"What is that called?" he asked abruptly. "The cast? That is my Victory--the famous Victory of Samothrace, which suggested the poem everybody's reading. It's my despair. I've failed at drawing it for years. The original is in the Louvre, and towers gloriously over a staircase. I can shut my eyes and see it perfectly." "Pretty old?" ventured Shelby. "Oh, yes; it's an antique. See how ruffian Time has dealt with it." The man walked slowly round the goddess, surveying her from every side. "A day or two ago," he said simply, "I saw that image in a house, and, in my ignorance, thought a servant had broken it. I wondered why the people didn't pitch it out." His tone went straight to her sympathy. "Many are strangers in the kingdom of Art," she returned gently. "Most of us must come to it like little children." Shelby was silent for a moment. Then he said:-- "In Bernard Graves's opinion I am aesthetically dead--I believe those were his words." The girl started. "I never repeated them," she protested. "What," laughed Shelby, grimly, "has he told you that, too? He's evidently fond of the phrase. Perhaps he is right. Yet I hope not. I'd rather think I'm merely unborn. I am not a voluntary Ishmaelite. I simply haven't had the chance to learn." CHAPTER IX A fault recognized, it was Ruth's nature to be lavish of atonement, and by way of further expiation she consented a day or two later to make one of a driving party of Mrs. Hilliard's to hear Shelby speak in a village located "down north," as the local vernacular had it, near the shore of Lake Ontario. Ruth cared little for Mrs. Hilliard. She saw her through feminine eyes, and Mrs. Hilliard was not popular with women. But Shelby had privily told her of the project and begged her to accept. "I had planned to rent the Tuscarora House tallyho and go with some eclat," the lady lamented at the eleventh hour, "but the way people have disappointed me is positively harrowing. There was Bernard Graves--I pinned my childlike faith on him; but he sent regrets. And Mr. and Mrs. Bowers. Wouldn't you think that they, of all people, would wish to go? But no; Mrs. Bowers said it did her rheumatic shoulder no good to traipse around nights,--that was her expression,--and Mr. Bowers actually told me that he was too busy organizing political meetings to want to attend them. Isn't he droll? Then Mr. Hewett had a sermon to prepare; and Dr. Crandall had a case of diphtheria to watch; and Volney Sprague--well, I really did not dare ask him, he was so horrid in his paper about Mr. Shelby's splendid speech. So one and all they began to make excuses, as the Bible says, till it has simmered down to you, dear Ruth, and Joe, and Mr. Shelby, and me." "Oh," said Ruth, with misgiving. "A sort of survival of the fittest, don't you know, as somebody or other says. Was it Shakespeare? He really seems to have written all the clever things."