"Ah!" he exclaimed again, softly, as if with much inward satisfaction. He was sitting languidly on his chair, nursing his knee, and gazing through the balustrade of the gallery upon the crowd below. Elizabeth was on the point of suggesting that they might now go and look at the pictures, when he began upon a fresh topic. "And about china, Miss King? Tell me, do you know anything about china?" "I'm afraid not," said Elizabeth. "You don't know the difference between Chelsea and Derby-Chelsea, for instance?" "No." "Nor between old Majolica and modern?" "No." "Nor between a Limoges enamel of the sixteenth century--everything _good_ belongs to the sixteenth century, you must remember--and what they call Limoges now-a-days?" "No." "Ah, well, I think very few people do," said the major, resignedly. "But, at any rate"--speaking in a tone of encouragement--"you _do_ know Sèvres and Dresden when you see them?--you could tell one of _them_ from the other?" "Really," Elizabeth replied, beginning to blush for her surpassing ignorance, "I am very sorry to have to confess it, but I don't believe I could." The major softly unclasped his knees and leaned back in his chair, and sighed. "But I could learn," suggested Elizabeth. "Ah, so you can," he responded, brightening. "You can learn, of course. _Will_ you learn? You can't think what a favour it would be to me if you would learn. Do promise me that you will." "No, I will not promise. I should do it to please myself--and, of course, because it is a thing that Mrs. Duff-Scott takes an interest in," said Elizabeth. "That is just what I mean. It is _because_ Mrs. Duff-Scott takes such an interest in china that I want you to cultivate a taste for it. You see it is this way," he proceeded argumentatively, again, still clasping his knees, and looking up at her with a quaint smile from under his hat brim. "I will be frank with you, Miss King--it is this way. I want to induce you to enter into an alliance with me, offensive and defensive, against that terrible energy which, as I said, is my wife's alarming characteristic. For her own good, you understand--for my comfort incidentally, but for her own good in the first place, I want you to help me to keep her energy within bounds. As long as she is happy with music and china we shall be all right, but if she goes beyond things of that sort--well, I tremble for the consequences. They would be fatal--fatal!" "Where are you afraid she should go to?" asked Elizabeth.