at the pictures and thought about them; many of the people he has helped Villegas take through the museum walk through as if it were a duty to be got over as soon as possible. The Prince asked how much various of the pictures were worth. He studied carefully St. Paul and St. Gerome in the desert, by Velasquez (the dear one with the ravens flying to the hermitage carrying loaves of bread in their beaks to feed the unthrifty old saints).
“How much is that picture worth?” he asked. “Almost anything, isn’t it?”
Villegas says royalties never know what things cost. They may have a sense of the value of money, but no sense of the value of things.
The Prince lingered longest in the portrait room. Well he might—it contains some of the consummate portraits of the world!
“That is very fine,” said the Prince, pointing to Van Dyke’s portrait of himself with his patron the Earl of Bristol; “and that Cardinal of Pavia by Raphael, and this Holbein. Yet one hears more about John Sargent’s portraits. I don’t think them as good as these, do you?”
It was very hot in the Ribera room, where they had lagged a little behind the others. J. took off his hat to mop his brow, and for the sake of being cooler did not put it on again.
“Keep on your hat,” said the Prince. Supposing this was merely politeness J. forgot all about it, and a few minutes after did the same thing again.
“Please put on your hat,” said Mr. Keppel; “we don’t want to attract attention to the party.”
“Yes, yes,” laughed the Prince lightly, “we don’t want to attract attention!”
That, then, was the reason such short notice of the visit had been given—they did not wish to attract attention! The only person who showed the least nervousness was the detective from Scotland Yard, who followed with the Chief of the Madrid police. The detective, J. said, “was in a blue funk; he seemed to see a nihilist in everybody who came within bomb-shot of the Prince.” While they were lingering in the Ribera room, the detective begged Mr. Keppel that the Prince should keep up with the Princess and Villegas; “they must all keep together; it was too dangerous, too difficult for the chief of police to watch them if they scattered.”