"This, my darling, is M. Poiron, the eminent Paris expert, who has been good enough to come and give us his opinion on the picture."
M. Poiron bowed. Aristide advanced.
"Mademoiselle, your appearance is like a mirage in a desert."
She smiled indulgently and turned to her father. "I"ve been wondering what had become of you. Harry has been here for the last half-hour."
"Bring him in, dear child, bring him in!" said Mr. Smith, with all the heartiness of the fine old English gentleman. "Our good friends are dying to meet him."
The girl flickered out of the room like a sunbeam (the phrase is Aristide"s), and the three precious rascals put their heads together in a hurried and earnest colloquy. Presently Miss Christabel returned, and with her came the Honourable Harry Ralston, a tall, soldierly fellow, with close-cropped fair curly hair and a fair moustache, and frank blue eyes that, even in Parliament, had seen no harm in his fellow-creatures.
Aristide"s magical vision caught him wincing ever so little at Mr.
Smith"s effusive greeting and overdone introductions. He shook Aristide warmly by the hand.
"You have a beauty there, Baron, a perfect beauty," said he, with the insane ingenuousness of youth. "I wonder how you can manage to part with it."
"_Ma foi_," said Aristide, with his back against the end of the dining-table and gazing at the masterpiece. "I have so many at the Chateau de Mireilles. When one begins to collect, you know--and when one"s grandfather and father have had also the divine mania----"
"You were saying, M. le Baron," said M. Poiron of Paris, "that your respected grandfather bought this direct from Corot himself."
"A commission," said Aristide. "My grandfather was a patron of Corot."
"Do you like it, dear?" asked the Honourable Harry.
"Oh, yes!" replied the girl, fervently. "It is beautiful. I feel like Harry about it." She turned to Aristide. "How can you part with it? Were you really in earnest when you said you would like me to come and see your collection?"
"For me," said Aristide, "it would be a visit of enchantment."
"You must take me, then," she whispered to Harry. "The Baron has been telling us about his lovely old chateau."
"Will you come, monsieur?" asked Aristide.
"Since I"m going to rob you of your picture," said the young man, with smiling courtesy, "the least I can do is to pay you a visit of apology.
Lovely!" said he, going up to the Corot.
Aristide took Miss Christabel, now more bewitching than ever with the glow of young love in her eyes and a flush on her cheek, a step or two aside and whispered:--
"But he is charming, your fiance! He almost deserves his good fortune."
"Why almost?" she laughed, shyly.
"It is not a man, but a demi-G.o.d, that would deserve you, mademoiselle."
M. Poiron"s harsh voice broke out.
"You see, it is painted in the beginning of Corot"s later manner--it is 1864. There is the mystery which, when he was quite an old man, became a trick. If you were to put it up to auction at Christie"s it would fetch, I am sure, five thousand pounds."
"That"s more than I can afford to give," said the young man, with a laugh. "Mr. Smith mentioned something between three and four thousand pounds. I don"t think I can go above three."
"I have nothing to do with it, my dear boy, nothing whatever," said Mr.
Smith, rubbing his hands. "You wanted a Corot. I said I thought I could put you on to one. It"s for the Baron here to mention his price. I retire now and for ever."
"Well, Baron?" said the young man, cheerfully. "What"s your idea?"
Aristide came forward and resumed his place at the end of the table. The picture was in front of him beneath the strong electric light; on his left stood Mr. Smith and Poiron, on his right Miss Christabel and the Honourable Harry.
"I"ll not take three thousand pounds for it," said Aristide. "A picture like that! Never!"
"I a.s.sure you it would be a fair price," said Poiron.
"You mentioned that figure yourself only just now," said Mr. Smith, with an ugly glitter in his little pig"s eyes.
"I presume, gentlemen," said Aristide, "that this picture is my own property." He turned engagingly to his host. "Is it not, _cher ami_?"
"Of course it is. Who said it wasn"t?"
"And you, M. Poiron, acknowledge formally that it is mine," he asked, in French.
"_Sans aucun doute._"
"_Eh bien_," said Aristide, throwing open his arms and gazing round sweetly. "I have changed my mind. I do not sell the picture at all."
"Not sell it? What the--what do you mean?" asked Mr. Smith, striving to mellow the gathering thunder on his brow.
"I do not sell," said Aristide. "Listen, my dear friends!" He was in the seventh heaven of happiness--the princ.i.p.al man, the star, taking the centre of the stage. "I have an announcement to make to you. I have fallen desperately in love with mademoiselle."
There was a general gasp. Mr. Smith looked at him, red-faced and open-mouthed. Miss Christabel blushed furiously and emitted a sound half between a laugh and a scream. Harry Ralston"s eyes flashed.
"My dear sir----" he began.
"Pardon," said Aristide, disarming him with the merry splendour of his glance. "I do not wish to take mademoiselle from you. My love is hopeless! I know it. But it will feed me to my dying day. In return for the joy of this hopeless pa.s.sion I will not sell you the picture--I give it to you as a wedding present."
He stood, with the air of a hero, both arms extended towards the amazed pair of lovers.
"I give it to you," said he. "It is mine. I have no wish but for your happiness. In my Chateau de Mireilles there are a hundred others."
"This is madness!" said Mr. Smith, bursting with suppressed indignation, so that his bald head grew scarlet.
"My dear fellow!" said Mr. Harry Ralston. "It is unheard-of generosity on your part. But we can"t accept it."
"Then," said Aristide, advancing dramatically to the picture, "I take it under my arm, I put it in a hansom cab, and I go with it back to Languedoc."
Mr. Smith caught him by the wrist and dragged him out of the room.
"You little brute! Do you want your neck broken?"
"Do you want the marriage of your daughter with the rich and Honourable Harry broken?" asked Aristide.
"Oh, d.a.m.n! Oh, d.a.m.n! Oh, d.a.m.n!" cried Mr. Smith, stamping about helplessly and half weeping.