ats me like a father; he is always doing
generous things for me. He is delighted to see Isabel go with me to a
church or a gallery, when he is too tired or too ill to accompany us,
and that is often.

And day by day Isabel was happier. She became a creature of glories,
shining transparencies. We had books together, music together, our work
together. We had the companionship of the morning and the evening meal,
sacred rituals between beings who love each other. We had infinite talks
together with Uncle Tom or alone, as it happened. If Uncle Tom saw our
exaltation, nevertheless he knew all that was between us. For it was
beauty of life that Isabel and I shared, and who cannot know between
whom this secret exists, if he have eyes to see?

He knew I loved Isabel, if he had not forgotten all that moves in the
blood of a man of forty-two. He knew that she loved me--at any rate in
some quality of love. For Isabel used this word freely in the ecstasies
of her spirit, in the rapturous atmosphere of Italy. "I love James,
Uncle Tom--not as I love you; but I really love him! How wonderful that
he should come to us. He is like my brother, but he is something more.
He is a great friend." Uncle Tom would smile benignantly upon this
radiant woman, whom he had married for her youthful vitality, for which
he gave the happiness that comes of wealth. Perhaps in his ageing
psychology he did not know that there was passion in our hearts. Yet I
think he was a great soul, wishing Isabel to have every happiness. I
know he was my friend. There was nothing in him of the envy of January
because of my younger years, nor reproof for the Maytime sunshine that
was in the heart of Isabel.

Isabel and I had been to the Vatican several times. Uncle Tom disliked
pictures; above all he dreaded the fatigue of walking and the cold of
the churches and rooms where he was obliged to remove his hat. One
afternoon Isabel proposed that we go again to the Vatican; there was a
face there she wished to show me. We asked Uncle Tom to come with us;
but this was one of the days when he did not feel strong enough for
anything. He was keeping to his room. Perhaps later he would go to
Canape's. "You two go along. You will get on without me."

Isabel took me directly to the suite which was decorated by Pinturicchio
for Alexander VI. We looked at the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Magi,
and the Resurrection. Somehow I was more moved by these paintings than
by anything I