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Davant was too young, too rich, too inexperienced; that somehow she ought to be warned. Warned of what? That some of the pictures might never be painted? Scarcely that, since Keniston, who was scrupulous in business transactions, might be trusted not to take any material advantage of such evidence of faith. Claudia's impulse remained undefined.
I told every one that he would be here for the opening there was a private view, you know and they were so disappointed they wanted to give him an ovation; and I didn't know what to say. What am I to say?" she abruptly ended. "There's nothing to say," said Keniston slowly. "But the exhibition closes the day after to-morrow."
Davant, sweeping her at once into the central current of her grievance. Claudia looked from one to the other. "For not going to see you?" "For not going to see his pictures!" cried the other nobly. Claudia colored and Keniston shifted his position uneasily. "I can't make her understand," he said, turning to his wife. "I don't care about myself!" Mrs. Davant interjected.
The vast noiseless spaces seemed full of sound, like the roar of a distant multitude heard only by the inner ear. Had their speech been articulate their language would have been incomprehensible; and even that far-off murmur of meaning pressed intolerably on Claudia's nerves. Keniston took the onset without outward sign of disturbance.
Presently he laid down his book and proposed that they should go to the Louvre. They spent the morning there, lunched at a restaurant near by, and returned to the gallery in the afternoon. Keniston had passed from inarticulateness to an eager volubility. It was clear that he was beginning to co-ordinate his impressions, to find his way about in a corner of the great imaginative universe.
He did not, after all, return for luncheon; and when she came up-stairs from her solitary meal their salon was still untenanted. She permitted herself no sensational fears; for she could not, at the height of apprehension, figure Keniston as yielding to any tragic impulse; but the lengthening hours brought an uneasiness that was fuel to her pity. Suddenly she heard the clock strike five.
She detected the wish to be alone and responded to it with her usual readiness. "I shall sink to my proper level and buy a bonnet, then," she said. "I haven't had time to take the edge off that appetite." They agreed to meet at the Hotel Cluny at mid-day, and she set out alone with a vague sense of relief. Neither she nor Keniston had made any direct reference to Mrs.
"Oh, hang Professor Wildmarsh!" said Keniston, softening the commination with a smile. "If my pictures are good for anything they oughtn't to need explaining." Mrs. Davant stared. "But I thought that was what made them so interesting!" she exclaimed. Keniston looked down. "Perhaps it was," he murmured.
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