"Do not ask me. I will take nothing more from you, Graham,--I cannot,--not even a piece of bread, until--"
"Well, if you are so obstinate, farewell to you. I must hurry or I shall miss my train."
The two men shook hands the sculptor turning into a dingy restaurant, the artist walking rapidly in the direction of the railroad station. Arthur Northcote made a light repast,--for he was poorer than usual that day,--and soon returned to his studio, whose rental was defrayed by his friend's slender purse.
Graham caught his train, and reached San Rosario at about three o'clock. He found his horse at the station, and rode toward the house. At a distant point he caught a glimpse of two figures on the piazza, which he recognized as those of Miss Almsford and Hal Deering, who were talking together, quite unconscious of his approach.
"So you like Graham?" Henry Deering was the speaker.
"Of course I like him. I told you I should, from the moment you described his queer tower and his solitary life to me. I always like people who have something to characterize them and set them apart from the mere dead-level rank and file of mediocrity," answered Millicent.
"But may not a hermit like Graham be mediocre like everybody else?"
"No, the fact of his living alone does not make him interesting; but he would not live alone if he were like everybody else. Ordinary people all herd together."
"You must find all of us very ordinary people, I should think, after the people you have lived among,--romantic Italians and that sort?"
"But Italians are by no means all interesting. The great charm about them is that they are usually a happy people, and that it does not take so much to make them contented as it does you more complex Americans."