I did not mind Grandmother’s laughing. She did not laugh in a way one would mind.
When Walter had gone away I wondered if I had been silly. Why had I said I would go and look at inscriptions? I felt uncomfortable about it, and not at ease with myself.
XIX
I went to the British Museum on Thursday. Walter was waiting for me on the steps, and there was another man with him. The other man was called Furze. He was a professor at some University in Wales. He was older than Walter, but not very much older. He had a very kind face, and a funny way of ducking down his head. I liked him and was glad he was there too. He had been working with Walter all the morning in the Assyrian Room, it seemed, and now he came round with us for a bit, till it was time for him to catch his train.
He did not talk much; Walter did the talking. I thought he knew quite as much about the things as Walter, but he was not so excited about them.
We looked at some Assyrian bas-reliefs of people hunting lions. They were more interesting than I had expected, and rather beautiful too, some of them—rather beautiful clean lines—but Walter said even these were too late, and we went on to cases of rougher broken things, and he explained what they once had been—pots and ovens and tiles and all sorts of household stuff.
‘You will get back to your “Urdummheit,” ’ Mr. Furze said, smiling at Walter, ‘I think these pots were not very well made.’
Walter tossed his head. He seemed self-confident here, as he had been at Howsteads; not a bit shy or nervous, as he was at Oxford.
‘Who cares if they were well made? This is not an Arts and Crafts Exhibition. Of course Praxiteles made pretty ornaments, if you want that.’
‘Well, I still maintain that if you make a pot at all, it is better to make a beautiful pot than a misshapen one.’