It seemed to Rowland a sort of foreshadowing of matrimony to see Miss Blanchard standing gracefully on his hearth-rug and blooming behind the central bouquet at his circular dinner-table.  The dinner was very prosperous and Roderick amply filled his position as hero of the feast.  He had always an air of buoyant enjoyment in his work, but on this occasion he manifested a good deal of harmless pleasure in his glory.  He drank freely and talked bravely; he leaned back in his chair with his hands in his pockets, and flung open the gates of his eloquence.  Singleton sat gazing and listening open-mouthed, as if Apollo in person were talking.  Gloriani showed a twinkle in his eye and an evident disposition to draw Roderick out.  Rowland was rather regretful, for he knew that theory was not his friend’s strong point, and that it was never fair to take his measure from his talk.

“As you have begun with Adam and Eve,” said Gloriani, “I suppose you are going straight through the Bible.”  He was one of the persons who thought Roderick delightfully fresh.

“I may make a David,” said Roderick, “but I shall not try any more of the Old Testament people.  I don’t like the Jews; I don’t like pendulous noses.  David, the boy David, is rather an exception; you can think of him and treat him as a young Greek.  Standing forth there on the plain of battle between the contending armies, rushing forward to let fly his stone, he looks like a beautiful runner at the Olympic games.  After that I shall skip to the New Testament.  I mean to make a Christ.”

“You ’ll put nothing of the Olympic games into him, I hope,” said Gloriani.

“Oh, I shall make him very different from the Christ of tradition; more—­more”—­and Roderick paused a moment to think.  This was the first that Rowland had heard of his Christ.

“More rationalistic, I suppose,” suggested Miss Blanchard.

“More idealistic!” cried Roderick.  “The perfection of form, you know, to symbolize the perfection of spirit.”

“For a companion piece,” said Miss Blanchard, “you ought to make a Judas.”

“Never!  I mean never to make anything ugly.  The Greeks never made anything ugly, and I ’m a Hellenist; I ’m not a Hebraist!  I have been thinking lately of making a Cain, but I should never dream of making him ugly.  He should be a very handsome fellow, and he should lift up the murderous club with the beautiful movement of the fighters in the Greek friezes who are chopping at their enemies.”

“There ’s no use trying to be a Greek,” said Gloriani.  “If Phidias were to come back, he would recommend you to give it up.  I am half Italian and half French, and, as a whole, a Yankee.  What sort of a Greek should I make?  I think the Judas is a capital idea for a statue.  Much obliged to you, madame, for the suggestion.  What an insidious little scoundrel one might make of him, sitting there nursing his money-bag and his treachery!  There can be a great deal of expression in a pendulous nose, my dear sir, especially when it is cast in green bronze.”