The room was filling and they were jostled by a group diligently working their way with their catalogue from No. 1 to No. 1200.
'What's that glaring red and yellow thing?'
'260, Brynhild. Who was she, Flo?'
'Don't you know, Mamma? That French queen who was torn to pieces by wild horses.'
'I don't see any horses. She is all on fire.'
'I suppose she was burnt afterwards. And that's the king who did it.'
'What a horrid picture!'
'There's the intelligent public one works for,' said Edgar. 'Come and try your luck.'
He paused, however, to show her the difference a foot's elevation would have made to his painting; and she, with a mind more at leisure from itself, waited not only to sympathize but to be fascinated with the loveliness or power of more than one picture past which he would have hurried her, with murmurs at the R.A. who had secured the best situation.
Here they were in the water-colour room, obliged to wait, to penetrate the throng round the lesser ones, which were so close together that there was no distinct appropriation of the remarks.