“Nevertheless, there are some artists in the world who have conceived of characters like yours.  There are some good pictures in this house.  Shall I show you one or two?”

Prissie sprang to her feet.

“You are most kind,” she said elusively.  “I really don’t know how to thank you.”

“You need not thank me at all; or, at any rate, not in such a loud voice, not so impressively.  Our neighbors will think I have bestowed half a kingdom upon you.”

Prissie blushed and looked down.

“Don’t be shocked, with me,” said Hammond.  “I can read your grateful heart.  Come this way”

They passed Maggie Oliphant and her two or three remaining satellites.  Prissie looked at her with longing and tripped awkwardly against her chair.  Hammond walked past Maggie as if she did not exist to him.  Maggie nodded affectionately to Priscilla and followed the back of Hammond’s head and shoulders with a supercilious, amused smile.

Hammond opened the outer drawing-room door.

“Where are we going?” asked Priscilla.  “Are not the pictures here?”

“Some are here, but the best are in the picture gallery—­ here to the left and down these steps.  Now, I’m going to introduce you to a new world.”

He pushed aside a heavy curtain, and Prissie found herself in a rather small room, lighted from the roof.  It contained in all about six or eight pictures, each the work of a master.

Hammond walked straight across the gallery to a picture which occupied a wall by itself at the further end.  It represented a summer scene of deep repose.  There was water in the foreground, in the back tall forest trees in the fresh, rich foliage of June.  Overhead was a sunset sky, its saffron and rosy tints reflected in the water below.  The master who painted the picture was Corot.

Hammond motioned Priscilla to sit down opposite to it.

“There is summer.” he said; “peace, absolute repose.  You have not to go to it; it comes to you.”

He did not say any more, but walked away to look at another picture in a different part of the gallery.

Prissie clasped her hands; all the agitation and eagerness went out of her face.  She leaned back in her chair.  Her attitude partook of the quality of the picture and became restful.  Hammond did not disturb her for several moments.

“I am going to show you something different now,” he said, coming up to her almost with reluctance.  “There is one sort of rest; I will now show you a higher.  Here stand so.  The light falls well from this angle.  Now, what do you see?”

“I don’t understand it,” said Prissie after a long, deep gaze.

“Never mind, you see something.  Tell me what you see.”

Priscilla looked again at the picture.

“I see a woman,” she said at last in a slow, pained kind of voice.  “I can’t see her face very well, but I know by the way she lies back in that chair that she is old and dreadfully tired.  Oh, yes, I know well that she is tired—­ see her hand stretched out there—­ her hand and her arm—­ how thin they are—­ how worn—­ and——­”