Part 28

"Yes, suh, me and my husban' was both here. He ain't home to-day. We was takin' care of de place when it ketched fire--dat's how we come to save dis cabin. Dere warn't no water and nobody to help, and dis was all we could do."

Again Adam bowed his head. Was there nothing left?--nothing to recall even her smile? Then slowly, as if he feared the result:

"Was anything saved--any furniture, or--pictures--or----"

"Nothin' but dem two chairs inside dar--and dat bench what you's settin' on. Dey was on de lawn and dat's how we come to git 'em."

For some minutes Adam sat looking into the ground at his feet, his eyes blurred with tears.

"Thank you," was all he said.

And once more he turned his horse's head towards the North.

A thin, shabby little man, with stooping shoulders, hooked nose and velvet tread, stood before the card rack in the lower corridor of the old studio building on Tenth Street. He was scanning the names, beginning at the top floor and going down to the basement. Suddenly his eyes glistened:

"Second floor," he whispered to himself. "Yes, of course; I knew it all the time--second floor," and "second floor" he kept repeating as he helped his small body up the steps by means of the hand-rail.

The little man earned his living by obtaining orders for portraits which he turned over to the several painters, fitting the price to their reputations, and by hunting up undoubted old masters, rare porcelains, curios and miniatures for collectors. He was reasonably honest, and his patrons followed his advice whenever it was backed by somebody they knew. He was also cunning--softly, persuasively cunning--with all the patience and philosophy of his race.

On this morning the little man had a Gilbert Stuart for sale, and what was more to the point he had a customer for the masterpiece: Morlon, the collector, of unlimited means and limited wall space, would buy it provided Adam Gregg, the distinguished portrait painter, Member of the International Jury, Commander of the Legion of Honor, Hors Concours in Paris and Munich, etc., etc., would pronounce it genuine.

The distinguished painter never hesitated to give his services in settling such matters. He delighted in doing it. Just as he always delighted in criticising the work of any young student who came to him for counsel--a habit he had learned in his life abroad--and always with a hand on the boy's shoulder and a twinkle in his brown eyes that robbed his words of any sting.

When dealers sought his help he was not so gracious. He disliked dealers--another of his foreign prejudices. Tender-hearted as he was he generally exploded with dynamic force--and he could explode when anything stirred him--whenever a dealer attempted to make him a party to anything that looked like fraud. He had once cut an assumed Corot into ribbons with his pocket-knife--and this since he had been home in New York, fifteen years now--and had then handed the strips back to the dealer with the remark:

"Down in the Treasury they brand counterfeits with a die; I do it with a knife. Send me the bill."

The little man, with the cunning of his race, knew this peculiarity, and he also knew that ten chances to one the great painter would receive him with a frigid look, and perhaps bow him out of the door. So he had studied out and arranged a little game. Only the day before he had obtained an order for a portrait to be painted by the best man-painter of his time. The picture was to be full length and to hang in the directors' room of a great corporation. This order he had in his pocket in writing, signed by the secretary of the board. Confirmations were sometimes valuable.

As the little man's body neared the great painter's door a certain pleasurable sensation trickled through him. To catch a painter on a hook baited with an order, and then catch a great collector like Morlon on another hook baited with a painter, was admirable fishing.

With these thoughts in his mind he rapped timidly on Adam Gregg's door, and was answered by a strong, cheery voice calling:

"Come in!"

The door swung back, the velvet curtains parted, and the little man made a step into the great painter's spacious studio.

"Oh, I have such a fine sitter for you!" he whispered, with his hand still grasping the curtain. "Such a distinguished-looking man he is--like a pope--like a doge. It will make a great Franz Hal; such a big spot of white hair and black coat and red face. He's coming to-morrow and----"

"Who is coming to-morrow?" asked Gregg. His tone would have swamped any other man. He had recognized the dealer with a simple "Good-morning," and had kept his place before his easel, the overhead light falling on his upturned mustache and crisp gray hair.

The little man rubbed his soft, flabby hands together, and tiptoed to where Gregg stood as noiseless as a detective approaching a burglar.

"The big banker," he whispered. "Did you not get my letter? The price is no object. I can show you the order." He had reached the easel now and was standing with bent head, an unctuous smile playing about his lips.

"No, I don't want to see it," remarked Gregg, squeezing a tube on his palette. "I can't reach it for some time, you know."

"Yes, I have told them so, but the young gentleman wants to have the entry made on the minutes and have the money appropriated. I had great confidence, you see, in your goodness," and the little man touched his forehead with one skinny finger and bowed obsequiously.

"I thought you said he had white hair."

"So he has. The portrait is to hang up in the directors' room of one of the big copper companies. The young gentleman is a member of the banking firm that is to pay for the picture, and is quite a young man. He buys little curios of me now and then, and he asked me whom I would recommend to paint the director's portrait, and, of course, there is but one painter--" and the dealer bowed to the floor. "He's coming to-morrow afternoon at four o'clock and will stay but a moment, for he's a very busy man. You will, I know, receive him."

Gregg made no reply. Rich directors did not appeal to him; they were generally flabby and well fed and out of drawing. If this one had some color in him--and the dealer knew--some of the sort of vigor and snap that would have appealed to Franz Hal, the case might be different. The little man waited a moment, saw that Gregg was absorbed in some brush stroke, and stepped back a pace or two. Better wait until the master's mind was free. Then again he could sweep his eyes around the interior without being detected--there was no telling what might happen: some day there might be a sale, and then it would be just as well to know where things like these could be found. Again he tiptoed across the spacious room, stopping to gaze at the rich tapestries lining the walls, examining with eye-glass held close the gold snuffboxes and rare bits of Sèvres and Dresden on the shelves of the cabinet, and testing with his nervous fingers the quality of the rich Utrecht velvet screening the door of an adjoining room.