The Streets of Ascalon Part 64

From these reports and his own conclusions Quarren drafted a catalogue while Dankmere went about sticking adhesive labels on the frames, all numbered. And, as he trotted blithely about his work, he talked to himself and to the pictures:

"Here's number nine for you, old lady! If I'd had a face like that I'd have killed the artist who transferred it to canvas!... Number sixteen for you there in your armour! Somebody in Springfield will buy you for an ancestor and that's what will happen to you.... And you, too, in a bag-wig!--_you'll_ be some rich Yankee's ancestor before you know it!

That's the way you'll end, my smirking friend.... h.e.l.lo! _Tiens!_ _In Gottes namen_--whom have we here? Why, it's Venus!... And hot weather is no excuse for going about _that_ way!... Listen to this, Quarren, for an impromptu patter-song--

"'Venus, dear, you ought to know What the proper caper is-- Even Eve, who wasn't slow, Robbed the neighbours' graperies!

Even Maenads on the go, Fat Bacchantes in a row-- Even ladies in a show Wear _some_ threads of naperies!

Through the heavens planet-strewn Where a shred of vapour is Quickly clothes herself the Moon!

Get you to a modiste soon Where the tissue-paper is, Cut in fashions fit for June-- Wear 'em, dear, for draperies----'"

"_Good_ heavens!" protested Quarren--"how long can you run on like that?"

"Years and years, my dear fellow. It's in me--born in me! Can you beat it? Though I appear to be a peer appearance is a liar; cast for a part apart from caste, departing I climb higher toward the boards to bore the hordes and lord it, sock and buskin dispensing sweetness, art, and light as per our old friend Ruskin----"

"Dankmere!"

"Heaven-born?"

"Stop!"

"I remain put.... What number do I stick on this gentleman with streaky features?"

"Eighteen. That's a Franz Hals."

"Really?"

"Yes; the records are all here, and the experts agree."

His lordship got down nimbly from the step-ladder and came over to the desk:

"Young sir," he said, "how much is that picture worth?"

"All we can get for it. It's not a very good example."

"Are you going to tell people that?"

"If they ask me," said Quarren, smiling.

"What price are you going to put on it?"

"Ten thousand."

"And do you think any art-smitten a.s.s will pay that sum for a thing like that?"

"I think so. If it were only a decent example I'd ask ten times that--and probably get it in the end."

Dankmere inspected the picture more respectfully for a few moments, then pasted a label on an exquisite head by Greuze.

"She's a peach," he said. "What price is going to waft her from my roof-tree?"

"The experts say it's not a Greuze but a contemporary copy. And there's no pedigree, either."

"Oh," said the Earl blankly, "is that your opinion, too?"

"I haven't any yet. But there's no such picture by Greuze extant."

"You _don't_ think it a copy?"

"I'm inclined not to. Under that thick blackish-yellow varnish I believe I'll find the pearl and rose texture of old Greuze himself. In the meantime it's not for sale."

"I see. And this battle-scene?"

"Wouverman's--ruined by restoring. It's not worth much."

"And this Virgin?"

"Pure as the Virgin Herself--not a mark--flawless. It's by 'The Master of the Death of Mary.' Isn't it a beauty? Do you notice St. John holding the three cherries and the Christ-child caressing the goldfinch? Did you ever see such colour?"

"It's--er--pretty," said his lordship.

And so during the entire afternoon they compiled the price-list and catalogue, marking copies for what they were, noting such pictures as had been ruined by restoring or repainted so completely as to almost obliterate the last original brush stroke. Also Quarren reserved for his own investigations such canvases as he doubted or of which he had hopes--a number that under their crocked, battered, darkened or discoloured surfaces hinted of by-gone glories that might still be living and only imprisoned beneath the thick opacity of dust, soot, varnish, and the repainting of many years ago.

And that night he went to bed happier than he had ever been in all his life--unless his moments with Strelsa Leeds might be termed happy ones.

Monday morning brought, among other things, a cloudless sun, and little Miss Vining quite as spotless and radiant; and within ten minutes the click of the typewriter made the silent picture-plastered rooms almost gay.

In shirtwaist and cuffs she took her place behind the desk with a sort of silent decision which seemed at once to invest her with suzerainty over all that corner of the room; and Dankmere coming in a little later, whistling merrily and twirling his walking-stick, sheered off instinctively on his breezy progress through the rooms, skirting Jessie Vining's domain as though her private ensign flew above it and earthworks, cannon and trespa.s.s notices flanked her corner on every side.

In the back parlour he said to Quarren: "So that is the girl?"

"It sure is."

"G.o.d bless my soul! she acts as though she had just bought in the whole place."

"What's she doing?"

"Just sitting there," admitted Dankmere.

He seemed to have lost his spirits. Once, certain that he was un.o.bserved except by Quarren, he ventured to balance his stick on his chin, but it was a half-hearted performance; and when he tossed up his straw hat and attempted to catch it on his head, he missed, and the corrugated brim sustained a dent.

A number of people called that morning, quiet, well-dressed, cautious-eyed, soft-spoken gentlemen who moved about noiselessly over the carpets and, on encountering one another, nodded with silent familiarity and smiles scarcely perceptible.

They seemed to require no information concerning the pictures which they swept with glances almost careless on their first rounds of the rooms.

But the first leisurely tour always resulted in a second where one or two pictures seemed to claim their closer scrutiny.

Now and then one of these gentlemen would screw a jeweller's gla.s.s into his eye and remain a few minutes nose almost touching a canvas. Several used the large reading-gla.s.s lying on a side table. Before they departed all glanced over the incomplete scale of prices which Jessie Vining had typed and bound in blue covers; but one and all took their leave in amiable silence, saying a non-committal word or two to Quarren in pleasantly modulated voices and pa.s.sing Jessie's desk with a grave inclination of gravely preoccupied faces.

When the last leisurely lingerer had taken his leave Quarren said to Jessie Vining: