"Yes, very quiet. Only two or three gentlemen ever came to the house, and I never went out."
"A fair prisoner, indeed," murmured the poet. "Danae in her tower waiting for the shower of gold."
"Danae must have wished," said Phillis, "when she was put in the box and sent to sea, that the shower of gold had never come."
Cornelius began to regret his allusion to the mythological maid for his classical memory failed, and he could not at the moment recollect what box the young lady referred to. This no doubt came of much poring over Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. But he remembered other circumstances connected with Danae's history, and was silent.
"At least you went out," said Humphrey, "to see the Academy and the Water-colours."
She shook her head.
"I have never seen a picture-gallery at all. I have not once been outside Mr. Dyson's grounds until to-day, since I was six years old."
Humphrey supported his nervous system, like his brother, with another glass of the Böllinger.
"You found your pleasure in reading divine Poetry," said the Maker softly; "perhaps in writing Poetry yourself."
"Oh dear no!" said Phillis. "I have not yet learned to read. Mr. Dyson said that ladies ought not to learn reading till they are of an age when acquiring that mischievous art cannot hurt themselves or their fellow-creatures."