But he saw another picture too, a dull London sitting-room whose dreariness seemed intensely concentrated on the face of a disappointed woman. Life had held little more for him than for Barbara, but he had rejected even its dreams, and had spent his musing hours in distilling the bitterness of scorn from its sordid realities. He would not have been cheered by a magnified fly. "You are wiser than I am, Miss Strange," he said abruptly.
"What do you mean?"
"You take what you can get."
She considered for a moment. "You mean that I go to Mr. Pryor's entertainments, and hear 'Simon the——'"
"Cyrenian! Yes, and see Joppa in a magic lantern. That is very wise when the real Joppa is out of reach."
"I don't know," said Barbara hesitatingly, "that I ever very particularly wanted to go to Joppa."
"Nor I," said Harding, "but being some way off it will serve for all the unattainable places where we do want to be. 'Joppa may be considered the port of Jerusalem'—wasn't that what Mr. Pryor said?" He repeated it slowly as if the words pleased him. "And where do you really want to go?"
"To Paris," said Barbara, with a world of longing in the word. "To Paris, and then to Italy. And then—oh, anywhere! But to Paris first."
"Paris!" Harding seemed to be recording her choice. "Well, that sounds possible enough. Surely you may count on Paris one of these days, Miss Strange; and meanwhile you can have a look at it with the help of the magic lantern."
She laughed. "Not Mr. Pryor's."