Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/153

 Angelo," said Madame Grandoni. "Perhaps you don't approve of him."

"Ah, why drag him in?" the young man reminiscently cried; at which they were none of them too stale of spirit to laugh. He had done, after all, some fine things.

Rowland had bidden one of the servants bring him a small portfolio of prints and had taken out a photograph of Roderick's little statue of the drinking youth. It pleased him to see his friend sitting there in radiant ardour, defending idealism against so knowing an apostle of the sophisticated, and he wished to help Gloriani to be confuted. He silently handed him the photograph.

"Bless me!" cried his guest. "Did he go and do this?"

"Oh, ages ago," said Roderick.

Gloriani looked at the photograph a long time and with evident admiration. "It's deucedly pretty," he declared at last. "But, my dear young friend, it 's a kind of thing you positively can't keep up, you know."

"I shall do better," said Roderick.

"You 'll do worse. You 'll do it on purpose. This thing was n't done on purpose. It could n't have been. You 'll have at any rate to take to violence, to contortions, to romanticism, in self-defence. Your beauty, as you call it, is the effort of a man to quit the earth by flapping his arms very hard. He may jump about or stand on tiptoe, but he can't do more. Here you jump about very gracefully, I admit; but you can't fly; there 's no use trying." 119