Page:Keeping the Peace.pdf/236

 They looked at pictures till their eyes refused to have emotions of any kind and the backs of their necks ached.

Edward called a cab and drove her back to the hotel.

"I'm a fool to paint," he said. "There are too many pictures already. I don't feel as if I ever wanted to look at another picture as long as I live. If I ever go through those Rubens galleries again it will be blindfold. I never knew how much I hated muscular fat women with no eyebrows and red hair . . . But wasn't he a marvel? Acres and acres of paint and every brushful smeared on so that it would do the most good!"

"There are too many pictures," Alice agreed, "but most of them are awful. And you are going to be better than almost anybody. So what's the use of complaining? Rubens was a great and mighty lord, wasn't he? Where did he find the time for everything?"

"I don't suppose he had to look," Edward said. "There's always lots of time lying around loose and all you have to do is to take it."

"Oughtn't you to be working instead of chasing around with me?"

"Never!" he said stoutly, and they both laughed.

But there wasn't to be so much chasing around. They did the Louvre and the Luxembourg to-