“Did the child’s death affect him much?”
“I know nothing about it.”
They smoked in silence for a few minutes. Then
Mallard observed, without taking the cigar from his
lips:
“How much better Mrs. Baske looks!”
“Naturally the change is more noticeable to
you than to us. It has come very slowly.
I dare say you see other changes as well?”
Spence’s eye twinkled as he spoke.
“I was prepared for them. That she should
stay abroad with you all this time is in itself significant.
Where does she propose to live when you are back in
England?”
“Why, there hasn’t been a word said on
the subject. Eleanor is waiting; doesn’t
like to ask questions. We shall have our house
in Chelsea again, and she is very welcome to share
it with us if she likes. I think it is certain
she won’t go back to Lancashire; and the notion
of her living with the Elgars is improbable.”
“How far does the change go?” inquired
Mallard, with hesitancy.
“I can’t tell you, for we are neither
of us in her confidence. But she is no longer
a precisian. She has read a great deal; most of
it reading of a very substantial kind. Not at
all connected with religion; it would be a mistake
to suppose that she has been going in for a course
of modern criticism, and that kind of thing. The
Greek and Latin authors she knows very fairly, in English
or French translations. What would our friend
Bradshaw say? She has grappled with whole libraries
of solid historians. She knows the Italian poets
Really, no common case of a woman educating herself
at that age.”
“Would you mind telling me what her age is?”
“Twenty-seven, last February. To-day she
has been mute; generally, when we are in interesting
places, she rather likes to show her knowledge—of
course we encourage her to do so. A blessed form
of vanity, compared with certain things one remembers!”
“She looks as if she had by no means conquered
peace of mind,” observed Mallard, after another
silence.
“I don’t suppose she has. I don’t
even know whether she’s on the way to it.”
“How about the chapel at Bartles?”
Spence shook his head and laughed, and the dialogue
came to an end.
The next morning all started for Rome.
LEARNING AND TEACHING
Easter was just gone by. The Spences had timed
their arrival in Rome so as to be able to spend a
few days with certain friends, undisturbed by bell-clanging
and the rush of trippers, before at length returning
to England. Their hotel was in the Babuino.
Mallard, who was uncertain about his movements during
the next month or two, went to quarters with which
he was familiar in the Via Bocca di Leone. He
brought his Paestum picture to the hotel, but declined
to leave it there. Mallard was deficient in those
properties of the showman which are so necessary to
an artist if he would make his work widely known and
sell it for substantial sums; he hated anything like
private exhibition, and dreaded an offer to purchase
from any one who had come in contact with him by way
of friendly introduction.
