The Younger relented a little.
“Of course I cannot read the secrets of Susannah’s heart. For all I know you may be enshrined within its inmost recess. I only tell you that the pendant, by itself, means nothing.”
The Elder looked lost.
“Do I accomplish nothing, then, by what I have done?”
“Only,” improvised the Younger briskly, “by following it up. A pendant is very well, but it is not enough. You see, in America anybody might give her a pendant—the plumber, the ice-man, the under-taker. You must do more. You must offer solid proofs of your state of heart. You must find out what Susannah wants. If it is something which can be made to order, into which you can put something of yourself, all the better. Then she will know that you are in earnest, and will act accordingly.”
The Elder took it seriously—not in a pique, but as under the enlarging influence of new ideas.
“I have heard her speak of something,” he uttered slowly, interrogatively.
“What was it?”
“Do you remember those door knockers at Palazzo Testadura? Bronze? By Benvenuto Cellini?”
“The Neptune, you mean?”