“How beautifully you know your way about here!” she said.  “I suppose you’ve brought lots of girls here before me.”

“A glorious army,” said Pete, “the matron and the maid.  You ought to see my mother in a museum.  She’s lost before she gets well inside the turnstile.”

But Mathilde was thinking.

“How strange it is,” she observed, “that I never should have thought before about your caring for any one else.  Pete, did you ever ask any one else to marry you?”

Wayne nodded.

“Yes; when I was in college.  I asked a girl to marry me.  She was having rather a rotten time.”

“Were you in love with her?”

He shook his head, and in the silence shuffling and staccato footsteps were heard, announcing the approach of a youthful art class and their teacher.  “Jade,” said the voice of the lady, “one of the hardest of known substances, has yet been beautifully worked from time immemorial—­”

More pairs of eyes in that art class were fixed on the obviously guilty couple in the corner than on the beautiful cloudy objects in the cases, and it was not until they had all followed their guide to the armor-room, and had grouped themselves about the casque of Joan of Arc, that Wayne went on as if no interruption had occurred: 

“If you want to know whether I have ever experienced anything like my feeling for you since the first moment I saw you, I never have and never shall, and thereto I plight thee my troth.”

Mathilde turned her full face toward him, shedding gratitude and affection as a lamp sheds light before she answered: 

“You were terribly unkind to me yesterday.”

“I know.  I’m sorry.”

“I shall never forget the way you kissed me, as if I were a rather repulsive piece of wood.”

Pete craned his neck, and met the suspicious eye of a guard.

“I don’t think anything can be done about it at the moment,” he said; and added in explanation, “You see, I felt as if you had suddenly deserted me.”

“Pete, I couldn’t ever desert you—­unless I committed suicide.”

Presently he stood up, declaring that this was not the fitting place for arranging the details of their marriage.

“Come to one of the smaller picture galleries,” he said, “and as we go I’ll show you a portrait of my mother.”

“Your mother?  I did not know she had had a portrait done.  By whom?”

“A fellow called Bellini.  He thought he was doing the Madonna.”

When they reached the picture, a figure was already before it.  Mr. Lanley was sitting, with his arms folded and his feet stretched out far before him, his head bent, but his eyes raised and fixed on the picture.  They saw him first, and had two or three seconds to take in the profound contemplation of his mood.  Then he slowly raised his eyes and encountered theirs.