Jennie looked, registering Memling's name. It was the head of an elderly man; so living, kindly, and humorous that she loved him. When she turned to her guide he stood with a smile of curiosity, like that of a mother showing her baby to a friend.
"What d'ye say to that now?"
Jennie said what she could—that it was marvelous, but that she didn't know anything about art. Since he was so kind, she ventured, however, on another question. Did the museum contain a portrait of Lady Hamilton?
He pursed up his nose. Not a good one. Not a Romney. There was one in gallery twenty-four, but it was by John Opie, of whom he had no high opinion. In comparison with Romney, he thought Opie big and coarse, but, since there was nothing better to be seen, Jennie might choose to glance at this second-rate specimen.
"And I'll tell you another thing," he went on, confidentially. "You're not used to looking at pictures and such like, are you, now?"
Jennie said she was not.
"Well, then, go to gallery twenty-four. Find your Opie, which you'll see hanging over one of the doors—and don't look at anything else. You'll have seen all you can absor-rb in wan day. Come back to-morrer, or anny other toime, and come straight to me. You'll find me here, and I'll tell you what to look at next. But don't take more to-day than you can enjoy."
He walked with her till she reached the boundary of his realm.
"You look like a gur-rl that'd have an eye and a taste for beauty. You don't find them often among Americans, and when you do it's a god-send. Poles, Jews, Russians, yes. When the French and Italian officers was in New York, their eyes 'd fairly eat the museum up. But Americans—they don't know and they don't want to know—not wan in a hundred thousand. Well, good-day to you and good luck. I'm always here, and I'm just the wan to tell you which is the things to pick out."
But by the time she discovered her Lady Hamilton she had only the courage to note listlessly that the hair was somewhat the color of her own—not chestnut, not russet, not copper, not red-gold, but perhaps a combination of them all. She had reached her limitations unexpectedly. The tide she had dammed had burst its barriers and rushed in on her. She sank to a chair in the middle of the almost empty room, her eyes blinded by sudden tears.