"Yes. You don't know Latin, or it would make you quote Horace."
She shook her head, looked down, and spoke more humbly than he had ever yet heard her.
"But I know it in an English translation."
"Well, that's more than most women do."
He said it in a grudging way. The remark itself was scarcely civil, but he seemed all at once to have a pleasure in speaking roughly, in reminding her of her shortcomings. Miriam turned her eyes in another quarter, and presently pointed to the far blue hills just seen between the Alban and the Sabine ranges.
"Through there is the country of the Volsci," she said, in a subdued voice. "Some Roman must have stood here and looked towards it, in days when Rome was struggling for supremacy with them. Think of all that happened between that day and the time when Horace saw the snow on Soracte; and then, of all that has happened since."
He watched her face, and nodded several times. They pursued the subject, and reminded each other of what the scene suggested, point by point. Mallard felt surprise, though he showed none. Cecily, standing here, would have spoken with more enthusiasm, but it was doubtful whether she would have displayed Miriam's accuracy of knowledge.
"Well, let us go," he said at length. "You don't insist on walking home?"
"There is no need to, I think. I could quite well, if I wished."
"I am going to run through a few of the galleries for a morning or two. I wonder whether you would care to come with me to-morrow?"