He spoke in Italian, with the Tuscan rusticity of accent, and an unshaped sort of utterance, betokening that he must heretofore have been chiefly conversant with rural people.

“Well, well,” said Miriam, “your tender point—­your two tender points, if you have them—­shall be safe, so far as I am concerned.  But how strange this likeness is, after all! and how delightful, if it really includes the pointed ears!  O, it is impossible, of course,” she continued, in English, “with a real and commonplace young man like Donatello; but you see how this peculiarity defines the position of the Faun; and, while putting him where he cannot exactly assert his brotherhood, still disposes us kindly towards the kindred creature.  He is not supernatural, but just on the verge of nature, and yet within it.  What is the nameless charm of this idea, Hilda?  You can feel it more delicately than I.”

“It perplexes me,” said Hilda thoughtfully, and shrinking a little; “neither do I quite like to think about it.”

“But, surely,” said Kenyon, “you agree with Miriam and me that there is something very touching and impressive in this statue of the Faun.  In some long-past age, he must really have existed.  Nature needed, and still needs, this beautiful creature; standing betwixt man and animal, sympathizing with each, comprehending the speech of either race, and interpreting the whole existence of one to the other.  What a pity that he has forever vanished from the hard and dusty paths of life,—­unless,” added the sculptor, in a sportive whisper, “Donatello be actually he!”

“You cannot conceive how this fantasy takes hold of me,” responded Miriam, between jest and earnest.  “Imagine, now, a real being, similar to this mythic Faun; how happy, how genial, how satisfactory would be his life, enjoying the warm, sensuous, earthy side of nature; revelling in the merriment of woods and streams; living as our four-footed kindred do,—­as mankind did in its innocent childhood; before sin, sorrow or morality itself had ever been thought of!  Ah!  Kenyon, if Hilda and you and I—­if I, at least—­had pointed ears!  For I suppose the Faun had no conscience, no remorse, no burden on the heart, no troublesome recollections of any sort; no dark future either.”

“What a tragic tone was that last, Miriam!” said the sculptor; and, looking into her face, he was startled to behold it pale and tear-stained.  “How suddenly this mood has come over you!”

“Let it go as it came,” said Miriam, “like a thunder-shower in this Roman sky.  All is sunshine again, you see!”

Donatello’s refractoriness as regarded his ears had evidently cost him something, and he now came close to Miriam’s side, gazing at her with an appealing air, as if to solicit forgiveness.  His mute, helpless gesture of entreaty had something pathetic in it, and yet might well enough excite a laugh, so like it was to what you may see in the aspect of a hound when he thinks himself in fault or disgrace.