“If we showed them only to our friends, of what use would it be? Their opinion is already formed.”
She sighed her acknowledgment. “But the ... the entrance fee....”
“If we can afford it later, the gallery will be free. But meanwhile——”
“Oh, Lewis, I quite understand!” And clinging to him, the still-protesting baby in her wake, she passed with a dauntless step under the awful sign-board.
“At last I shall see the pictures properly lighted!” she exclaimed, and turned in the hall to fling her arms about her husband.
“It’s all they need ... to be appreciated,” he answered, aglow with her encouragement.
Since his withdrawal from the world it had been a part of Lewis’s system never to read the daily papers. His wife eagerly conformed to his example, and they lived in a little air-tight circle of aloofness, as if the cottage at Tarrytown had been situated in another and happier planet.
Lewis, nevertheless, the day after the opening of the Gallery of Christian Art, deemed it his duty to derogate from this attitude, and sallied forth secretly to buy the principal journals. When he re-entered his house he went straight up to the nursery where he knew that, at that hour, Treeshy would be giving the little girl her bath. But it was later than he supposed. The rite was over, the baby lay asleep in its modest cot, and the mother sat crouched by the fire, her face hidden in her hands. Lewis instantly guessed that she too had seen the papers.
“Treeshy—you mustn’t ... consider this of any consequence ...,” he stammered.
She lifted a tear-stained face. “Oh, my darling! I thought you never read the papers.”