Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/380

 of the Braccio Nuovo, she made the only spontaneous allusion to her plighted faith that had yet fallen from her lips. "I 'm so glad that Roderick 's a sculptor—like the man who did that. Glad, I mean, that he 's not a painter." And then when Row land had asked her the reason of her gladness: "It 's not that painting 's not fine, but that sculpture 's so much finer. It 's work for men!"

Rowland tried at times to make her talk about herself, but in this she had little skill. Since she thus struck him as older, as much older, more pliant to social uses than when he had seen her at home, he wished to make her tell him how her interval had been occupied. He had begun by exaggerating to her, even, the degree in which he found her different. "It appears then," she said, "that, after all, one can grow even in our hard air."

"Unquestionably. You may there, by taking thought, add the famous cubit. But you must take a great deal of thought. Your growth then," he went on, "was unconscious? You didn't watch yourself and water your roots?"

She paid no heed to his question. "I 'm willing to grant," she said, "that Europe's richer than I supposed; and I don't admit that I had thought of it stupidly. But you must admit that America has a drop for the thirsty."

"I have not a fault to find with the country that produced you."

"It produced me without a strain of its resources. And yet you want me to change," she said: "to assimilate Europe, I suppose you 'd call it." 346