Part 14 (1/2)
”I ask it from the heart,” he pleaded. ”Do not I, my G.o.d, know what it is to be hungry?”
”Hungry?” said the dealer. ”Hungry! The boy has an uncle famously rich. What is an uncle for? Hungry? You make _une betise_. Hungry.” He called his clerk and took up his hat. ”I will not go,” he vowed.
”Hungry, _par example_!”
”Truly you will not,” smiled Seraphin. ”And do not tell him that I sent you: he is proud.”
The sound of the door opening interrupted Cartaret's dream. He turned, a little sheepish, wholly annoyed. Spectacled Fourget stood there, looking very severe.
”I was pa.s.sing by,” he explained. ”I have not come to purchase anything, but I grow old: I was tired and I climbed your stairs to rest.”
It was too late to hide those portraits. Cartaret could only place for Fourget a chair with its back to them.
”What have you been doing?” asked the dealer.
He swung 'round toward the portraits.
”Don't look at them!” said Cartaret. ”They're merely sketches.”
But Fourget had already looked. He was on his feet. He was bobbing from one to the other, his lean hands adjusting his gla.s.ses, his shoulders stooped, his nose thrust out. He was uttering little cries of approval.
”But this is good! It is good, then. This is first-rate. This is of an excellence!”
”They're not for sale,” said Cartaret.
”_Hein?_” Fourget wheeled. ”If they are not for sale, they are for what, then?”
”They--they are merely sketches, I tell you. I was trying my hand at a new method; but I find there is nothing in it.”
Fourget was unb.u.t.toning his short frock-coat. He was reaching for his wallet.
”I tell you there is everything in it. There is the sure touch in it, the clear vision, the sympathy. There is reputation in it. In fine, there is money.”
He had the wallet out as he concluded.
Cartaret shook his head.
”Oh,” said Fourget, the dealer in him partially overcoming the lover of art, ”not much as yet; not a great deal of money. You have still a long way to go; but you have found the road, monsieur, and I want to help you on your journey. Come, now.” He nodded to the first portrait.
”What do you ask for that?”
”I don't want to sell it.”
”Poof! We shall not haggle. Tell Fourget what you had thought of asking. Do not be modest. Tell me--and I will give you half.”
He kept it up as long as he could; he tried at last to buy the least of the preliminary sketches of the Rose-Lady; he offered what, to Cartaret, were dazzling prices; but Cartaret was not to be shaken: these experiments were not for sale.
Fourget was first disappointed, then puzzled. His enthusiasm had been genuine; but could it be possible that Dieudonne was mistaken? Was Cartaret not starving? The old man was beginning to b.u.t.ton his coat when a new idea struck him.
”Who was your model?” he asked abruptly.