"Have you been to the Metropolitan Museum lately?" he asked.
"The Metropolitan Museum?" she repeated in bewilderment.
"That would be one of the temptations of New York for me," he said. "I was there for half an hour this afternoon before I presented myself at your door as a suspicious character. There is a picture there, by Coffin, called 'The Rain,' I believe. I am very fond of it. And looking at it on such a winter's day as this brings back the summer. The squall coming, and the sound of it in the trees, and the very smell of the wet meadow-grass in the wind. Do you know it?"
"No," replied Honora, and she was suddenly filled with shame at the thought that she had never been in the Museum. "I didn't know you were so fond of pictures."
"I am beginning to be a rival of Mr. Dwyer," he declared. "I've bought four—although I haven't built my gallery. When you come to St. Louis I'll show them to you—and let us hope it will be soon."
For some time after she had heard the street door close behind him Honora remained where she was, staring into the fire, and then she crossed the room to a reading lamp, and turned it up.
Some one spoke in the doorway.
"Mr. Grainger, madam."
Before she could rouse herself and recover from her astonishment, the gentleman himself appeared, blinking as though the vision of her were too bright to be steadily gazed at. If the city had been searched, it is doubtful whether a more striking contrast to the man who had just left could have been found than Cecil Grainger in the braided, grey cutaway that clung to the semblance of a waist he still possessed. In him Hyde Park and Fifth Avenue, so to speak, shook hands across the sea: put him in either, and he would have appeared indigenous.
"Hope you'll forgive my comin' 'round on such slight acquaintance, Mrs.
Spence," said he. "Couldn't resist the opportunity to pay my respects.
Shorter told me where you were."