figure in front of her.
“This,” she said, “is manhood, virility, energy, simple strength, directness, all that this poor neurotic world is yearning for, the primal force, uncomplex, untroubled, just the exultation of the delight of being.”
“It reminds me faintly of some one,” I said, “the head and face, I mean; but I can’t quite fix the likeness.”
She clapped her hands with delight.
“You see it,” she said, “I am so glad. It’s not meant to be a mere likeness. I need not tell you that. Still I’m glad you see that it resembles him. I am working to express his soul, the mere features, the limbs, are nothing. The being which burns within, that is what I am trying to express. But the fact that you see the external likeness makes me feel more sure that my interpretation of the physical features is the right one.”
“Surely,” I said, “it’s not Gorman, the other Gorman, the elder Gorman, Michael!”
“Yes,” she said.
“Has he been sitting for you?” I asked.