Mr.
Lanley was sitting, with his arms folded and his feet stretched out far before him, his head bent, but his eyes raised and fixed on the picture.
They saw him first, and had two or three seconds to take in the profound contemplation of his mood.

Then he slowly raised his eyes and encountered theirs.
There is surely nothing compromising in an elderly gentleman spending a contemplative morning alone at the Metropolitan Museum.

It might well be his daily custom; but the knowledge that it was not, the consciousness of the rarity of the mood that had brought him there, oppressed Mr.Lanley almost like a crime.

He felt caught, outraged, ashamed as he saw them.
"That's the age which has a right to it," he said to himself.

And then as if in a mirror he saw an expression of embarrassment on their faces, and was reminded that their meeting must have been illicit, too.