"Now will you come to the studio and see it for yourself, father? Of course it's lumpy and out of line in many ways yet, but Howell says that I can do it over and over until it is right, and then, perhaps, you'd have it cut in marble, not because it's good, but because it's the first and I love it so."
Hand in hand father and son crossed the garden, the maids and men-servants peeping from their various windows in amazement until the pair disappeared within the studio door.
"There she is, father. Do you think it is like her?" Philip asked eagerly, pulling the wet cloth from the bust, for every day he saw the need of an added touch here and there.
John Angus had seated himself in a high-backed, carved chair and was gazing at the bust with fierce intensity; whenever he turned his eyes away, it was to see its lineaments in the crude attempts that filled every nook in the long room.
"Like? who is it?" he finally managed to say in well-feigned ignorance.
"Ah, then it can't be, if you do not know, for you saw her singing with me at the church half an hour ago. It is Poppea Gilbert from the post-office house. I suppose it was foolish of me to try to make her as lovely as she really is, though Howell sees the likeness, and yet you did not know."
"Lovely! Know!" John Angus half shouted, jumping to his feet and going toward Philip with an almost threatening gesture. "Do you know who this woman is, this adventuress? She was a waif left on Oliver Gilbert's doorstep; he took her in and bred her up, what for no one knows, unless to harry me; he who with his paltry four acres of ground and his damnable Yankee independence has been the only man who has dared to balk me with success. But now his time has come."
"I only wish she had been left on our doorstep; how different everything might have been," said Philip, who in a moment seemed to have gained bodily height through the sudden development of spirit.
"Yes, so do I!" shrieked John Angus, "and, as you say, everything would have been different, for I should have sent her to the almhouse!
"What do you know of those she came from? Tell me that. What do you know?" continued the man, lashed to frenzy.