“I don’t know. He looks like a foreigner.” Then he added, with more interest, “But isn’t he a beauty!”
“Yes, his features are good.”
“He is an Oriental of some sort, and doesn’t quite harmonize with a claw-hammer coat. He should wear an emerald-green nightcap with a ruby in the centre, about the size of a hen’s egg, a yellow dressing-gown and white satin trousers, all copiously sprinkled with diamonds.”
She smiled. “Yes, and he might be interesting if he were not quite so handsome; but here he comes!”
The youth in question, as he came down the room and passed them, seemed to be having a jolly time with his companion and he failed to notice the two people who were discussing him. It was a boyish face notwithstanding the regular features and square jaw, and at the present moment it wore a smile that betrayed the most intense amusement. When he was well out of hearing, the sculptor exclaimed: “He is the most artistic thing I ever saw! The lines of his eyes and nose are superb! And what a chin! I should like to own him!”
“You couldn’t eat him.”
“No, but I could put him on exhibition at five dollars a ticket. Every girl in New York would be there; you among them.”
Miss Cabot appeared to consider. “I am not so sure. He probably is much less interesting than he looks. Handsome males over three years of age are the deadliest bores in life; sculptors of course excepted.”
“It does seem to be a kind of prosperity the human male is unable to support without impairment.” Then addressing a blasé young man lounging wearily by:
“Horace, do you know who that is talking with Miss Bancroft?”