er
had to do with an Apollo before; young Barnes, therefore, was so far an
event, a sensation. In the opera-house she had been vaguely struck by a
handsome face. But here, in the freedom of outdoor dress and movement,
he seemed to her a physical king of men; and, at the same time, his easy
manner--which, however, was neither conceited nor ill-bred--showed him
conscious of his advantages.

As they chatted on the balcony she put him through his paces a little.
He had been, it seemed, at Eton and Oxford; and she supposed that he
belonged to the rich English world. His mother was a Lady Barnes; his
father, she gathered, was dead; and he was travelling, no doubt, in the
lordly English way, to get a little knowledge of the barbarians outside,
before he settled down to his own kingdom, and the ways thereof. She
envisaged a big Georgian house in a spreading park, like scores that she
had seen in the course of motoring through England the year before.

Meanwhile, the dear young man was evidently trying to talk to her,
without too much reference to the gilt gingerbread of this world. He did
not wish that she should feel herself carried into regions where she was
not at home, so that his conversation ran amicably on music. Had she
learned it abroad? He had a cousin who had been trained at Leipsic;
wasn't teaching it trying sometimes--when people had no ear? Delicious!
She kept it up, talking with smiles of "my pupils" and "my class," while
they wandered after the others upstairs to the dark low-roofed room
above the death-chamber, where Martha Washington spent the last years of
her life, in order that from the high dormer window she might command
the tomb on the slope below, where her dead husband lay. The curator
told the well-known story. Mrs. Verrier, standing beside him, asked some
questions, showed indeed some animation.

"She shut herself up here? She lived in this garret? That she might
always see the tomb? That is really true?"

Barnes, who did not remember to have heard her speak before, turned
at the sound of her voice, and looked at her curiously. She
wore an expression--bitter or incredulous--which, somehow, amused
him. As they descended again to the garden he communicated his
amusement--discreetly--to Miss Floyd.

Did Mrs. Verrier imply that no one who was not a fool could show her
grief as Mrs. Washington did? That it was, in fact, a sign of being a
fool to regret your husband?

"Did she say that?" asked Miss