“Well, I don’t know,” I answered. “I should say it was making in.”
“Do you see Marion?”
“Yes, she seems to be taking her bath.”
Again he painted a while before he asked, “Has she had her dip?”
“She’s getting back into her boat.”
“All right,” said Alderling, in a tone of relief. “She’s good to beat any fog in these parts ashore. I wish you would come and look at this a minute.”
I went, and we lost ourselves for a time in our criticism of the picture. He was harder on it than I was. He allowed, _"C’est un bon portrait_, as the French used to say of a faithful landscape, though I believe now the portrait can’t be too good for them. I can’t say about landscape. But in a Madonna I feel that there can be too much Marion, not for me, of course, but for the ideal, which I suppose we are bound to respect. Marion is not spiritual, but I would not have her less of the earth earthy, for all the angels that ever spread themselves ‘in strong level flight.’”
I recognized the words from “The Blessed Damozel,” and I made bold to be so personal as to say, “If her hair were a little redder than ‘the color of ripe corn’ one might almost feel that the Blessed Damozel had been painted from Mrs. Alderling. It’s the lingering earthiness in her that makes the Damozel so divine.”
“Yes, that was a great conception. I wonder none of the fellows do that kind of thing now.”
I laughed and said, “Well, so few of them have had the advantage of seeing Mrs. Alderling. And besides, Rosettis don’t happen every day.”