ance of her having at first intended to keep quiet. She had
originally best seen herself as sweetly secretive. As to that she had
changed, and her present request was the result. She didn't say why she
had changed, but she trusted her faithful Susan. Their visitor would
trust her not less, and she herself would adore their visitor. Moreover
he wouldn't--the girl felt sure--tell her anything dreadful. The worst
would be that he was in love and that he needed a confidant to work it.
And now she was going to the National Gallery.

XVI

The idea of the National Gallery had been with her from the moment of
her hearing from Sir Luke Strett about his hour of coming. It had been
in her mind as a place so meagrely visited, as one of the places that
had seemed at home one of the attractions of Europe and one of its
highest aids to culture, but that--the old story--the typical frivolous
always ended by sacrificing to vulgar pleasures. She had had perfectly,
at those whimsical moments on the Bruenig, the half-shamed sense of
turning her back on such opportunities for real improvement as had
figured to her, from of old, in connection with the continental tour,
under the general head of "pictures and things"; and now she knew for
what she had done so. The plea had been explicit--she had done so for
life, as opposed to learning; the upshot of which had been that life
was now beautifully provided for. In spite of those few dips and dashes
into the many-coloured stream of history for which of late Kate Croy
had helped her to find time, there were possible great chances she had
neglected, possible great moments she should, save for to-day, have all
but missed. She might still, she had felt, overtake one or two of them
among the Titians and the Turners; she had been honestly nursing the
hour, and, once she was in the benignant halls, her faith knew itself
justified. It was the air she wanted and the world she would now
exclusively choose; the quiet chambers, nobly overwhelming, rich but
slightly veiled, opened out round her and made her presently say "If I
could lose myself _here!"_ There were people, people in plenty, but,
admirably, no personal question. It was immense, outside, the personal
question; but she had blissfully left it outside, and the nearest it
came, for a quarter of an hour, to glimmering again into sight was when
she watched for a little one of the more earnest of the lady-copyists.
Two or three in particular, specta