“He traveled part way in a Conestoga wagon—a flight out of Egypt; they were common then, slow canvas-covered processions with entire families drawn by the mysterious magnetism of the West. Then, leaving even such wayfarers, he walked, alone, until he came on a meadow by a little river and a grove of trees, probably cottonwoods.... That was Simon Downige, and that, too, was Hesperia. Yes, he was unbalanced—the old Greek name for beautiful lands. It is a city now, successful and corruptly administered—what always happens to such visions.
“It is necessary, Linda, as I've always told you, to understand the whole motive behind a creation in permanent form. A son of Simon's—yes, he finally married—a unique and very rich character, wife dead and no children, commissioned a monument to the founder of Hesperia, in Ohio, and of his fortune.
“They even have a civic body for the control of public building; and they came East to approve my statue, or rather the clay sketch for it. They were very solemn, and one, himself a sculptor, a graduate of the Beaux Arts, ran a suggestive thumb over Simon and did incredible damage. But, after a great deal of hesitation, and a description from the sculptor of what he thought excellently appropriate for such magnificence, they accepted my study. The present Downige, really—though I understand there is another pretentious branch in Hesperia—bullied them into it. He cursed the Beaux-Arts graduate with the most brutal and satisfactory freedom—the tyranny of his money; the crown, you see, of Simon's hope.”
He unwrapped one by one the wet cloths; and Linda, in an eagerness sharp like anxiety, finally saw the statue, under life-size, of a seated man with a rough stick and bundle at his feet. A limp hat was in his hand, and, beneath a brow to which the hair was plastered by sweat, his eyes gazed fixed and aspiring into a hidden dream perfectly created by his desire. Here, she realized at last, she had a glimmer of the beauty, the creative force, that animated Dodge Pleydon. Simon Downige's shoes were clogged with mud, his entire body, she felt, ached with weariness; but his gaze—nothing Linda discovered but shadows over two depressions—was far away in the attainment of his place of justice and truth.
She found a stool and, careless of the film of dust, sat absorbed in the figure. Pleydon again had lost all consciousness of their presence; he stood, hands in pockets, his left foot slightly advanced, looking at his work from under drawn brows. Arnaud spoke first:
“It's impertinent to congratulate you, Pleydon. You know what you've done better than any one else could. You have all our admiration.” Linda watched the tenderness with which the other covered Simon Downige's vision in clay. Later, returning home after dinner, Arnaud speculated about Pleydon's remarkable increase in power. “I had given him up,” he went on; “I thought he was lost in those notorious debauches of esthetic emotions. Does he still speak of loving you?”
“Yes,” Linda replied. “Are you annoyed by it?” He answered, “What good if I were?” She considered him, turned in his chair to face her, thoughtfully. “I haven't the slightest doubt of its quality, however—all in that Hesperia of old Downige's. To love you, my dear Linda, has certain well-defined resemblances to a calamity. If you ask me if I object to what you do give him, my answer must shock the gods of art. I would rather you didn't.”
“What is it, Arnaud?” she demanded. “I haven't the slightest idea. I wish I had.”
“Platonic,” he told her shortly. “The term has been hopelessly ruined, yet the sense, the truth, I am forced to believe, remains.”
“But you know how stupid I am and that I can't understand you.”