Even now, so soon, there was no question of his success in the law his fitness had elected. The springs of his being were purely intellectual, reasoning. In him Linda saw magnified her own coldness; and, turned on herself, she viewed it with an arbitrary feminine resentment. He was actually courteous to her; but under all their intercourse there was a perceptible impatience. His scorn of other women, girls, however, was openly expressed and honest; it had no trace of the mere affectation of pessimism natural to his age. Arnaud, less thoughtful than she, was vastly entertained by this, and drew Lowrie out in countless sly sallies and contradictions.
Yes, he would succeed, but, after all, what would his success be worth—placed, that was, against Vigné's radiant happiness, Bailey Sandby's quiet eyes and the quality of his return home each evening?
Her thoughts came back to Pleydon—she had before her a New York paper describing the ceremony of unveiling his Simon Downige at Hesperia. There was a long learned article praising its beauty and emphasizing Pleydon's eminence. He was, it proceeded, an anomaly in an age of momentary experimental talents—a humanized Greek force. He didn't belong to to-day but to yesterday and to-morrow. This gave her an uncomfortable vision of Dodge in space, with no warm points of contact. She, too, was suspended in that vague emptiness. Linda had the sensation of grasping at streamers, forms, of sparkling mist. A strange position in view of her undeniable common sense, the solid foundations of her temperament and experience. She saw from the paper, further, that the Downige who had commissioned the monument was dead.
XXXVI
In the middle of the festive period that connected Christmas with the new year Arnaud turned animatedly from his breakfast scanning of the news. “It seems,” he told her, “that a big rumpus has developed in Hesperia over the Pleydon statue—the present Downige omnipotence, never friendly with our old gentleman, has condemned its bronze founder. You know what I mean. It's an insult to their pride, their money and position, to see him perpetuated as a tramp. On the contrary he was a very respectable individual from a prominent family and town.
“They have been moving the local heavens, ever since the monument was placed, to have it set aside. I suppose they would have succeeded, too, if a large amount given to the city were not contingent on its preservation. But then they can always donate more money in the cause of their sacred respectability.”
Linda had never, she exclaimed, heard of anything more disgusting. It was plain that Hesperia knew nothing of art. “Every one,” she ran on in the heat of her resentment, “every one, that is, who should decide, agrees it's magnificent. They were frightfully lucky to get it—Dodge's finest work.” She wrote at once to Pleydon commanding his presence and expressing her contempt of such depravity of opinion. To her surprise he was undisturbed, apparently, by the condemnation of his monument.
He even laughed at her energy of scorn. She was hurt, perceptibly silenced, with a feeling of having been misunderstood or rather undervalued. Her disturbance at any blame attached to the statue of Simon Downige was extremely acute. But, she thought, if it failed to worry Dodge why should she bother. She did, in spite of this philosophy; Simon was tremendously important to her.