it was a long hour that the museum claimed from them.
“this is what always attracts me most of all,” said mosscrop upon entering. he turned to the left, and led the way into the little gallery of the roman portrait-busts. “very often i never go any farther than this. the modernness of these fellows is a perpetual marvel to me. it is as if we met them every day. look at caracalla and septimius severus; they are exactly like irish members. and see pertinax, here; i know at least ten old farmers about elgin who might be his own brothers. observe this man hadrian. he is the absolute image of francis the first. you know the portraits of him at hampton court—what? never been there? ah, that’s a place we will go to together. there is one picture of francis there—he is very drunk, apparently, and has got hold of the hand of the duchess of some-thing-or-other, and she is in her cups, too, and the inane, leering, almost simian happiness of the two—oh, it is worth a long journey just to see that one picture.”
“it doesn’t sound very inviting,” commented vestalia. “tipsy women are repulsive, whether they are duchesses or not.”
mosscrop chuckled. “oh, but you must make allowances for the period. it was the renaissance, the joyful, exuberant, devil-may-care renaissance. if once you catch the inner spirit of it, you will feel that it was the most glorious of periods. and francis the first was the living, breathing type of it. there was a man for you! he celebrated his birthday all the year round. and in this particular instance, why, i daresay it was the duchess’s birthday too. i should have thought you would take a more lenient view of such a pleasing double anniversary.”
vestalia looked doubtfully at him. “i hope you don’t mean that i am in my cups, as you call it,” she said.
he laughed her suspicion down. “no, i won’t let you hint at such an absurd thing. my dear friend, i must cultivate your sense of humour. the roots exist, but the growth is choked by the weeds of lambeth—or was it kennington? we must have them up.”
“but i don’t know when you are joking,” she protested. “besides, i always understood that the scotch were not a joking people.”
“ah, you confuse two things. it is said of us, with some justice, that we are slow to comprehend the jokes of others. but of the making of jokes by ourselves there is no end. and—ah, here is nero. i love nero!”
“is that a joke, too?”
“ah, no,” he answered, more seriously. “it is in my nature to love all the people whom history has picked out to condemn. if you knew the sort of creatures who wrote the histories—the old chronicles and records and so on—you would understand my point of view. they were full of all meannesses and narrow bigotries; they calumniated everybody they couldn’t blackmail. take the case of richard lionheart and his brother john, in your own english history. the former was a ferocious and turbulent blackguard, who neglected all his duties of kingship without shame, plundered his own subjects by torture and rapine, and was altogether a curse to his own people and everybody else. the mere trick of his having a taste for songs and music saved him. he buttered up the bards, and they fastened him in history as a hero. it is precisely the same thing that is done now by politicians who take pains to make friends with the newspapers. on the other hand, john was a model monarch, diligent, hardworking, extraordinarily attentive to his duties, travelling for ever up and down the country to hold courts of justice, and right the wrongs poor people suffered at the hands of the barons and the abbots and other powerful ruffians. it is plain enough that the poor people loved him; after all these centuries his name continues to be the most popular baptismal name among them. but the bards and monkish chroniclers were in the pay of the barons and abbots, and they paint john for us as the most evil scoundrel in english history. that’s the way it has always been done. i should like to have nero’s side of his story. i know he must have been a splendid fellow, to have got the historians so violently against him. i shouldn’t be surprised if he was really almost as fine as richard the third.”
“how amusing!” said vestalia at this point, and mosscrop was swift to take the hint. they moved on through the greek rooms, where the girl had more of a chance. she had known a few of the students who are accustomed on giving days to offer up sacrifices of time and crayons and good white paper in front of the more fashionable statues, and this had provided her with what seemed to her companion an exhaustive familiarity with hellenic art. this advantage followed and remained with her amid the sombre and lofty fragments of the mausoleum, and shone about her when they confronted the frieze of the parthenon.
“it is not my subject,” he remarked, delightedly. “this is a hermes, you say, and that a winged goddess of victory. ah, and this is a river god. i don’t think i’ve ever been here before. it is charming—to come with you. we supplement each other. sure enough, i ought to have foreseen that you would know about greek art. it is just the field that would attract a beautiful young woman. it fits you—it belongs to you.”
“how—now!” she admonished him, holding up a finger in playful protest.
