It was not unreasonable that Gray should go back to Chile to take charge of Elsie’s mine, nor that Mr. Boyle should become captain and Walker chief engineer, of the _Kansas_, but there was one wholly unexpected development which fairly took Elsie’s breath away when she heard of it. She was with her husband in London. While passing the National Gallery one day, she remembered the picture by Claude which deals with the embarkation of Saint Ursula and her Eleven Thousand Virgins. A painter herself, Elsie had an artist’s appreciation of the vanity which led Turner to bequeath his finest canvasses to the nation with the proviso that they should be placed cheek by jowl with those of his great rival, the Lorrainer. So a fat fox-terrier was given in charge of a catalogue seller, and they passed up the steps. It was a students’ day, and the galleries were crowded with embryonic geniuses. Courtenay waxed sarcastic anent the rig of Claude’s ships; he was laughing at the careless grace with which several of the Baozan maidens were standing in a boat just putting off from a wharf, when a lady cried sharply: “George, how careless of you! You are sitting on my mahl-stick.” “Sorry, my dear,” said a tall thin man, rising from a camp-stool. “Good gracious, it’s Mr. Tollemache,” whispered Elsie. “Gad, so it is. Let’s hail him.” Tollemache’s solemn face brightened when he heard the hail. He introduced his wife, an eminently artistic being who answered to the name of Jennie. She at once enlisted Elsie in an argument as to atmospheres, but Tollemache drew Courtenay aside. “Got married when I reached home that trip,” he explained. “The wife comes here every Thursday, an’ I have to carry the kit. Rather rot, isn’t it?” “It is certainly a change from stoking the donkey-boiler, and bowling over Alaculofs like nine-pins.” “That’s what I tell her, but she says the Indians were Boeotian, and the landscape, as I describe it, had the crude coloring of the Newlyn school, which she abominates. She thinks Turner might approve of Suarez in his black and white stripes, but the Guanaco crater reminds her of Gustave Doré, who always exaggerated his tone values. I learn that sort of gabble by heart. Jennie’s a good sort, yet sometimes she talks rot—” “George,” said Mrs. Tollemache, “pack up my portfolio. We are going to lunch with your friends. Mrs. Courtenay and I have so much to talk about. We find we think alike on many points. I am delighted to have met your wife, Captain Courtenay. My husband raves about her.” “So do I, ma’am,” cried Courtenay, gallantly, yet with a subtle glance at Elsie which told her he meant what he said. THE END