"This is a new and interesting view," said Mr.Striker, with an assumption of judicial calmness."We have had hopes for Mr.Roderick, but I confess, if I have rightly understood them, they stopped short of greatness.
We should n't have taken the responsibility of claiming it for him.
What do you say, ladies? We all feel about him here--his mother, Miss Garland, and myself--as if his merits were rather in the line of the"--and Mr.Striker waved his hand with a series of fantastic flourishes in the air--"of the light ornamental!" Mr.Striker bore his recalcitrant pupil a grudge, but he was evidently trying both to be fair and to respect the susceptibilities of his companions.
But he was unversed in the mysterious processes of feminine emotion.
Ten minutes before, there had been a general harmony of sombre views;but on hearing Roderick's limitations thus distinctly formulated to a stranger, the two ladies mutely protested.Mrs.Hudson uttered a short, faint sigh, and Miss Garland raised her eyes toward their advocate and visited him with a short, cold glance.
"I 'm afraid, Mrs.Hudson," Rowland pursued, evading the discussion of Roderick's possible greatness, "that you don't at all thank me for stirring up your son's ambition on a line which leads him so far from home.
I suspect I have made you my enemy."
Mrs.Hudson covered her mouth with her finger-tips and looked painfully perplexed between the desire to confess the truth and the fear of being impolite."My cousin is no one's enemy,"Miss Garland hereupon declared, gently, but with that same fine deliberateness with which she had made Rowland relax his grasp of the chair.
"Does she leave that to you?" Rowland ventured to ask, with a smile.
"We are inspired with none but Christian sentiments,"said Mr.Striker; "Miss Garland perhaps most of all.Miss Garland,"and Mr.Striker waved his hand again as if to perform an introduction which had been regrettably omitted, "is the daughter of a minister, the granddaughter of a minister, the sister of a minister."Rowland bowed deferentially, and the young girl went on with her sewing, with nothing, apparently, either of embarrassment or elation at the promulgation of these facts.Mr.Striker continued:
"Mrs.Hudson, I see, is too deeply agitated to converse with you freely.She will allow me to address you a few questions.
Would you kindly inform her, as exactly as possible, just what you propose to do with her son?"The poor lady fixed her eyes appealingly on Rowland's face and seemed to say that Mr.Striker had spoken her desire, though she herself would have expressed it less defiantly.
But Rowland saw in Mr.Striker's many-wrinkled light blue eye, shrewd at once and good-natured, that he had no intention of defiance, and that he was simply pompous and conceited and sarcastically compassionate of any view of things in which Roderick Hudson was regarded in a serious light.
"Do, my dear madam?" demanded Rowland."I don't propose to do anything.
He must do for himself.I simply offer him the chance.He 's to study, to work--hard, I hope.""Not too hard, please," murmured Mrs.Hudson, pleadingly, wheeling about from recent visions of dangerous leisure.
"He 's not very strong, and I 'm afraid the climate of Europe is very relaxing.""Ah, study?" repeated Mr.Striker."To what line of study is he to direct his attention?" Then suddenly, with an impulse of disinterested curiosity on his own account, "How do you study sculpture, anyhow?""By looking at models and imitating them.""At models, eh? To what kind of models do you refer?""To the antique, in the first place."
"Ah, the antique," repeated Mr.Striker, with a jocose intonation.
"Do you hear, madam? Roderick is going off to Europe to learn to imitate the antique.""I suppose it 's all right," said Mrs.Hudson, twisting herself in a sort of delicate anguish.
"An antique, as I understand it," the lawyer continued, "is an image of a pagan deity, with considerable dirt sticking to it, and no arms, no nose, and no clothing.
A precious model, certainly!"
"That 's a very good description of many," said Rowland, with a laugh.
"Mercy! Truly?" asked Mrs.Hudson, borrowing courage from his urbanity.
"But a sculptor's studies, you intimate, are not confined to the antique,"Mr.Striker resumed."After he has been looking three or four years at the objects I describe"--"He studies the living model," said Rowland.
"Does it take three or four years?" asked Mrs.Hudson, imploringly.
"That depends upon the artist's aptitude.After twenty years a real artist is still studying.""Oh, my poor boy!" moaned Mrs.Hudson, finding the prospect, under every light, still terrible.
"Now this study of the living model," Mr.Striker pursued.
"Inform Mrs.Hudson about that."
"Oh dear, no!" cried Mrs.Hudson, shrinkingly.
"That too," said Rowland, "is one of the reasons for studying in Rome.
It 's a handsome race, you know, and you find very well-made people.""I suppose they 're no better made than a good tough Yankee,"objected Mr.Striker, transposing his interminable legs.
"The same God made us."
"Surely," sighed Mrs.Hudson, but with a questioning glance at her visitor which showed that she had already begun to concede much weight to his opinion.Rowland hastened to express his assent to Mr.Striker's proposition.
Miss Garland looked up, and, after a moment's hesitation:
"Are the Roman women very beautiful?" she asked.
Rowland too, in answering, hesitated; he was looking straight at the young girl."On the whole, I prefer ours," he said.
She had dropped her work in her lap; her hands were crossed upon it, her head thrown a little back.She had evidently expected a more impersonal answer, and she was dissatisfied.
For an instant she seemed inclined to make a rejoinder, but she slowly picked up her work in silence and drew her stitches again.