soothed by the candid incense of Sam Singleton, who came and sat for an
hour in a sort of mental prostration before both bust and artist.
But Roderick's attitude before his patient little devotee was one
of undisguised though friendly amusement; and, indeed, judged from a
strictly plastic point of view, the poor fellow's diminutive stature,
his enormous mouth, his pimples and his yellow hair were sufficiently
ridiculous. "Nay, don't envy our friend," Rowland said to Singleton
afterwards, on his expressing, with a little groan of depreciation of
his own paltry performances, his sense of the brilliancy of Roderick's
talent. "You sail nearer the shore, but you sail in smoother waters. Be
contented with what you are and paint me another picture."

"Oh, I don't envy Hudson anything he possesses," Singleton said,
"because to take anything away would spoil his beautiful completeness.
'Complete,' that 's what he is; while we little clevernesses are like
half-ripened plums, only good eating on the side that has had a glimpse
of the sun. Nature has made him so, and fortune confesses to it! He is
the handsomest fellow in Rome, he has the most genius, and, as a matter
of course, the most beautiful girl in the world comes and offers to be
his model. If that is not completeness, where shall we find it?"

One morning, going into Roderick's studio, Rowland found the young
sculptor entertaining Miss Blanchard--if this is not too flattering a
description of his gracefully passive tolerance of her presence. He had
never liked her and never climbed into her sky-studio to observe her
wonderful manipulation of petals. He had once quoted Tennyson against
her:--

"And is there any moral shut
Within the bosom of the rose?"