Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/202

 should find out I was wrong, and that would irritate me and make me dislike you more. So you see we're necessarily enemies."

"No, I don't at all object to you."

"Worse and worse; for you certainly will never get any good of me."

"You're very discouraging then."

"I'm fond of facing the truth, though some day you'll deny even that. Where's the young man of genius?" she pursued—"whom I'm not, in spite of my mother, in love with!"

"You mean my friend Hudson? He 's represented by these beautiful works."

Miss Light looked for some moments at the objects in question. "Yes," she said, "they 're not so silly as most of the things we've seen. They've no beastly chic, and yet they 're beautiful."

"You describe them perfectly," said Rowland. "They're beautiful, and yet they 've no beastly chic. That 's it!"

"If he'll promise to put no beastly chic into my bust I 've a mind to let him make it. A request made in those terms deserves to be granted."

"In what terms?"

"Didn't you hear him? 'Mademoiselle, you almost come up to one of my dreams. I must model your bust.' That almost should be rewarded! He's like me, he likes to face the truth. No, I'm not in love with him, but I think we should get on together."

The Cavaliere approached Rowland to express the pleasure he had derived from his splendid collection. His smile was exquisitely bland, his attitude seemed 168