Lady Connie Part 39

Meanwhile Miklos, perceiving that his patron was irretrievably landed and considering that his own "expert" dignity had been sufficiently saved, relaxed into enthusiasm and small talk. Only in the later Italian rooms did his critical claws again allow themselves to scratch.

A small Leonardo, the treasure of the house, which had been examined and written about by every European student of Milanese art for half a century, was suavely p.r.o.nounced--

"A Da Predis, of course, but a very nice one!" A Bellini became a Rondinelli; and the names of a dozen obscure, and lately discovered painters, freely applied to the Tintorets, Mantegnas and Cimas on the walls, produced such an effect on Herr Schwarz that he sat down open-mouthed on the central ottoman, staring first at the pictures and then at the speaker; not knowing whether to believe or to doubt.

Falloden stood a little apart, listening, a smile on his handsome mouth.

"We should know nothing about Rondinelli," said Miklos at last, sweetly--"but for the great Bode--"

"_Ach_, Bode!" said Herr Schwarz, nodding his head in complacent recognition at the name of the already famous a.s.sistant-director of the Berlin Museum.

Falloden laughed.

"Dr. Bode was here last year. He told my father he thought the Bellini was one of the finest in existence."

Miklos changed countenance slightly.

"Bode perhaps is a trifle credulous," he said in an offended tone.

But he went back again to the Bellini and examined it closely. Falloden, without waiting for his second thoughts, took Herr Schwarz into the dining-room.

At the sight of the six masterpieces hanging on its walls, the Bremen ship-owner again lost his head. What miraculous good-fortune had brought him, ahead of all his rivals, into this still unravaged hive? He ran from side to side,--he grew red, perspiring, inarticulate. At last he sank down on a chair in front of the t.i.tian, and when Miklos approached, delicately suggesting that the picture, though certainly fine, showed traces of one of the later pupils, possibly Molari, in certain parts, Herr Schwarz waved him aside.

"_Nein, nein!_--Hold your tongue, my dear sir! Here must I judge for myself."

Then looking up to Falloden who stood beside him, smiling, almost reconciled to the vulgar, greedy little man by his collapse, he said abruptly--

"How much, Mr. Falloden, for your father's collection?"

"You desire to buy the whole of it?" said Falloden coolly.

"I desire to buy everything that I have seen," said Herr Schwarz, breathing quickly. "Your solicitors gave me a list of sixty-five pictures. No, no, Miklos, go away!"--he waved his expert aside impatiently.

"Those were the pictures on the ground floor," said Falloden. "You have seen them all. You had better make your offer in writing, and I will take it to my father."

He fetched pen and paper from a side-table and put them before the excited German. Herr Schwarz wrinkled his face in profound meditation.

His eyes almost disappeared behind his spectacles, then emerged sparkling.

He wrote some figures on a piece of paper, and handed it to Douglas.

Douglas laughed drily, and returned it.

"You will hardly expect me to give my father the trouble of considering that."

Herr Schwarz puffed and blowed. He got up, and walked about excitedly.

He lit a cigarette, Falloden politely helping him. Miklos advanced again.

"I have, myself, made a very careful estimate--" he began, insinuatingly.

"No, no, Miklos,--go away!--go away!" repeated Schwarz impatiently, almost walking over him. Miklos retreated sulkily.

Schwarz took up the paper of figures, made an alteration, and handed it to Falloden.

"It is madness," he said--"sheer madness. But I have in me something of the poet--the Crusader."

Falloden's look of slightly sarcastic amus.e.m.e.nt, as the little man breathlessly examined his countenance, threw the buyer into despair.

Douglas put down the paper.

"We gave you the first chance, Herr Schwarz. As you know, n.o.body is yet aware of our intentions to sell. But I shall advise my father to-night to let one or two of the dealers know."

"_Ach, lieber Gott!_" said Herr Schwarz, and walking away to the window, he stood looking into the rose-garden outside, making a curious whistling sound with his prominent lips, expressive, evidently, of extreme agitation.

Falloden lit another cigarette, and offered one to Miklos.

At the end of two or three minutes, Schwarz again amended the figures on the sc.r.a.p of paper, and handed it sombrely to Falloden.

"Dat is my last word."

Falloden glanced at it, and carelessly said--

"On that I will consult my father."

He left the room.

Schwarz and Miklos looked at each other.

"What airs these English aristocrats give themselves," said the Hungarian angrily--"even when they are beggars, like this young man!"

Schwarz stood frowning, his hands in his pockets, legs apart. His agitation was calming down, and his more prudent mind already half regretted his impetuosity.

"Some day--we shall teach them a lesson!" he said, under his breath, his eyes wandering over the rose-garden and the deer-park beyond. The rapidly growing docks of Bremen and Hamburg, their crowded shipping, the mounting tide of their business, came flashing into his mind--ran through it in a series of images. This England, with her stored wealth, and her command of the seas--must she always stand between Germany and her desires? He found himself at once admiring and detesting the English scene on which he looked. That so much good German money should have to go into English pockets for these ill-gotten English treasures! What a country to conquer--and to loot!

"And they are mere children compared to us--silly, thick-headed children! Yet they have all the plums--everywhere."

Falloden came back. The two men turned eagerly.

"My father thanks you for your offer, gentlemen. He is very sorry he is not able to see you as he hoped. He is not very well this afternoon. But I am to say that he will let you have an answer in twenty-four hours.

Then if he agrees to your terms, the matter will have to go before the court. That, of course, our lawyers explained to you--"

"That will not suit me at all!" cried Herr Schwarz. "As far as your father is concerned, my offer must be accepted--or rejected--now."

He struck his open hand on the polished mahogany of the table beside him.

"Then I am very sorry you have had the trouble of coming down," said Falloden politely. "Shall I order your carriage?"

The great ship-owner stared at him. He was on the point of losing his temper, perhaps of withdrawing from his bargain, when over Falloden's head he caught sight of the t.i.tian and the play of light on its shining armour; of the Van Dyck opposite. He gave way helplessly; gripped at the same moment by his parvenu's ambition, and by the genuine pa.s.sion for beautiful things lodged oddly in some c.h.i.n.k of his common and Philistine personality.

"I have the refusal then--for twenty-four hours?" he said curtly.