Mary, however, knew her father well enough, and at this lustrous hour, while Florence stretched beneath them in its quiet, evening beauty, she declared that they must not much longer delay their return.

“Plenty of time,” he said.  “I am not too old to learn, I find, and a man would indeed be a great fool if he could not learn in such a place as this.  But though art can never mean much to me now, your case is different, and I am thankful to know that these things will be a great addition and interest to your future life.  I’m a Philistine, and shall always so remain, but I’m a repentant one.  I see my mistake too late.”

“It’s a new world, father,” she said, “and it has done a great deal for an unhappy woman—­not only in taking my thoughts off myself, but in lessening my suffering, too.  I do not know why, or how, but music, and these great, solemn pictures painted by dead men, all touch my thoughts of dear Tom.  I seem to see that there are so many more mighty ones dead than living.  And yet not dead.  They live in what they have made.  And Tom lives in what he made—­that was my love for him and his for me.  He grows nearer and dearer than ever when I hear beautiful music.  I can better bear to think of him at such times, and it will always help me to remember him.”

“God bless art if it does so much,” he said.  “We come to it as little children, and I shall always be a child and never understand, but for you the valuable message will be received.  May life never turn you away from these things in years to come.”

“Never!  Never!” she assured him.  “Art has done too much for me.  I shall not try to live my life without it.  Already I feel I could not.”

“What have you seen to-day?” he asked.

“I was at the Pitti all the morning.  I liked best Fra Bartolommeo’s great altar piece and Titian’s portrait of Cardinal Ippolito dei Medici.  You must see him—­a strange, unhappy spirit only twenty-three years old.  Two years afterwards he was poisoned, and his haunted, discontented eyes closed for ever.  And the ’Concert’—­ so wonderful, with such a hunger-starved expression in the soul of the player.  And Andrea del Sarto—­how gracious and noble; but Henry James says he’s second-rate, because his mind was second-rate, so I suppose he is, but not to me.  He never will be to me.  To-morrow you must come and see some of the things I specially love.  I won’t bore you.  I don’t know enough to bore you yet.  Oh, and Allori’s ’Judith’—­so lovely, but I wonder if Allori did justice to her?  Certainly his ‘Judith’ could never have done what the real Judith did.  And there’s a landscape by Rubens—­dark and old—­yet it reminded me of our woods where they open out above the valley.”

He devoted the next morning to Mary, and wandered among the pictures with her.  He strove to share her enthusiasm, and, indeed, did so sometimes.  Then occurred a little incident, so trivial that they forgot all about it within an hour, yet were reminded of it at a very startling moment now fast approaching.