"I don't know why I didn't recognize you before. But you sat in an awfully bad light, for one thing. Besides, I had so much on my mind that day. Our dear little Reginald was coming down with something—or so we thought. And the bonnet I was forced to wear—well, it just made me blue. You didn't notice it?"
"I was too flustered to notice anything. It was my first time there."
"Well, it was a good paper, although I couldn't half pay attention to it; it gave me several new notions. All my decorations, then—you think them corrupt and degraded?"
"Well," returned Jane, at once soothing and judicial, "all these later forms are interesting from a historical and sociological point of view. And lots of people find them beautiful, too, for that matter." Jane slid over these big words with a practiced ease.
"They impressed my notables, any way," retorted Mrs. Bates. "We entertained a good deal during the Fair—it was expected, of course, from people of our position. We had princes and counts and honorables without end. I remember how delighted I was with my first prince—a Russian. H'm! later in the season Russian princes were as plentiful as blackberries: you stepped on one at every turn. We had some of the English too. One of their young men visited us at Geneva during the summer. I never quite made out who invited him; I have half an idea that he invited himself. He was a great trial. Queer about the English, isn't it? How can people who are so clever and capable in practical things ever be such insolent tom-fools in social things? Well, we might just stick our noses in the picture gallery for a minute.
"We're almost beginners in this branch of industry," she expounded, as she stood beside Jane in the centre of the room under the coldly diffused glare of the skylight. "In my young days it was all Bierstadt and De Haas; there wasn't supposed to be anything beyond. But as soon as I began to hear about the Millet and the Barbizon crowd, I saw there was. Well, I set to work, as usual. I studied and learned. I want to learn. I want to move; I want to keep right up with the times and the people. I got books and photographs, and I went to all the galleries. I read the artists' biographies and took in all the loan collections. Now I'm loaning, too. Some of these things are going to the Art Institute next week—that Daubigny, for one. It's little, but it's good: there couldn't be anything more like him, could there?
"We haven't got any Millet yet, but that morning thing over there is a Corot—at least we think so. I was going to ask one of the French commissioners about it last summer, but my nerve gave out at the last minute. Mr. Bates bought it on his own responsibility. I let him go ahead; for after all, people of our position would naturally be expected to have a Corot. I don't care to tell you what he paid for it."...
"There's some more high art," said Mrs. Bates, with a wave of her hand towards the opposite wall. "Carolus Duran; fifty thousand francs; and he wouldn't let me pick out my own costume either....
"And now," she said, "let's go up-stairs." Jane followed her, too dazed to speak or even to smile.
Mrs. Bates hastened forward light-footedly. "Conservatory—that's Moorish," she indicated casually; "nothing in it but orchids and things. Come along." Jane followed—dumbly, humbly.