“Come to one of the smaller picture galleries,” he said, “and as we go I’ll show you a portrait of my mother.”
“Your mother? I did not know she had had a portrait done. By whom?”
“A fellow called Bellini. He thought he was doing the Madonna.”
When they reached the picture, a figure was already before it. Mr. Lanley was sitting, with his arms folded and his feet stretched out far before him, his head bent, but his eyes raised and fixed on the picture. They saw him first, and had two or three seconds to take in the profound contemplation of his mood. Then he slowly raised his eyes and encountered theirs.
There is surely nothing compromising in an elderly gentleman spending a contemplative morning alone at the Metropolitan Museum. It might well be his daily custom; but the knowledge that it was not, the consciousness of the rarity of the mood that had brought him there, oppressed Mr. Lanley almost like a crime. He felt caught, outraged, ashamed as he saw them. “That’s the age which has a right to it,” he said to himself. And then as if in a mirror he saw an expression of embarrassment on their faces, and was reminded that their meeting must have been illicit, too. He stood up and looked at them sternly.
“Up-town at this hour, Wayne?” he said.
“Grandfather, I never knew you came here much,” said Mathilde.
“It’s near me, you know,” he answered weakly, so weakly that he felt impelled to give an explanation. “Sometimes, my dear,” he said, “you will find that even the most welcome guest rather fills the house.”
“You need not worry about yours,” returned Mathilde. “I left her with Mama.”
Mr. Lanley felt that his brief moment of peace was indeed over. He could imagine the impressions that Mrs. Baxter was perhaps at that very moment sharing with Adelaide. He longed to question his granddaughter, but did not know how to put it.