"Is that so, Professor?" said Hoskins, blushing modestly, as an artist often must in these days of creative criticism. He seemed to reflect awhile before he added, "Well, I reckon you're partly right. If we ever did go to smash, it would take us a whole generation to find it out. We have all been raised to put so much dependence on Uncle Sam, that if the old gentleman really did pass in his checks we should only think he was lying low for a new deal. I never happened to think it out before, but I'm pretty sure it's so."
"Your work wouldn't be worth half so much to me if you had 'thought it out,'" said Elmore. "It's the unconsciousness of the faith that makes its chief value, as I said before; and there is another thing about it that interests and pleases me still more."
"The instinctive way in which you have given the figure an entirely American quality. There was something very familiar to me in it, the first time you showed it, but I've only just been able to formulate my impression: I see now that while the spirit of your conception is Greek, you have given it, as you ought, the purest American expression. Your 'Westward' is no Hellenic goddess: she is a vivid and self-reliant American girl."
At these words, Hoskins reddened deeply, and seemed not to know where to look. Mrs. Elmore had the effect of escaping through the door into her own room, and Miss Mayhew ran out upon the balcony. Hoskins followed each in turn with a queer glance, and sat a moment in silence. Then he said, "Well, I reckon I must be going," and went rather abruptly, without offering to take leave of the ladies.
As soon as he was gone, Lily came in from the balcony, and whipped into Mrs. Elmore's room, from which she flashed again in swift retreat to her own, and was seen no more; and then Mrs. Elmore came back, with a flushed face, to where her husband sat mystified.
"My dear," he said gravely, "I'm afraid you've hurt Mr. Hoskins's feelings."
"Do you think so?" she asked; and then she burst into a wild cry of laughter. "O, Owen, Owen! you will kill me yet!"
"Really," he replied with dignity, "I don't see any occasion in what I said for this extraordinary behavior."
"Of course you don't, and that's just what makes the fun of it. So you found something familiar in Mr. Hoskins's statue from the first, did you?" she asked. "And you didn't notice anything particular in it?"