“oh,” he urged, “if i’m not to say that you are beautiful, we might as well not have any birthday at all. that is its most elementary fact—lying at the very foundation of everything. to ignore it would be like trying to celebrate the fifth of november without a guy.”
again she shot a glance of dubiety at him. “i don’t know in the least how to take that,” she confessed, with a quiver on her lip.
he laughed outright at this, and gaily patted her on the shoulder. “this unnatural attic levity of mine is all the fault of the frieze. i’m a cat in a strange garret here. hasten with me to the assyrian rooms, if you want to see the utmost height of solemnity it is given to mortals to attain.”
he was not quite as good as his word, when they began loitering along before the carved tablets from nineveh and khorsabad. instruction he could not help piling upon his companion, for this was his subject, but he found himself seasoning it with all sorts of sprightly commentaries on the serious text. of grave and sportive alike he had so much to say that vestalia took his arm, and leant upon it as they made their slow progress through the long corridors. the contact was exhilarating to him. he could not be sure that she was assimilating any large proportion of his discourse, but her pretence of interest at least was very pretty, and the touch of her arm in his was full of inspiration to his tongue.
down in the basement, or crypt, he stood before the lions of assur-banipal, and talked at length. she said she had read byron’s “sardanapalus,” and he told her how those detestable linguists, the greeks, had altered the name, and how the assyrian legends of a great warrior and sovereign had become twisted in the hellenic after-version to depict a sublimation of debauched effeminacy and luxury run mad. she listened with her shoulder against his—but now he had other auditors as well.
“excuse me, sir,” the urgent and anxious voice of a stranger said close behind him, “but you seem to be extraordinarily well posted indeed on these sculptures here. i hope you will not object to my daughter and me standing where we can hear your remarks.”
mosscrop turned, and saw before him an elderly man, with a mild expression, and hair and beard of extreme whiteness. he was soberly attired, and carried in his hand a broad-brimmed hat of woven white straw. he bowed courteously, and indicated by a gentle gesture the young lady standing at his side.
“i should delight, sir, to have my daughter be privileged to profit by your remarks,” he repeated, and bowed again.
the daughter was a dark, well-rounded girl, dressed with much elegance. her face was strikingly oriental in type, with coal-black tresses drawn low over the temples, and a skin of a uniform ivory hue. she said nothing, but looked at vestalia’s hair.
mosscrop spoke somewhat abruptly. “you are certainly welcome, but it happens that i have finished my remarks, as you call them.”
“that is too bad,” replied the stranger, with a sigh of resignation. “i overheard enough to convince me that they were first-rate. it is our misfortune, sir, mine and my daughter’s, to have arrived too late. i presume, sir, that you have given special attention to this branch of study?”
the professor of culdees nodded briefly.
“and may i take the liberty of inquiring, sir,” the old man persisted, “whether you are professionally engaged in transmitting to others the knowledge which you have thus acquired?”
a stormy grin began twitching at the corners of mosscrop’s mouth. he nodded again.
“my purpose in putting the question is not one of idle curiosity, sir,” the other went on. “my life-long desire to visit europe, and behold its venerable ruins and its remarkable accumulations of objects of historical and artistic interest, has attained fulfilment at a period, unfortunately, when the burden of my years, while not incapacitating me from the enjoyments of the mind, renders me less capable of searching out new information than i should once have been. it also, i see only too clearly, unfits me to act as a guide and interpreter, amid these treasures of the storied past, to a young mind so much fresher and more eager than my own. i recognise this, sir, frankly, and i should be glad to discuss some possible arrangement, with the proper persons, by which my deficiencies might be supplied in this connection.”
the elaborate and deferential courtesy with which the old gentleman spoke made a curt answer impossible. mosscrop looked from father to daughter with a puzzled smile.
“you are americans, i take it?”
“we are from paris, sir.” he made haste to add, “from paris, kentucky. i obtrude the explanation, because i find that among foreigners there is frequently a tendency to confuse our city with the celebrated metropolis on the continent, which bears the same name, but is a place of an entirely different character. to a scholar like yourself, however, i might have realised that such an error would be impossible. i ask your pardon, sir.”
“oh, don’t mention it,” replied mosscrop, lightly. he could not recall ever having heard of such a place before, and for a moment was tempted to say so. but there was an effect of sweet simplicity in the old man’s face and manner which restrained his tongue. “well,” he said instead, “what is it that you wish? i am not sure that i have entirely caught your idea. do you want some one to go round with you and show you things?”
