"What are you talking about?" she called out.
"Nothing at all," returned Maurice, "that is, only stupid things you
would not understand."
"That is not a very gallant morning greeting, cousin, but you have not
forgotten your promise to lake me to the Museum this morning, I hope."
"Yes, my dear, we will go to the Museum in a very little while."
She heard the door close.
"Are you still there, Jean?" she called.
"And at your service," he replied.
"There is nothing I need, thank you. I just want to know what
correction you were talking about."
"It is a private affair of Maurice's," stammered the young actor.
"I see, thank you."
After lunch the travellers set out for the Museum. Maurice was
surprised and delighted by the instinct that guided his cousin towards
the best that was in the pictures. He explained to her in the language
affected by painters the reason for certain unreal shadows in a
certain picture, and the necessity for them, the tact a painter must
use in managing his light, the difficulty of foreshortening. He told
her the well-known anecdote of Delacroix replying to the professor who
objected that he had put a full face eye in a profile, "But, my dear
master, I have tried everything and that is the only eye that gives the
profile its proper value." And the professor of the great painter-to-be,
after several sketches on the transparent paper over his pupil's canvas,
said to him, "You are entirely right.
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