"Yes, with his gifts, such things as he ought to have done!" Paul sighed.

"And don't you think he _has_ done them?"

Ah it was just the point. "A part of them, and of course even that
part's immense. But he might have been one of the greatest. However,
let us not make this an hour of qualifications. Even as they stand," our
friend earnestly concluded, "his writings are a mine of gold."

To this proposition she ardently responded, and for half an hour the pair
talked over the Master's principal productions. She knew them well--she
knew them even better than her visitor, who was struck with her critical
intelligence and with something large and bold in the movement in her
mind. She said things that startled him and that evidently had come to
her directly; they weren't picked-up phrases--she placed them too well.
St. George had been right about her being first-rate, about her not being
afraid to gush, not remembering that she must be proud. Suddenly
something came back to her, and she said: "I recollect that he did speak
of Mrs. St. George to me once. He said, apropos of something or other,
that she didn't care for perfection."

"That's a great crime in an artist's wife," Paul returned.

"Yes, poor thing!" and the girl sighed with a suggestion of many
reflexions, some of them mitigating. But she presently added: "Ah
perfection, perfection--how one ought to go in for it! I wish _I_
could."

"Every one can in his way," her companion opined.