“The fact is I’m rather surfeited,” he said, smiling. “I suppose my appetite isn’t equal to such a plethora. I think I’ll write some letters and join you somewhere later.” She detected the wish to be alone and responded to it with her usual readiness. “I shall sink to my proper level and buy a bonnet, then,” she said. “I haven’t had time to take the edge off that appetite.” They agreed to meet at the Hotel Cluny at mid-day, and she set out alone with a vague sense of relief. Neither she nor Keniston had made any direct reference to Mrs. Davant’s visit; but its effect was implicit in their eagerness to avoid each other. Claudia accomplished some shopping in the spirit of perfunctoriness that robs even new bonnets of their bloom; and this business despatched, she turned aimlessly into the wide inviting brightness of the streets. Never had she felt more isolated amid that ordered beauty which gives a social quality to the very stones and mortar of Paris. All about her were evidences of an artistic sensibility pervading every form of life like the nervous structure of the huge frame--a sensibility so delicate, alert and universal that it seemed to leave no room for obtuseness or error. In such a medium the faculty of plastic expression must develop as unconsciously as any organ in its normal surroundings; to be “artistic” must cease to be an attitude and become a natural function. To Claudia the significance of the whole vast revelation was centred in the light it shed on one tiny spot of consciousness--the value of her husband’s work. There are moments when to the groping soul the world’s accumulated experiences are but stepping-stones across a private difficulty. She stood hesitating on a street corner. It was barely eleven, and she had an hour to spare before going to the Hotel Cluny. She seemed to be letting her inclination float as it would on the cross-currents of suggestion emanating from the brilliant complex scene before her; but suddenly, in obedience to an impulse that she became aware of only in acting on it, she called a cab and drove to the gallery where her husband’s pictures were exhibited.