He talked the most joyous
nonsense about finding himself back in his old quarters. On the first
Sunday afternoon following their return, on their going together to
Saint Peter's, he delivered himself of a lyrical greeting to the great
church and to the city in general, in a tone of voice so irrepressibly
elevated that it rang through the nave in rather a scandalous fashion,
and almost arrested a procession of canons who were marching across to
the choir. He began to model a new statue--a female figure, of which he
had said nothing to Rowland. It represented a woman, leaning lazily back
in her chair, with her head drooping as if she were listening, a vague
smile on her lips, and a pair of remarkably beautiful arms folded in her
lap. With rather less softness of contour, it would have resembled the
noble statue of Agrippina in the Capitol. Rowland looked at it and was
not sure he liked it. "Who is it? what does it mean?" he asked.
"Anything you please!" said Roderick, with a certain petulance. "I call
it A Reminiscence."
Rowland then remembered that one of the Baden ladies had been
"statuesque," and asked no more questions.
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