The soup arriving just then, Wilbur had his chance.
“That’s so, Mrs. Anthon. But I suppose they are after something. Erard seems a clever fellow; he believes in himself hard enough, and that’s the way to get there. I must say, though, that I have never found a young fellow who got much permanent improvement out of this foreign business. That wasn’t the way with our fathers, or with our high-class literary men to-day. They made their way first and came over here later on to polish off. Isn’t that about so, Mr. Anthon?”
Sebastian Anthon made no reply. He was watching two young fellows seated on the leather couch near the window. They were gesticulating and pounding the table, emitting dynamic words,—la loi, morale, vrais enthousiasmes.
“Mr. Erard is quite the most interesting man I have ever met,” Miss Anthon pronounced dogmatically, irritated by the bearish atmosphere. “I can’t quite see why we Americans, who are always whooping for success, and pardon everything if it only leads to our ends, should have so many doubts about that same selfishness when used for other things than getting dollars or going into politics. We are dreadfully moral as soon as it comes to art or to anything that doesn’t give a bank account. If I were a man without a cent, I would do precisely what Mr. Erard has done—make the world support me.”
“Live on charity?” Wilbur exclaimed sharply.
“The eternal discussion,” Walter Anthon put in, as if bored. Hitherto he had confined himself to ordering and testing his dinner.
“Yes, why not?” Miss Anthon continued pugnaciously. “If I gave them something back in return, some new sensations or ideas. Don’t you agree with me, Uncle Seb?”
Sebastian Anthon had been sipping his wine meditatively, ignoring alike the food and the talk. “I was thinking,” he said tranquilly, “that just thirty-eight years ago last June, I took my last dinner in Paris over there where those fellows are sitting. It’s changed since then,—I mean the world.” This reflection appeased the argumentative temper, and talk died out.
“I am going to hear Yvette Guilbert,” at last announced young Anthon, with something of a swagger. “Will you go, Wilbur?”
Wilbur responded by a conscious smile and then glanced at the others. “What would the ladies say?”