Grandmother went on talking to him about the inscriptions at Corbridge.
It did not interest me at all what they were saying, but I felt excited at Walter’s being there. It was now that I noticed his hands, what beautiful hands they were, as he handed me my tea and bread and butter, and I watched his face as he was talking to Grandmother. He did not seem to me absurd now, as he had at first.
Afterwards he was talking about something in the British Museum—bas-reliefs, I think, with some inscriptions on them—and I said I didn’t know the British Museum. I had only been there once, with Hugo, to look at Greek vases, and he said:
‘Oh, but the Greek vases are very dull. It is the early things you should see—little pieces of things that mean nothing by themselves, but when you piece them together tell you about whole nations you didn’t know. You ought to see the Mycenaean fragments and the Hittite things. Won’t you come one day and let me show them to you?’
I said I should love to see them; and even while I was saying so I wondered why I said it, for I did not care for fragments of things at all, and I did not like the Museum the one time I was there.
‘Will you come next Thursday?’ Walter asked. ‘I shall be there all day Thursday. If you could come in the afternoon—any time in the afternoon—I shall be there. I could show you lots of things, and then,’ he added, more shyly, ‘we could have tea.’
Grandmother laughed. She said:
‘If you make an archæologist of Helen I will take off my hat to you.’
I said:
‘I will come at half-past three.’