to spend an hour on their way at the Louvre. Susie, invited to accompany
them, preferred independence and her own reflections.

To avoid the crowd which throngs the picture galleries on holidays,
they went to that part of the museum where ancient sculpture is kept. It
was comparatively empty, and the long halls had the singular restfulness
of places where works of art are gathered together. Margaret was filled
with a genuine emotion; and though she could not analyse it, as Susie,
who loved to dissect her state of mind, would have done, it strangely
exhilarated her. Her heart was uplifted from the sordidness of earth,
and she had a sensation of freedom which was as delightful as it was
indescribable. Arthur had never troubled himself with art till Margaret's
enthusiasm taught him that there was a side of life he did not realize.
Though beauty meant little to his practical nature, he sought, in his
great love for Margaret, to appreciate the works which excited her to
such charming ecstasy. He walked by her side with docility and listened,
not without deference, to her outbursts. He admired the correctness of
Greek anatomy, and there was one statue of an athlete which attracted
his prolonged attention, because the muscles were indicated with the
precision of a plate in a surgical textbook. When Margaret talked of the
Greeks' divine repose and of their blitheness, he thought it very clever
because she said it; but in a man it would have aroused his impatience.

Yet there was one piece, the charming statue known as _La Diane de
Gabies_, which moved him differently, and to this presently he insisted
on going. With a laugh Margaret remonstrated, but secretly she was not
displeased. She was aware that his passion for this figure was due, not
to its intrinsic beauty, but to a likeness he had discovered in it to
herself.

It stood in that fair wide gallery where is the mocking faun, with his
inhuman savour of fellowship with the earth which is divine, and the
sightless Homer. The goddess had not the arrogance of the huntress who
loved Endymion, nor the majesty of the cold mistress of the skies. She
was in the likeness of a young girl, and with collected gesture fastened
her cloak. There was nothing divine in her save a sweet strange spirit
of virginity. A lover in ancient Greece, who offered sacrifice before
this fair image, might forget easily that it was a goddess to whom he
knelt, and see only an earthly maid fresh with you