"I had nothing to say—from the spiritual side," he answered, coolly. "Miss Bergan exhausted that; besides, it is not in my line. But, if you are pleased to desire my sort of criticism, here it is. That arm is too long, and that clavicle is not sufficiently raised, and this muscle is too flat. For the rest," he added, after a slight pause, "it is a sufficiently ambitious work."
There was a touch of mockery in his tone which did not escape the sensitive ear of his listener. "You think it too ambitious, perhaps," she said, quietly, yet not without a keen glance at his face.
He gave the clay figure another comprehensive look; then he turned to Astra with a gentler expression than she had seen in his eyes for many days past.
"Poor child!" said he, pityingly, "what disadvantages your genius has to labor under, in this little, remote town, where you never see a work of art, nor an artist, from month's end to month's end! Why do you not go—for awhile, at least—where you can find something for your genius to feed upon? It is a law of life that there can be no good growth without proper food."
"You know," replied Astra, very gravely, "that I cannot leave my home and my mother."
"Then," returned Doctor Remy, with equal gravity, "it would be a kindly blast—though it might not seem so, at first—that should blow you all to some point where your genius could find fuller and freer development. If such an one should ever come to you, I hope you will be able to regard it as—what Miss Bergan would doubtless call a providence."
Carice was looking towards them, now; and his last words were spoken with a smiling glance that was apparently meant to draw her into the conversation.
"And what would Doctor Remy call it?" she asked, but without any answering smile.
"Doctor Remy does not concern himself about names, but things," he replied, pleasantly.
"Things answer to names," she rejoined, quickly; "and if Doctor Remy to call a providence a chance, for instance, let him not wonder if it prove a chance—to him."