“What struck me,” she began, hesitatingly, “you spoke rather--what I mean is, you don’t appear to be very grateful to the old gentleman who arranged all this for you--and to me it seems the most wonderful thing I ever heard of. I should thank his memory on my bended knees every day of my life if _I_ were the Professor of Culdees. I couldn’t find it in my heart to poke fun at him; I should think of him and revere him as my benefactor, _always!_” “Hm--m!” said Mosscrop. “I’m not sure I don’t wish he’d never been born, or had choked on a bone of one of his own damned Finnan baddies, before ever he came back to us!” The ring in his voice, like a surly rattling of chains, brought back to her vividly the scene of his despondency at the restaurant. She made haste to lay her hand upon his arm. “Oh, do you see where we are?” she cried, vivaciously, snatching at the chance of diversion. Sure enough, a section of the Museum’s stately front lay before them, filling to topheaviness the perspective of the small street. They had wandered instinctively toward this pre-natal rendezvous of their friendship. Their eyes softened now as they looked at the grey, pillared block of masonry stretching across the end of their by-way. “It draws us like a magnet,” said Moss-crop. “Come, what do you say? Shall we go in for an hour, and wander about as if we were nice rural people come up to London to see the sights? I should like to myself.” “The dear old place!” sighed Vestalia, with mellow tones. CHAPTER IV. It was a long hour that the Museum claimed from them. “This is what always attracts me most of all,” said Mosscrop upon entering. He turned to the left, and led the way into the little gallery of the Roman portrait-busts. “Very often I never go any farther than this. The modernness of these fellows is a perpetual marvel to me. It is as if we met them every day. Look at Caracalla and Septimius Severus; they are exactly like Irish members. And see Pertinax, here; I know at least ten old farmers about Elgin who might be his own brothers. Observe this man Hadrian. He is the absolute image of Francis the First. You know the portraits of him at Hampton Court--what? never been there? Ah, that’s a place we will go to together. There is one picture of Francis there--he is very drunk, apparently, and has got hold of the hand of the Duchess of Some-thing-or-other, and she is in her cups, too, and the inane, leering, almost simian happiness of the two--oh, it is worth a long journey just to see that one picture.” “It doesn’t sound very inviting,” commented Vestalia. “Tipsy women are repulsive, whether they are duchesses or not.”