charm for each of them, and was it not possible, therefore, that the
charm for Roderick had been simply the charm imagined, unquestioningly
accepted: the general charm of youth, sympathy, kindness--of the present
feminine, in short--enhanced indeed by several fine facial traits?
The charm in this case for Rowland was--the charm!--the mysterious,
individual, essential woman. There was an element in the charm, as his
companion saw it, which Rowland was obliged to recognize, but which
he forbore to ponder; the rather important attraction, namely, of
reciprocity. As to Miss Garland being in love with Roderick and becoming
charming thereby, this was a point with which his imagination ventured
to take no liberties; partly because it would have been indelicate,
and partly because it would have been vain. He contented himself with
feeling that the young girl was still as vivid an image in his memory as
she had been five days after he left her, and with drifting nearer and
nearer to the impression that at just that crisis any other girl would
have answered Roderick's sentimental needs as well. Any other girl
indeed would do so still! Roderick had confessed as much to him at
Geneva, in saying that he had been taking at Baden the measure of his
susceptibility to female beauty.

His extraordinary success in modeling the bust of the beautiful Miss
Light was pertinent evidence of this amiable quality. She sat to him,
repeatedly, for a fortnight, and the work was rapidly finished. On one
of the last days Roderick asked Rowland to come and give his opinion as
to what was still wanting; for the sittings had continued to take place
in Mrs. Light's apartment, the studio being pronounced too damp for
the fair model. When Rowland presented himself, Christina, still in
her white dress, with her shoulders bare, was standing before a mirror,
readjusting her hair, the arrangement of which, on this occasion, had
apparently not met the young sculptor's approval. He stood beside her,