"Her figures are extremely lifelike. Just imagine, a thing cast in dead bronze to have all the reality of life so that you would almost expect it to move."
"She must be a highly-gifted young lady."
"You will scarcely credit it, my dear sir, but she is only nineteen—on my word of honour," said Archibald with growing enthusiasm. "Only the other day she sold two of her things for twenty-five pounds apiece. Twenty-five pounds apiece!" he repeated slowly, as if that represented to him a gigantic amount. "The examples are to be strictly limited to sixty of each, after which the moulds are to be destroyed. They are both magnificent pieces of work. Why, you fancy you almost hear Chiron's voice and the twanging of his harp."
"Indeed," said the military person.
"She is perfectly sweet and beautiful as well as clever," went on Archibald. "Now my dog of a boy, between ourselves—ha! ha! ha!——"
"He's a bit smitten?" suggested the military person.
Archibald laughed gleefully. "And I fancy that a certain clever young lady of nineteen who knows how to model is also a bit smitten. Only my boy doesn't seem to come to the point. But then he's a poet."
"A what?" inquired the military person, startled.
"A poet," stoutly repeated Archibald. "And a very great poet, I venture to assert, he will be one of these fine days. Naturally he is not a man of action—he is a dreamer. But when I wanted Kate I wasn't satisfied just to go on dreaming about her—ha! ha! Now if my boy would only stop dreaming and just get married instead, I'd settle as much on them as ever they'd want. You see, a genius like my son," he went on, lowering his voice almost to a whisper, "must be exempt from the sordid cares of money-earning, and my eminent friend, though his position in life is an extremely honourable one, is not a man of means. He may have put by a bit out of his hard-earned income, but, as I always say to him, he wants that against a rainy day. But it's no use my talking to him—he will keep on worrying about his girls having no fortunes. 'And suppose they don't marry,' says he; and I have positively to laugh him into a more cheerful mood. 'Don't be a fool, John,' I say to him, 'those two girls are worth all the fortunes in the world, and the man who didn't think as much wouldn't be worth marrying.'"
"Your views are extremely generous," said the military person. "They do you credit."