“Chuck” was at her side watching seriously. He plied her with questions, eager to imitate and, boy-like, quite confident he could do as well.
“You must have known Gorgas for a long time,” Blynn began. “That work of hers is really wonderful. How did you find her?”
Bardek squatted on the ground, produced a file, and began to smooth off bits of sheet silver. He glanced up at Blynn through crinkling eyes.
“You look so stupid,” Bardek threw back his head; “and it is right. You do not know yet how much it is I know. You do it well, the look of the fool. Good! Gorgas has taken you for a friend. It is well that you play fool for her, speak for her, be dumb for her and if it need, lie for her, make ‘whoppers,’ as she calls t’em, for her. I like you for that, my friend.
“You would know how she came? Well, she jus’—came. Three year ago she ride by on ‘Gyp’ and I say ‘H’lo, missy,’ and she say, ‘What are you doing?’ and I say ‘I make beauty’ and show her something, a small vase, all of gold and copper. Her eye grow big, so! and she draw back and say, ‘Are you a gypsy?’ and I say, ‘Non! non! non! T’ousand times non! I am a Bohemian.’ And she get off her horse, tie him to a tree and say, ‘Then may I come with you and will you show me how to make beauty?’
“Zat is all, my friend, and she have been making beauty all the time. She herself makes beauty,” he looked back at her tenderly, “wherever she go. She is always serious, always in great thinking. Zey are ze most beautiful children, the quiet ones. Gigglers? Bah! Comics? Zey are ordinairy. Her eyes they always look at you like they were so old! Elle est très sympathique, my good friend.
“She learn—ah, how she learn!—vite! Comme ça!” he snapped his fingers. “She take languages like the singing sparrow drinks at spring water. She would be Bohemian perhaps; her grandfather or grandmother—who knows? In America everybody must come from Europe! See her brown face and black hair? Ah! that is often seen in my country. It is oriental.”
He stopped talking to gaze at her at work.
Blynn took the chance to tell of many things. He sketched in the mother and the Levering household. He told of schools and all the business of bringing up young girls to be gay, delicate do-nothings until some man should be attracted by their frailty and marry them.
Bardek exploded many times. His theories of education for girls were not the prevailing ones in America. Everybody should learn to work, he believed. The highest trade of all is that of a maker of beauty. Those few who can, should have material, tools and infinite leisure. They were the only aristocrats; and among them there should be no fakirs. The university doctor may be a fool; he usually is a fool, averred Bardek; but no one cares; he can do little harm. But with things of beauty there should be no such trifling. Learning was no great matter; no scholar has learning enough to reconstruct the broken wing of a beetle; the world wags very well when learning is asleep. But beauty is important; one must choose ever between beauty and death.