"Couldn't get here sooner," was Oswald's sole apology for the long delay. He would have been profuse enough, had any lady except his sister been the one concerned. "I knew you'd wait for me. Ready? Come along!"
Jean pulled on her gloves, with a nervous trepidation, which Oswald alone had power to raise in her.
"I am going too. My sister will be there," Cyril said decisively, not asking leave.
Evelyn could not be immediately found in the crowds which thronged the Academy. She had appointed a meeting-place in the fourth room, if they should fail to see one another sooner.
Oswald was bent on taking each picture, big or little, in solemn succession; and Jean seemed in no haste. Merely to be by Oswald's side was happiness, though he bestowed his attention on the walls, and his remarks on Cyril. As already stated, he was not chivalrous, and Jean was merely his sister. Without any particular partiality for Cyril, he appreciated Sir Cyril Devereux' social standing, and he liked a listener. After the fashion of most self-confident people, entirely ignorant of art, he had a slap-dash opinion ready on all occasions, where art was under review.
"No. 56—'A Waterfall.' Frightful! Out of all proportion. No. 57—'A Highland Ferry.' Never saw such clouds: and I don't believe anybody else ever did either. No. 58— 'A Portrait.' Might as well say whose! What a daub! Really—how they can admit such rubbish! No. 59—'Two Children.' Another daub! Ridiculous simper on that girl's face; and such dresses! No. 60—Ah, a military piece! Now, that's not bad!" complacently screwing up his eyes, and putting on the air of a gratified connoisseur.
"Not at all bad considering. Foremost figure very well placed—very well placed indeed. No. 61—'Pasturage.' Miserably drawn."
"Jean, look at the foreshortening of those carthorses! Masterly," murmured Cyril, with reference to the same.
The examination of every picture in the Academy takes time, but Oswald's method of proceeding consumed as little as was possible under the circumstances. He went on at a steady jog-trot, apportioning his minutes with impartial regularity, ten or twenty seconds to each painting, quite irrespective of its merits. He had to "do" the Exhibition, and he was bent on "doing" it thoroughly, on securing, in fact, the full worth of his shilling. He had paid to see the pictures; and see them he would.
As for opinions, he wanted none but his own. Why should he? Any adverse suggestion from Cyril was quashed at once; and Jean's ideas were met with supreme disdain. She knew far more of art than did Oswald; but neither he nor she would have admitted the fact; and Cyril, whose cultivated taste was scandalised at every step, was far too wise to get up an argument with Oswald.