“And now we have drawn up, signed, and sealed our compact of friendship,” she said gaily, “will you come and see my studio?  There is nothing in it that deserves to last, I think; still, one has patience with a child when he builds his brick houses, and you must have equal patience with me.  Come!”

And she led the way through her lovely room, which I now noticed was full of delicate statuary, fine paintings, and exquisite embroidery, while flowers were everywhere in abundance.  Lifting the hangings at the farther end of the apartment, she passed, I following, into a lofty studio, filled with all the appurtenances of the sculptor’s art.  Here and there were the usual spectral effects which are always suggested to the mind by unfinished plaster models—­an arm in one place, a head in another; a torso, or a single hand, protruding ghost-like from a fold of dark drapery.  At the very end of the room stood a large erect figure, the outlines of which could but dimly be seen through its linen coverings; and to this work, whatever it was, Zara did not appear desirous of attracting my attention.  She led me to one particular corner; and, throwing aside a small crimson velvet curtain, said: 

“This is the last thing I have finished in marble.  I call it ‘Approaching Evening.’”

I stood silently before the statue, lost in admiration.  I could not conceive it possible that the fragile little hand of the woman who stood beside me could have executed such a perfect work.  She had depicted “Evening” as a beautiful nude female figure in the act of stepping forward on tip-toe; the eyes were half closed, and the sweet mouth slightly parted in a dreamily serious smile.  The right forefinger was laid lightly on the lips, as though suggesting silence; and in the left hand was loosely clasped a bunch of poppies.  That was all.  But the poetry and force of the whole conception as carried out in the statue was marvellous.

“Do you like it?” asked Zara, half timidly.

“Like it!” I exclaimed.  “It is lovely—­wonderful!  It is worthy to rank with the finest Italian masterpieces.”

“Oh, no!” remonstrated Zara; “no, indeed!  When the great Italian sculptors lived and worked—­ah! one may say with the Scriptures, ‘There were giants in those days.’  Giants—­veritable ones; and we modernists are the pigmies.  We can only see Art now through the eyes of others who came before us.  We cannot create anything new.  We look at painting through Raphael; sculpture through Angelo; poetry through Shakespeare; philosophy through Plato.  It is all done for us; we are copyists.  The world is getting old—­how glorious to have lived when it was young!  But nowadays the very children are blase.”

“And you—­are not you blase to talk like that, with your genius and all the world before you?” I asked laughingly, slipping my arm through hers.  “Come, confess!”

Zara looked at me gravely.