
accuracy of knowledge.
    »Well, let us go,« he said at length. »You don't insist on walking home?«
    »There is no need to, I think. I could quite well, if I wished.«
    »I am going to run through a few of the galleries for a morning or two. I
wonder whether you would care to come with me to-morrow?«
    »I will come with pleasure.«
    »That is how people speak when they don't like to refuse a troublesome
invitation.«
    »Then what am I to say? I spoke the truth, in quite simple words.«
    »I suppose it was your tone; you seemed too polite.«
    »But what is your objection to politeness?« Miriam asked naïvely.
    »Oh, I have none, when it is sincere. But as soon as I had asked you, I felt
afraid that I was troublesome.«
    »If I had felt that, I should have expressed it unmistakably,« she replied,
in a voice which reminded him of the road from Baiæ to Naples.
    »Thank you; that is what I should wish.«
    Having found a carriage for her, and made an appointment for the morning, he
watched her drive away.
    A few hours later, he encountered Spence in the Piazza Colonna, and they
went together into a caffè. Spence had the news that Mrs. Lessingham and her
niece would arrive on the third day from now. Their stay would be of a fortnight
at longest.
    »I met Mrs. Baske at the Vatican this morning,« said Mallard presently, as
he knocked the ash off his cigar. »We had some talk.«
    »On Vatican subjects?«
    »Yes. I find her views of art somewhat changed. But sculpture still alarms
her.«
    »Still? Do you suppose she will ever overcome that feeling? Are you wholly
free from it yourself? Imagine yourself invited to conduct a party of ladies
through the marbles, and to direct their attention to the merits that strike
you.«
    »No doubt I should invent an excuse. But it would be weakness.«
    »A weakness inseparable from our civilization. The nude in art is an
anachronism.«
    »Pooh! That is encouraging the vulgar prejudice.«
    »No; it is merely stating a vulgar fact. These collections of nude figures
in marble have only an historical interest. They are kept out of the way, in
places which no one is obliged to visit. Modern work of that kind is tolerated,
