She was wholly at a loss to phrase what she wished to say, both because
her ideas were rather vague and because she feared lest she might
offend her lover by talking upon a subject which he had markedly
avoided. He made now a fresh effort to divert the talk into a new
channel.

"Never mind the artists," he said, "we really must go. Besides, you are
only in town for a day and it is no use to attempt the discussion of
questions which involve the entire order of the universe. I promised
Mrs. Calvin I'd bring you back in half-an-hour, and we've been here
twice that time already."

He ran on brightly and rapidly, leading the way out of the gallery and
down the stairs, and she followed with a suspicion of shadow upon her
face as if the subject of which she had spoken was one of real
importance to her.

"Come in and see the jolly old Pasht," Arthur suggested, as they
descended the wide staircase.

She acquiesced by turning with him into the room devoted to the Way
collection of Egyptian antiquities, in the center of which stands a
somewhat mutilated granite statue of the goddess Pasht, the cat-headed
deity, referred to the time of Amenophis III, about 1500 B.C. Calm,
impassive and saturnine the goddess sits, holding the sign of life with
lifeless fingers in as unconscious mockery now as when the symbol was
placed within the stony grasp by some unrecorded sculptor dead more
than thirty centuries ago. All that it has looked upon, all the
shifting scenes and varied lands upon which have gazed those sightless