Peter was rather astonished at the way they looked at the pictures.  They would pass by a dozen without giving them a second glance, and then stop at one, and chat about it for ten minutes.  He found that Miss De Voe had not exaggerated her cousin’s art knowledge.  He talked familiarly and brilliantly, though making constant fun of his own opinions, and often jeering at the faults of the picture.  Miss De Voe also talked well, so Peter really did supply the ears for the party.  He was very much pleased when they both praised a certain picture.

“I liked that,” he told them, making the first remark (not a question) which he had yet made.  “It seemed to me the best here.”

“Unquestionably,” said Lispenard.  “There is poetry and feeling in it.”

Miss De Voe said:  “That is not the one I should have thought of your liking.”

“That’s womanly,” said Lispenard, “they are always deciding what a man should like.”

“No,” denied Miss De Voe.  “But I should think with your liking for children, that you would have preferred that piece of Brown’s, rather than this sad, desolate sand-dune.”

“I cannot say why I like it, except, that I feel as if it had something to do with my own mood at times.”

“Are you very lonely?” asked Miss De Voe, in a voice too low for Lispenard to hear.

“Sometimes,” said Peter, simply.

“I wish,” said Miss De Voe, still speaking low, “that the next time you feel so you would come and see me.”

“I will,” said Peter.

When they parted at the door, Peter thanked Lispenard:  “I’ve really learned a good deal, thanks to Miss De Voe and you.  I’ve seen the pictures with eyes that know much more about them than mine do.”

“Well, we’ll have to have another turn some day.  We’re always in search of listeners.”

“If you come and see me, Mr. Stirling,” said Miss De Voe, “you shall see my pictures.  Good-bye.”

“So that is your Democratic heeler?” said Lispenard, eyeing Peter’s retreating figure through the carriage window.

“Don’t call him that, Lispenard,” said Miss De Voe, wincing.

Lispenard laughed, and leaned back into a comfortable attitude.  “Then that’s your protector of sick kittens?”

Miss De Voe made no reply.  She was thinking of that dreary wintry stretch of sand and dune.

Thus it came to pass that a week later, when a north-easter had met a south-wester overhead and both in combination had turned New York streets into a series of funnels, in and through which wind, sleet and snow fought for possession, to the almost absolute dispossession of humanity and horses, that Peter ended a long stare at his blank wall by putting on his dress-suit, and plunging into the streets.  He had, very foolishly, decided to omit dinner, a couple of hours before, rather than face the storm, and a north-east wind and an empty stomach are enough to set any man staring at