He looked up absently from his guide-book.
“What pictures?”
“Why—yours,” she said, surprised.
“Oh, they’ll keep,” he answered; adding with a slightly embarrassed laugh, “We’ll give the other chaps a show first.” Presently he laid down his book and proposed that they should go to the Louvre.
They spent the morning there, lunched at a restaurant near by, and returned to the gallery in the afternoon. Keniston had passed from inarticulateness to an eager volubility. It was clear that he was beginning to co-ordinate his impressions, to find his way about in a corner of the great imaginative universe. He seemed extraordinarily ready to impart his discoveries; and Claudia felt that her ignorance served him as a convenient buffer against the terrific impact of new sensations.
On the way home she asked when he meant to see Mrs. Davant.
His answer surprised her. “Does she know we’re here?”
“Not unless you’ve sent her word,” said Claudia, with a touch of harmless irony.
“That’s all right, then,” he returned simply. “I want to wait and look about a day or two longer. She’d want us to go sight-seeing with her; and I’d rather get my impressions alone.”
The next two days were hampered by the necessity of eluding Mrs. Davant. Claudia, under different circumstances, would have scrupled to share in this somewhat shabby conspiracy; but she found herself in a state of suspended judgment, wherein her husband’s treatment of Mrs. Davant became for the moment merely a clue to larger meanings.