rl's
face remained serious, like the eastern sky when the opposite sunset is
too feeble to make it glow. "Do you really know?" she asked, looking at
Rowland.

"One cannot know in such a matter save after proof, and proof takes
time. But one can believe."

"And you believe?"

"I believe."

But even then Miss Garland vouchsafed no smile. Her face became graver
than ever.

"Well, well," said Mrs. Hudson, "we must hope that it is all for the
best."

Mr. Striker eyed his old friend for a moment with a look of some
displeasure; he saw that this was but a cunning feminine imitation of
resignation, and that, through some untraceable process of transition,
she was now taking more comfort in the opinions of this insinuating
stranger than in his own tough dogmas. He rose to his feet,
without pulling down his waistcoat, but with a wrinkled grin at the
inconsistency of women. "Well, sir, Mr. Roderick's powers are nothing to
me," he said, "nor no use he makes of them. Good or bad, he 's no son
of mine. But, in a friendly way, I 'm glad to hear so fine an account
of him. I 'm glad, madam, you 're so satisfied with the prospect.
Affection, sir, you see, must have its guarantees!" He paused a moment,
stroking his beard, with his head inclined and one eye half-closed,
looking at Rowland. The look was grotesque, but it was significant, and
it puzzled Rowland more than it amused him. "I suppose you 're a very
brilliant young man," he went on, "very enlightened, very cultivated,
quite up to the mark in the fine arts and all that sort of thing. I 'm a
plain, practical old boy, content to follow an honorable profession in a
free country. I did n't go off to the Old World to learn my business; no
one took me by the hand; I had to grease my wheels myself, and, such as
I am, I 'm a self-made man, every inch of me! Well, if our young friend
is booked for fame and fortune, I don't suppose his going to Rome will
stop him. But, mind you, it won't help him such a long way, either. If
you have undertaken to put him through, there 's a thing or two you 'd
better remember. The crop we gather depends upon the seed we sow. He may
be the biggest genius of the age: his potatoes won't come up without his
hoeing them. If he takes things so almighty easy as--well, as one or two
young fellows of genius I 've had under my eye--his produce will never
gain the prize. Take the word for it of a man who has made his way inch
by inch, and does n't believe tha