“not in the ordinary meaning which would attach to that description,” the other answered. “we do not require to have things shown to us in the literal sense of the word, but i had thought that if we were attended in our inspection of the various objects of interest for which europe is justly famous, by some person of erudition and also of an exceptional style of delivery, the experience would be of much greater practical value to my daughter. of course, sir, i am aware that professional assistance of this high character is not to be obtained without commensurate compensation, but that is a consideration which presents no obstacles to my mind.”
david felt vestalia’s hand trembling upon his arm.
“i can see,” he said, more amiably, “that such a relation might be extremely welcome to many deserving and very capable men. but at the moment i regret to say i can think of none to recommend to you. besides, you don’t know me from adam; so how could i give a character to any one else?”
“i beg your pardon sir,” rejoined the old gentleman, “but we took the liberty of following close behind you all through the last two long hallways. you were apparently so engrossed with your subject that our proximity escaped your attention, but we have listened with the deepest interest, and i may say improvement as well, to everything which has fallen from your lips. i have thus, sir, been able to form an estimate of your individual characteristics not less than of your acquirements. i may add, sir, that i am especially impressed by the fact that my daughter, from first to last, displayed an exceptional eagerness to miss nothing of your discourse. as the principal object of my visit to europe, as, indeed, of my whole existence, is to provide the highest forms of intellectual pleasure and edification for my daughter, i cannot close my eyes to the discovery that your remarks upon assyrian history produced a much more profound impression upon her young mind than anything which it has been within the scope of my own diminishing powers to produce for her consideration. i have rarely seen her so absorbed, even at our best lectures.”
david stifled a yawn, and made a little bow in which, as he turned, he strove to include the young american lady whoso culture was the object of so much solicitude. his movement surprised upon her countenance an expression of scornful weariness, which seemed to render the whole face alert and luminous with feeling. at sight of his eyes, her sultana-like features composed themselves again to an almost stolid tranquillity. she regarded him with indolence for an instant, then looked calmly away at things in general. there was to be read in that transient glance a challenge which stirred his blood.
“well, what you say is, beyond doubt, flattering,” he remarked to the father, in a slightly altered voice. “it might be that—that i could find some one for you.”
the old gentleman bowed ceremoniously. “permit me to say, sir, that i have found the some one—a person possessing unique qualifications for the position which i have outlined. i need nothing now but the power to influence his decision in a manner favourable to my aspirations.” he turned to vestalia. “i am emboldened, madame, to crave your assistance in reconciling your husband to my project.”
vestalia’s hand fluttered sharply on david’s arm, and she parted her lips to speak. at the moment, there was audible a derisive sniff from the daughter.
“it is my rule never to interfere,” vestalia answered with sudden decision, and in a coldly distinct voice. “he is quite capable of settling such matters for himself.” she looked from father to daughter and back with an impressive eye.
mosscrop laughed uneasily. “well—i’m afraid you must take it that this is settled—i scarcely see my way to avail myself of your very complimentary offer.”
the american caught the note of hesitation in his voice. “perhaps you will turn it over in your mind,” he said, fumbling with a hand in his inner breast-pocket. “allow me, sir, to hand you my card. adele, you have a pencil? thank you. i will inscribe upon it the name of the hotel at which we are residing.”
mosscrop took the card, glanced at it, and nodded. “in the extremely improbable event of my changing my mind, i will let you know,” he said. “good day.”
as they were parting, the father seemed to read in the daughter’s eye that he was forgetting something. he hesitated for a brief space; then his kindly face brightened. “excuse me, sir,” he observed, “but i have neglected to inform myself as to your identity—if i may presume to that extent.”
david felt vainly in his pocket. “i haven’t a card with me. my name is david mosscrop. the barbary club will find me. i will write it for you.”
the old man scrutinized the scrawl in his note-book, and then, after more bows, led his daughter away. she walked after him in a proudly indifferent fashion, with her head in the air, and something almost like a swagger in the movements of her form.
mosscrop watched them with a ruminating eye till they had left the room. then he glanced at the card, and gave a little laugh. “mr. laban skinner, paris, kentucky.—savoy hotel,” he read aloud.
“skinner? is their name skinner?” demanded vestalia with eagerness.
“none other. why? it’s a good name for them, isn’t it?”
“oh yes—good enough,” the girl replied, speaking now with exaggerated nonchalance.
