“Go on, go on,” Cecilia replied.  “You are too delicious!  Show Mr. Mallet how Mr. Striker read the Declaration of Independence.”

Hudson, like most men with a turn for the plastic arts, was an excellent mimic, and he represented with a great deal of humor the accent and attitude of a pompous country lawyer sustaining the burden of this customary episode of our national festival.  The sonorous twang, the see-saw gestures, the odd pronunciation, were vividly depicted.  But Cecilia’s manner, and the young man’s quick response, ruffled a little poor Rowland’s paternal conscience.  He wondered whether his cousin was not sacrificing the faculty of reverence in her clever protege to her need for amusement.  Hudson made no serious rejoinder to Rowland’s compliment on his statuette until he rose to go.  Rowland wondered whether he had forgotten it, and supposed that the oversight was a sign of the natural self-sufficiency of genius.  But Hudson stood a moment before he said good night, twirled his sombrero, and hesitated for the first time.  He gave Rowland a clear, penetrating glance, and then, with a wonderfully frank, appealing smile:  “You really meant,” he asked, “what you said a while ago about that thing of mine?  It is good—­essentially good?”

“I really meant it,” said Rowland, laying a kindly hand on his shoulder.  “It is very good indeed.  It is, as you say, essentially good.  That is the beauty of it.”

Hudson’s eyes glowed and expanded; he looked at Rowland for some time in silence.  “I have a notion you really know,” he said at last.  “But if you don’t, it does n’t much matter.”

“My cousin asked me to-day,” said Cecilia, “whether I supposed you knew yourself how good it is.”

Hudson stared, blushing a little.  “Perhaps not!” he cried.

“Very likely,” said Mallet.  “I read in a book the other day that great talent in action—­in fact the book said genius—­is a kind of somnambulism.  The artist performs great feats, in a dream.  We must not wake him up, lest he should lose his balance.”

“Oh, when he ’s back in bed again!” Hudson answered with a laugh.  “Yes, call it a dream.  It was a very happy one!”

“Tell me this,” said Rowland.  “Did you mean anything by your young Water-drinker?  Does he represent an idea?  Is he a symbol?”

Hudson raised his eyebrows and gently scratched his head.  “Why, he ’s youth, you know; he ’s innocence, he ’s health, he ’s strength, he ’s curiosity.  Yes, he ’s a good many things.”

“And is the cup also a symbol?”

“The cup is knowledge, pleasure, experience.  Anything of that kind!”

“Well, he ’s guzzling in earnest,” said Rowland.

Hudson gave a vigorous nod.  “Aye, poor fellow, he ’s thirsty!” And on this he cried good night, and bounded down the garden path.

“Well, what do you make of him?” asked Cecilia, returning a short time afterwards from a visit of investigation as to the sufficiency of Bessie’s bedclothes.