"There are a few pictures I want you to look at closely to-day," said Stephen. "The others we'll pass by for the present. I want to give you a general view of the whole thing. Nothing wrong with your knees, I hope?"
"She's young," said Fetzer. "She'll get there yet!"
Stephen looked at the glowing creature beside him.
"Ever been sick in your life?"
"Never."
He continued to regard her—youth!—ah, nothing else was worth while. A light shiver passed over him. Then he laid his hand on Ellen's arm.
"In this room is a collection of primitives. They are enormously valuable in showing the development of art. I want to show you a Madonna and a single portrait of the period. See the grace and the lovely tenderness and then the flatness of the whole thing. Here is a real portrait—see the shrewd eyes and the kindly expression. But in the main they're valuable only because they're first."
"Professor Lamb wouldn't agree with you," answered Ellen, amazed. "He thinks that in some details they've never been surpassed."
Stephen listened with attentive, smiling eyes to illustrative allusions to Giotto and Cimabue. She should some day see Giotto and Cimabue! There was in Florence a dim church whither he had once gone alone; thither he would sometime go with a companion. He pointed out a few landscapes, a portrait of Walt Whitman, a Salome in yellow, a little woman in a white head-covering opening a casement window, three boys swimming in a green sea. Ellen's cheeks grew a deeper red—she had now no opinions. Her blood was quickened by Stephen's touch. Did she feel weariness? She would have walked till to-morrow.
At the end of an hour the two returned to Fetzer.