“quaint people these americans are!” commented mosscrop. “if i were to put that old chap’s speeches down literally in a book nobody would credit them. fancy the fate of a young woman condemned to be dragged around the globe chained to a preposterous old phonograph like that! it really wrings one’s heart to think of it. mighty good-looking girl too.”
vestalia withdrew her arm. “perhaps,” she said, icily, “if you were to make haste you might overtake them. i must insist on your not allowing me to detain you, if you are so interested. i shall do quite well by myself.” mosscrop gathered her meaning slowly, after a grave scrutiny of her flushed and perturbed face. when it came to him, he shouted his merriment. a glance around the chamber showed him that they were alone with the lions and carved effigies of sardanapalus.
he thrust an arm about vestalia’s waist, and gave it a boisterous though fleeting squeeze.
“why, you dear little canary-bird of a creature, do you suppose i’ve been forgetting you?” he cried. “haven’t i been thinking every minute of the touch of your arm in mine? haven’t i been cursing that old windbag ceaselessly because he was interrupting our birthday? look up at me! truly now, aren’t you ashamed?”
she suffered him to raise her face, his finger under her chin, and she made a brave effort to smile hack at the glance he bent upon her. “if it is truly—oh, ever so truly—still our birthday—the same as it was before,” she made wistful answer.
“it is a hundred times more our birthday than ever!” he protested stoutly.
an elderly keeper in uniform shuffled his way into the room.
“well then,” whispered vestalia, “let’s go somewhere else to celebrate the rest of it. all these stone animals and images and mummies—i don’t feel as if they brought me luck on my birthday.”
so they wandered forth into the sunshine again, and mosscrop confessed himself glad of the change. where should they go? he found himself empty of suggestion. responsibility for the decorous entertainment of a young lady in the daytime was a novel experience, and he said so.
“oh, let us just stroll about,” she urged. “i love these old bloomsbury squares. they are so stupid.”
luncheon hour came, and presented itself to mosscrop as a welcome pretext to take a hansom. a certain formless apprehension of meeting some one he knew—though why this should be dreaded he could not for the life of him have told—had alloyed the pleasure of his ramble. they drove to another restaurant, this time a larger place in a more pretentious quarter—and though they had a little table to themselves, the room was full of others.
david knew about luncheons as well as breakfasts. he gave the waiter very minute instructions about having a grouse split and grilled, and he ran his eye over the list of champagnes with the confident discrimination of an expert. “i will give that number 34a one more trial,” he said to the butler. “cool it to 48, and we will see what it is like then.”
vestalia noted that he spoke to waiters in a soft, grave tone, with shades of gentle melancholy and of affectionate authority subtly blended in it, which he used to no one else. he produced the impression upon her of being at his very best at a table. she particularly liked him when he took the cork from the butler, and tenderly pinched with thumb and finger as he scrutinised it, and then smiled courteous approbation to the servant. this person wore a chain round his neck, and the bottle he brought was swathed in starched napery—and the girl observed both with the interest that attaches to novelty. but it was even more interesting to see how perfectly her companion presided over everything.
she herself was much less at ease. david noticed that she kept her hands in her lap under the table as much as possible during the meal, and that there was an air of constraint in her general deportment which had been lacking at breakfast. he put it down to her shyness among so many busy people in the thronged apartment, and talked briskly at intervals to re-assure her. especially he charged himself with the duty of keeping her glass filled, and he was almost peremptory in his tone with her about the grouse. she ate her piece to the end with meek resolution after that.
when they were again in the open, he rallied her upon the diffidence she had displayed. “you mustn’t mind a lot of fellows being about,” he said in a paternal way. “they go where there is the best kitchen, and it’s the part of wisdom to go there too; besides, they’re only too pleased to see a pretty face among them. didn’t you feel how proud i was of you, all the while?”
outside she had quite regained her spirits and assurance. she smiled with frank gaiety at him. “i’ll tell you how to be prouder still,” she said. “i know you won’t mind my saying so—but i ought really to have some gloves.”
“i’m a brute not to have thought of it,” mosscrop reproached himself. “here’s a place, just at hand. i can come in, this time, i suppose, without question.”
she held up a finger at him, in mock monition. then, as they turned to enter the shop, she whispered: “i saw that american girl looking with all her eyes at my bare hands.”
“oh, pshaw—lots of women don’t wear gloves. you mustn’t be so suspicious of everybody that looks your way. a hundred to one they’re thinking about themselves all the time.”
“ah, but you don’t know women,” she halted midway in the entrance to murmur. “i could read it in her eyes that she’d noticed i had no ring.”
“well, and there too,” protested mosscrop, “you exaggerate the importance of the thing. lots of women don’t wear rings, either—that is, on ordinary occasions.”
she danced her eyes at him in merriment. “perhaps you didn’t notice that i was supposed to be a married lady,” she said, and then turned abruptly to the counter.
