"No," he replied, settling in his chair. "It wouldn't be worth it."
"We don't often find a man who could do it," I said.
"That's because they lack balance. The mistake artists and literary people make is, they think that because a thing is priceless, we can't do without it. I think it's a mistake. Someone pays half-a-million dollars for a Turner, say. Well, even if it was burnt up, lost overboard, what of it? It can be done again."
"Do you think so?" I asked. I was glad Mac did not hear this.
"Certainly!" replied Mr. Carville. "Everything's been done, which is a sound argument for supposing it can be done again. There's plenty of men doing much better than they did in olden times. I can't see much sense in the theory that because a picture is old it's a masterpiece, and because it's new it's junk. We ought to take longer views. How do we know what the youngsters are going to do?"
"That indeed is on the knees of the gods," I said as I put the Heine back on the shelf. I looked at my watch.
"I must be off to Pleasant Plains," I said. "If you are not going out at once, I should like to return in the afternoon; but I must run now."
"I expect we'll be bunkered and out by tea-time," he said, rising. "Still, some other time.... We're not away very long, month or so...."
He followed me to the gangway and I bade him farewell and bon-voyage. He had donned a double-breasted coat with brass buttons and a cap with a badge and gold cord on it. The effect on my mind was somewhat disquieting. He seemed to have vanished behind an official mask, a mask whose sympathy with and knowledge of me was inexpressibly remote. I looked back as I crossed over towards the ferry, and saw him in deep conversation with the Chief Officer.
It was between four and five when I boarded the Staten Island ferry once more. The wind had gone down with the sun, whose red globe flung long bars of ruddy gold athwart the still water. I took my stand on the upper deck. Once again I looked across the bay and beheld that wonderful vision of New York floating above a blue haze, a mass of glittering pinnacles and rose-pink walls flaunting snowy pennants of white vapour, and looped to the sombre vagueness of Brooklyn by the long catenary curves of the suspension bridges. As the steamer started I walked aft, that I might not see the dissolution of the phantasy. It may be a weakness; but there is to me, mingled with all perception of beauty, a feeling akin to pain. Often I have envied those more robust souls who can gaze with unfaltering eyes at the beauty of this world, and feel no pang. I am not so. I was absorbed in this thought when I saw a steamer with two red funnels coming round from the Kills. At the masthead blew a flag with a blue eagle. As she came across our track I saw that she was the Raritan. On the poop-deck was a familiar figure, short, rotund and blue. I stepped to the end of the deck and waved my hand. Mr. Carville was walking back and forth, hands in pockets, his corn-cob pipe in his mouth. He paused and caught my signal, answering heartily. As the distance between us increased he resumed his promenade, and the Raritan, threading the Narrows, dwindled to a dark blot surmounted by a patch of vivid red. Once again I turned northwards, and the swift dusk of evening was falling. The sun had dropped behind the Jersey hills, and uprising behind Manhattan was a grey mist and a steely sky, ominous of snow.