Part 7 (1/2)
”These are the Chadwells, whom--” (Harding whispered a celebrated name) ”used to call the most gentlemanly picture-dealers in Bond-street.” Harding spoke to them, Owen standing apart absorbed in His grief, until the word ”Asher” caught his ear.
”Of whom are you speaking?”
”Of you, of Sir Owen Asher.” And Harding followed Owen, intensely annoyed.
”Not even to a gentlemanly picture-dealer should you--”
”You are entirely wrong; I said 'Sir Owen Asher.'”
”Very strange you should say 'Sir Owen Asher'; why didn't you say Sir Owen?”
Harding did not answer, being uncertain if it would not be better to drop Asher's acquaintance. But they had known each other always. It would be difficult.
”The sale is about to begin,” Asher said, and Harding sat down angry with Asher and interested in the auctioneer's face, created, Harding thought, for the job... ”looking exactly like a Roman bust. Lofty brow, tight lips, vigilant eyes, voice like a bell.... That d.a.m.ned fellow Asher! What the h.e.l.l did he mean--”
The auctioneer sat at a high desk, high as any pulpit, and in the benches the congregation crowded--every shade of nondescript, the waste ground one meets in a city: poor Jews and dealers from the outlying streets, with here and there a possible artist or journalist. As the pictures were sold the prices they fetched were marked in the catalogues, and Harding wondered why.
Around the room were men and women of all cla.s.ses; a good many of Sir Owen's ”set” had come--”Society being well represented that day,” as the newspapers would put it. All the same, the pictures were not selling well, not nearly so well as Owen and Harding antic.i.p.ated.
Harding was glad of this, for his heart was set on a certain drawing by Boucher.
”I would sooner you had it, Harding, than anybody else. It would be unendurable if one of those picture-dealers should get it; they'd come round to my house trying to sell it to me again, whereas in your rooms--”
”Yes,” said Harding, ”it will be an excuse to come to see me. Well, if I can possibly afford it--”
”Of course you can afford it; I paid eighty-seven pounds for it years ago; it won't go to more than a hundred. I'd really like you to have it.”
”Well, for goodness' sake don't talk so loud, somebody will hear you.”
The pictures went by--portraits of fair ladies and ancient admirals, landscapes, underwoods and deserts, flower and battle pieces, pathetic scenes and gallantries. There was a time when every one of these pictures was the hope and delight of a human being, now they went by interesting n.o.body....
At last the first of Evelyn's pictures was hoisted on the easel.
”Good G.o.d!” isn't it a miserable sight seeing her pictures going to whomsoever cares to bid a few pounds. But if I were to buy the whole collection--”
”I quite understand, and every one is a piece of your life.”
The pictures continued to go by.
”I can't stand this much longer.”
”Hus.h.!.+”
The Boucher drawing went up. It was turned to the right and to the left: a beautiful girl lying on her belly, her legs parted slightly.
Therefore the bidding began briskly, but for some unaccountable reason it died away. ”Somebody must have declared it to be a forgery,” Owen whispered to Harding, and a moment after it became Harding's property for eighty-seven pounds--”The exact sum I paid for it years ago. How very extraordinary!”
”A portrait by Manet--a hundred pounds offered, one hundred,” and two grey eyes in a face of stone searched the room for bidders. ”One hundred pounds offered, five, thirty, thirty-five, forty, fifty,”
and so on to two hundred.
”Her portrait will cost me a thousand,” Owen whispered to Harding, and, catching the auctioneer's eyes, he nodded again. Seven hundred.