Rowland stared, at the disconnectedness of the question.

“Can you recommend me some books?” she repeated.  “I know you are a great reader.  I have no one else to ask.  We can buy no books.  We can make debts for jewelry and bonnets and five-button gloves, but we can’t spend a sou for ideas.  And yet, though you may not believe it, I like ideas quite as well.”

“I shall be most happy to lend you some books,” Rowland said.  “I will pick some out to-morrow and send them to you.”

“No novels, please!  I am tired of novels.  I can imagine better stories for myself than any I read.  Some good poetry, if there is such a thing nowadays, and some memoirs and histories and books of facts.”

“You shall be served.  Your taste agrees with my own.”

She was silent a moment, looking at him.  Then suddenly—­“Tell me something about Mr. Hudson,” she demanded.  “You are great friends!”

“Oh yes,” said Rowland; “we are great friends.”

“Tell me about him.  Come, begin!”

“Where shall I begin?  You know him for yourself.”

“No, I don’t know him; I don’t find him so easy to know.  Since he has finished my bust and begun to come here disinterestedly, he has become a great talker.  He says very fine things; but does he mean all he says?”

“Few of us do that.”

“You do, I imagine.  You ought to know, for he tells me you discovered him.”  Rowland was silent, and Christina continued, “Do you consider him very clever?”

“Unquestionably.”

“His talent is really something out of the common way?”

“So it seems to me.”

“In short, he ’s a man of genius?”

“Yes, call it genius.”

“And you found him vegetating in a little village and took him by the hand and set him on his feet in Rome?”

“Is that the popular legend?” asked Rowland.

“Oh, you need n’t be modest.  There was no great merit in it; there would have been none at least on my part in the same circumstances.  Real geniuses are not so common, and if I had discovered one in the wilderness, I would have brought him out into the market-place to see how he would behave.  It would be excessively amusing.  You must find it so to watch Mr. Hudson, eh?  Tell me this:  do you think he is going to be a great man—­become famous, have his life written, and all that?”

“I don’t prophesy, but I have good hopes.”

Christina was silent.  She stretched out her bare arm and looked at it a moment absently, turning it so as to see—­or almost to see—­the dimple in her elbow.  This was apparently a frequent gesture with her; Rowland had already observed it.  It was as coolly and naturally done as if she had been in her room alone.  “So he ’s a man of genius,” she suddenly resumed.  “Don’t you think I ought to be extremely flattered to have a man of genius perpetually hanging about?  He is the first I ever saw, but I should