She was as ignorant of art as any Roman or Florentine girl whose life has been passed in the midst of it; and she believed these mighty fine pictures, and was puzzled by Mr. Arbuton's behavior towards them, who was too little imaginative or too conscientious to make merit for them out of the things they suggested. He treated the poor altar-pieces of the Quebec cathedral with the same harsh indifference he would have shown to the second-rate paintings of a European gallery; doubted the Vandyck, and cared nothing for the Conception, "in the style of Le Brun," over the high-altar, though it had the historical interest of having survived that bombardment of 1759 which destroyed the church.
Kitty innocently singled out the worst picture in the place as her favorite, and then was piqued, and presently frightened, at his cold reluctance about it. He made her feel that it was very bad, and that she shared its inferiority, though he said nothing to that effect. She learned the shame of not being a connoisseur in a connoisseur's company, and she perceived more painfully than ever before that a Bostonian, who had been much in Europe, might be very uncomfortable to the simple, unravelled American. Yet, she reminded herself, the Marches had been in Europe, and they were Bostonians also; and they did not go about putting everything under foot; they seemed to care for everything they saw, and to have a friendly jest, if not praises, for it. She liked that; she would have been well enough pleased to have Mr. Arbuton laugh outright at her picture, and she could have joined him in it. But the look, however flattered into an air of polite question at last, which he had bent upon her, seemed to outlaw her and condemn her taste in everything. As they passed out of the cathedral, she would rather have gone home than continued the walk as he begged her, if she were not tired, to do; but this would have been flight, and she was not a coward. So they sauntered down the Rue Fabrique, and turned into Palace Street. As they went by the door of Hôtel Musty, her pleasant friends came again into her mind, and she said, "This is where we stayed last week, with Mr. and Mrs. March."
"Those Boston people?"
"Yes."
"Do you know where they live in Boston?"
"Why, we have their address; but I can't think of it. I believe somewhere in the southern part of the city—"
"The South End?"
"O yes, that's it. Have you ever heard of them?"
"No."
"I thought perhaps you might have known Mr. March. He's in the insurance business—"