"Well, I haven't settled yet. I have thought of 'Westward the Star of Empire,' but that's rather long; and I've thought of 'American Enterprise.' I ain't in any hurry to name it. You like it, do you?"
"I like it immensely!" cried Elmore. "You must let me bring the ladies to see it."
"Well, not just yet," said the sculptor, in some confusion. "I want to get it a little further along first."
They stood looking together at the figure; and when Elmore went away he puzzled himself about something in it,—he could not tell exactly what. He thought he had seen that face and figure before, but this is what often occurs to the connoisseur of modern sculpture. His mind heavily reverted to Lily and her suitors. Take her in one way, especially in her subordination to himself, the girl was as simply a child as any in the world,—good-hearted, tender, and sweet, and, as he could see, without tendency to flirtation. Take her in another way, confront her with a young and marriageable man, and Elmore greatly feared that she unconsciously set all her beauty and grace at work to charm him; another life seemed to inform her, and irradiate from her, apart from which she existed simple and childlike still. In the security of his own deposited affections, it appeared to him cruelly absurd that a passion which any other pretty girl might, and some other pretty girl in time must, have kindled, should cling, when once awakened, so inalienably to the pretty girl who had, in a million chances, chanced to awaken it. He wondered how much of this constancy was natural, and how much merely attributive and traditional, and whether human happiness or misery were increased by it on the whole.
IX.
In the respite which followed the dismissal of Andersen, the English painter, Rose-Black, visited the Elmores as often as the servant, who had orders in his case to say that they were impediti, failed of her duty. They could not always escape him at the caffè, and they would have left off dining at the hotel but for the shame of feeling that he had driven them away. If he had been an Englishman repelling their advances, instead of an Englishman pursuing them, he could not have been more offensive. He affronted their national as well as personal self-esteem; he early declared himself a sympathizer with the Southrons (as the London press then called them), and he expressed the current belief of his compatriots, that we were going to the dogs.
"What do you really make of him, Owen?" asked Mrs. Elmore, after an evening that, in its improbable discomfort, had passed quite like a nightmare.
"Well, I've been thinking a good deal about him. I have been wondering if, in his phenomenal way, he is not a final expression of the national genius,—the stupid contempt for the rights of others; the tacit denial of the rights of any people who are at English mercy; the assumption that the courtesies and decencies of life are for use exclusively towards Englishmen."
This was in that embittered old war-time: we have since learned how forbearing and generous and amiable Englishmen are; how they never take advantage of any one they believe stronger than themselves, or fail in consideration for those they imagine their superiors; how you have but to show yourself successful in order to win their respect, and even affection.