'I would have given a few hundred francs to have been present in spirit at that interview which depressed la belle Clare and crushed the unhappy Richard. But perhaps a little adroitness to-morrow will fill up the blanks of to-day. And as for the other matter, the future is more to me than the past—to conclude with a fine revolutionary sentiment.'
'I'm sorry I shall have to be out all the morning again,' said Mr Stanley next morning at breakfast, as he opened his letters. 'Would you like to come with me?'
'No, thanks, papa,' said Clare. She had been into the City with him before, and had a vivid recollection of draughty passages, steep staircases, and impertinent glances from junior clerks.
'What will you do with yourself all the time?' asked her father. 'You can't be always reading.'
'I'll run over to the National Gallery, I think, and spend an hour or two there.'
'Why, you've been there once with me.'
'It's no good going to a picture gallery once.'
'I don't know that it's any good, my dear, but it's quite enough for me. However, please yourself—please yourself.' To Mr Stanley's idea it was quite as safe to send a daughter alone to the National Gallery as to send her to church on a week day. The two places seemed to him to be the one as uninteresting as the other, and both of them as absolutely free from possible snares and pitfalls as any convent in the land. 'I meant to have given you lunch at the "Ship and Turtle,"' he went on.
'My dear papa, I'm not greedy. I'm not an alderman.'