South Kensington Museum

The South Kensington Museum is a London setting for the growing companionship between John Marcher and May Bartram. Their visits there belong to the period after their reunion at Weatherend, when May could meet Marcher during brief absences from her aunt and their opportunities to see one another multiplied.

Visits and Conversation

Marcher and May visited the South Kensington Museum together, as well as the National Gallery. On these occasions they talked about Italy broadly, no longer trying to recover the youthful taste and ignorance that had shaped their first conversation at Weatherend. That earlier act of recollection had, in Marcher’s view, served its purpose; their shared talk had moved on.

Narrative Significance

The museum is part of a change in the rhythm of their relationship. The narration figures the pair as having been pushed from the headwaters of a stream into its current: the visits mark companionship in motion rather than a return to the past. May’s knowledge of Marcher’s secret remains the bond beneath this developing intimacy, while the museum provides one of the ordinary settings in which their meetings continue.