t her than one seemed to have known her long and know her well.
Most people found this so. One therefore readily slid into speaking
one's mind to Mrs. Hawthorne, dispensing with the formal affectation of
a perfect respect for her every act and opinion, secure in the
recognition that anger, sulkiness, the self-love that easily takes
umbrage, were as far from her breezy sturdiness as the scrupulosities of
an anxious refinement.

That one could say what one pleased to Mrs. Hawthorne put more life into
intercourse with her, naturally, than there would have been if, with her
limitations, one had been forced to be entirely and tamely circumspect.

"Mrs. Hawthorne," cried Gerald, "do me the very real favor, will you,
like a dear good woman, of not calling the most venerable of the
primitives Simma Bewey!"

It was astonishing what things Gerald Fane could say without losing his
effect of a complete, even considerate politeness.

"But that's the way it's written," said Mrs. Hawthorne.

"You will pardon the liberty I take of contradicting you; it is not. It
gives me goose-flesh. Cimabue!"

"Very well. I'll try to remember. But it doesn't matter what I call him;
his Madonna is no beauty. Do you mean to tell me there was a time when
people admired faces like that? She gives me a pain."

"That is not the point; her beauty is not the point. Besides, she is
beautiful."

"Oh, very well. If you'd like to have me look like her, I can."

She tipped her head to one side, lengthened her jaw, pointed her hand,
and by a knack she had for mimicry made herself vaguely resemble the
large-eyed, small-mouthed, pale and serious Lady of Heaven before whose
portrait by the old master this dialogue took place.

"It is really a very poor joke, Mrs. Hawthorne," Gerald said, with mouth
distorted by the conflict between laughter and disgust. "To travesty a
dignified and sacred thing is a very poor pastime. Of course I laugh.
Miss Madison laughs, and I laugh. I think very poorly of it, all the
same. You would do much better to frame your mind to an attitude of
respect and try to understand. I can't say, though, that I think it
unnatural you should not at first appreciate the earliest old masters.
We will go to look at something more obvious."

"Wait a moment. These fascinate me, they're so queer and so awful. I
tell you those old codgers of the time you say these belong to had
strong nerves and stomachs. All these wounds and dripping blood and