He detected in the
astute American what nobody else could detect--an element of childlike
freshness and simplicity. As far apart, in externals, as two distant
trees whose leaves are fluttering on either side of some tangled
forest, he yet felt that their roots were interwoven below ground,
drawing common life and nourishment and sympathies from that old
teeming soil of human aspirations. Nor was he vainglorious of his
achievement. His superiority over the art-expert he took as a gift of
the gods. Vanityi was abhorrent to his nature. He was not proud but
glad--glad to have been able to reconquer his legitimate social
position; glad, above all things, to have forged a link with the past--a
key to admit him into the fellowship of Lysippus and those others whose
august shades, he opined, were even them smiling upon him. The Locri
Faun was his handiwork. He was "entitled to dine well," as he had told
Denis. That was what he now purposed to do. One master-stroke had
repaired his fortunes. It sufficed.
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