he two sculptors pursued their discussion after dinner, in the
drawing-room. Rowland left them to have it out in a corner, where
Roderick's Eve stood over them in the shaded lamplight, in vague white
beauty, like the guardian angel of the young idealist. Singleton was
listening to Madame Grandoni, and Rowland took his place on the sofa,
near Miss Blanchard. They had a good deal of familiar, desultory talk.
Every now and then Madame Grandoni looked round at them. Miss Blanchard
at last asked Rowland certain questions about Roderick: who he was,
where he came from, whether it was true, as she had heard, that Rowland
had discovered him and brought him out at his own expense. Rowland
answered her questions; to the last he gave a vague affirmative.
Finally, after a pause, looking at him, "You 're very generous," Miss
Blanchard said. The declaration was made with a certain richness of
tone, but it brought to Rowland's sense neither delight nor confusion.
He had heard the words before; he suddenly remembered the grave
sincerity with which Miss Garland had uttered them as he strolled with
her in the woods the day of Roderick's picnic. They had pleased him
then; now he asked Miss Blanchard whether she would have some tea.

When the two ladies withdrew, he attended them to their carriage. Coming
back to the drawing-room, he paused outside the open door; he was
struck by the group formed by the three men. They were standing before
Roderick's statue of Eve, and the young sculptor had lifted up the lamp
and was showing different parts of it to his companions. He was talking
ardently, and the lamplight covered his head and face. Rowland stood
looking on, for the group struck him with its picturesque symbolism.
Roderick, bearing the lamp and glowing in its radiant circle, seemed
the beautiful image of a genius which combined sincerity with power.
Gloriani, with his head on one side, pulling his long moustache and
looking keenly from half-closed eyes at the lighted marble, represented
art with a worldly motive, skill unleavened by faith, the mere base
maximum of cleverness. Poor little Singleton, on the other side, with
his hands behind him, his head thrown back, and his eyes following
devoutly the course of Roderick's elucidation, might pass for an
embodiment of aspiring candor, with feeble wings to rise on. In all
this, Roderick's was certainly the beau role.

Gloriani turned to Rowland as he came up, and pointed back with his
thumb