oint by
point. Mallard felt surprise, though he showed none. Cecily, standing
here, would have spoken with more enthusiasm, but it was doubtful
whether she would have displayed Miriam's accuracy of knowledge.

"Well, let us go," he said at length. "You don't insist on walking
home?"

"There is no need to, I think. I could quite well, if I wished."

"I am going to run through a few of the galleries for a morning or two.
I wonder whether you would care to come with me to-morrow?"

"I will come with pleasure."

"That is how people speak when they don't like to refuse a troublesome
invitation."

"Then what am I to say? I spoke the truth, in quite simple words."

"I suppose it was your tone; you seemed too polite."

"But what is your objection to politeness?" Miriam asked naively.

"Oh, I have none, when it is sincere. But as soon as I had asked you, I
felt afraid that I was troublesome."

"If I had felt that, I should have expressed it unmistakably," she
replied, in a voice which reminded him of the road from Baiae to Naples.

"Thank you; that is what I should wish."

Having found a carriage for her, and made an appointment for the
morning, he watched her drive away.

A few hours later, he encountered Spence in the Piazza Colonna, and
they went together into a _caffe_. Spence had the news that Mrs.
Lessingham and her niece would arrive on the third day from now. Their
stay would be of a fortnight at longest.

"I met Mrs. Baske at the Vatican this morning," said Mallard presently,
as he knocked the ash off his cigar. "We had some talk."

"On Vatican subjects?"

"Yes. I find her views of art somewhat changed. But sculpture still
alarms her."

"Still? Do you suppose she will ever overcome that feeling? Are you
wholly free from it yourself? Imagine yourself invited to conduct a
party of ladies through the marbles, and to direct their attention to
the merits that strike you."

"No doubt I should invent an excuse. But it would be weakness."

"A weakness inseparable from our civilization. The nude in art is an
anachronism."

"Pooh! That is encouraging the vulgar prejudice."

"No; it is merely stating a vulgar fact. These collections of nude
figures in marble have only an historical interest. They are kept out
of the way, in places which no one is obliged to visit. Modern work of
that kind is tolerated, nothing more. What on earth is the good of an
artistic production of which people in general are afraid