Keniston had always scrupulously fulfilled his duty to the mother and sister whom his marriage had dislodged; and Claudia, who had the atoning temperament which seeks to pay for every happiness by making it a source of fresh obligations, had from the outset accepted his ties with an exaggerated devotion. Any disregard of such a claim would have vulgarized her most delicate pleasures; and her husband’s sensitiveness to it in great measure extenuated the artistic obtuseness that often seemed to her like a failure of the moral sense. His loyalty to the dull women who depended on him was, after all, compounded of finer tissues than any mere sensibility to ideal demands. “Oh, I don’t see why we shouldn’t,” he rejoined. “I think we might manage it.” “At Mrs. Davant’s expense?” leaped from Claudia. She could not tell why she had said it; some inner barrier seemed to have given way under a confused pressure of emotions. He looked up at her with frank surprise. “Well, she has been very jolly about it--why not? She has a tremendous feeling for art--the keenest I ever knew in a woman.” Claudia imperceptibly smiled. “She wants me to let her pay in advance for the four panels she has ordered for the Memorial Library. That would give us plenty of money for the trip, and my having the panels to do is another reason for my wanting to go abroad just now.” “Another reason?” “Yes; I’ve never worked on such a big scale. I want to see how those old chaps did the trick; I want to measure myself with the big fellows over there. An artist ought to, once in his life.” She gave him a wondering look. For the first time his words implied a sense of possible limitation; but his easy tone seemed to retract what they conceded. What he really wanted was fresh food for his self-satisfaction: he was like an army that moves on after exhausting the resources of the country. Womanlike, she abandoned the general survey of the case for the consideration of a minor point. “Are you sure you can do that kind of thing?” she asked. “What kind of thing?” “The panels.” He glanced at her indulgently: his self-confidence was too impenetrable to feel the pin-prick of such a doubt. “Immensely sure,” he said with a smile. “And you don’t mind taking so much money from her in advance?” He stared. “Why should I? She’ll get it back--with interest!” He laughed and drew at his pipe. “It will be an uncommonly interesting experience. I shouldn’t wonder if it freshened me up a bit.” She looked at him again. This second hint of self-distrust struck her as the sign of a quickened sensibility. What if, after all, he was beginning to be dissatisfied with his work? The thought filled her with a renovating sense of his sufficiency. III They stopped in London to see the National Gallery.