“Isn’t your father awful?” smiled Mrs. Mason.
“Well, let’s just have five minutes more for the Olympia, Leslie, and then I’m ready to go.”
They marched up to Manet’s great picture.
“When you come to a masterpiece like this,” said Mrs. Mason, “you can do nothing but keep your mouth shut and admire.
The rest, as Hamlet said, is silence.
No one, not even Renoir, not even El Greco, has ever painted flesh like that.
Look at that right breast.
It’s a miracle of loveliness.
One is simply left gasping.
Even my poor father, who couldn’t bear the moderns, was forced to admit that the painting of that breast was pretty good.
Pretty good?
I ask you.
Now I suppose you see a black line all round the figure.
You do, Charley, don’t you?”
Charley acknowledged that he did.
“And you, Patsy?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I don’t,” she cried triumphantly.
“I used to see it, I know it’s there, but I give you my word, I don’t see it any more.”
After that they went to lunch.
Through his long-standing acquaintance with the famous gallery and the useful information he had acquired from his mother, Charley, with Lydia by his side, entered the Salon Carre now with something of the confidence of a good tennis-player stepping on to the court.
He was eager to show Lydia his favourite pictures and ready to explain to her exactly what was admirable in them.
It was, however, something of a surprise to discover that the room had been rearranged and the Gioconda, to which he would naturally have taken her first, was nowhere to be seen.
They spent but ten minutes there.
When Charley went with his parents it took them an hour to do that room and even then, his mother said, they hadn’t exhausted its treasures.
But L’Homme au Gant was in its old place and he gently led her up to it.
They looked at it for a while.
“Stunning, isn’t it?” he said then, giving her arm an affectionate pressure.
“Yes, it’s all right.
What business is it of yours?”
Charley turned his head sharply.
No one had ever asked him a question like that about a picture before.
“What on earth d’you mean?
It’s one of the great portraits of the world.
Titian, you know.”
“I daresay.
But what’s it got to do with you?”
Charley didn’t quite know what to say.
“Well, it’s a very fine picture and it’s beautifully painted.
Of course it doesn’t tell a story if that’s what you mean.”
“No, I don’t,” she smiled.
“I don’t suppose it’s got anything to do with me really.”
“Then why should you bother about it?”
Lydia moved on and Charley followed her.
She gave other pictures an indifferent glance.
Charley was troubled by what she had said and he puzzled his brains to discover what could be at the back of her mind.
She gave him an amused smile.
“Come,” she said. “I’ll show you some pictures.”
She took his arm and they walked on.
Suddenly he caught sight of the Gioconda.