And he said: “I thought I’d have a look in. We’re lunching at Filler’s; they tell me it’s better than the hotel; and we can go straight on from there to Mount Vernon. I’ve got some seats for the opera, to-night, too.”

And, conscious of Fleur’s scrutiny, he stared at the picture. He did not feel too comfortable.

“Are the older pictures better?” he asked.

“Well, sir, Fleur was just saying—how can anyone go on painting in these days?”

“How do you mean?”

“If you walk through, you’ll say the same. Here’s a hundred years of it.”

“The best pictures never get into these shows,” said Soames; “they just take anything they can get. Ryder, Innes, Whistler, Sargent—the Americans have had some great painters.”

“Of course,” said Fleur. “But do you really want to go round, Dad? I’m frightfully hungry.”

“No,” said Soames; “after that Saint Gaudens thing I don’t feel like it. Let’s go and lunch.”

II

Mount Vernon! The situation was remarkable! With all that colour on the trees, the grassy cliff, and below it the broad blue Potomac, which, even Soames confessed, was more imposing than the Thames. And the low white house up here, dignified and private, indeed, except for the trippers, almost English, giving him a feeling he had not had since he left home. He could imagine that fellow George Washington being very fond of it. One could have taken to the place oneself. Lord John Russell’s old house on the hill at Richmond was something like this, except, of course, for the breadth of river, and the feeling you always had in America and Canada, so far as he had seen, that they were trying to fill the country and not succeeding—such a terrific lot of space, and apparently no time.