Each had sufficient
sympathy with the tastes of the other, however, to prevent
any tendency to separation. They took their uncle one
day to see where William the Silent was assassinated,
and the next to observe how Rembrandt's theory of guild
portrait-painting differed from Van der Helst's, with a
common enthusiasm. He scrutinized with patient loyalty
everything that they indicated to him, and not infrequently
they appeared to like very much the comments he offered.
These were chiefly of a sprightly nature, and when Julia
laughed over them he felt that she was very near to him indeed.
Thus they saw Paris together--where Thorpe did relinquish
some of the multiplied glories of the Louvre to sit
in front of a cafe by the Opera House and see the funny
people go past--and thence, by Bruges and Antwerp,
to Holland, where nobody could have imagined there were
as many pictures as Thorpe saw with his own weary eyes.
There were wonderful old buildings at Lubeck for Julia's
eyes to glisten over, and pictures at Berlin, Dresden,
and Dusseldorf for Alfred.
The assumption existed that the excursion into the
Thuringenwald to see the memorials of Luther was especially
for the uncle's benefit, and he tried solicitously
to say or look nothing which might invalidate it.
There were other places in Germany, from Mainz to Munich,
which he remembered best by their different beers.
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