Part 38 (2/2)

”The two gentlemen are in the red drawing-room, sir!” Douglas and his father were sitting together in the library, after lunch, on the following afternoon, when the butler entered.

”d.a.m.n them!” said Sir Arthur under his breath. Then he got up, smiling, as the servant disappeared. ”Well, Duggy, now's your chance. I'm a brute not to come and help you, my boy. But I've made such a mess of driving the family coach, you'd really better take a turn. I shall go out for an hour. Then you can come and report to me.”

Douglas went into the red drawing-room, one of the suite of rooms dating from the early seventeenth century which occupied the western front of the house. As he entered, he saw two men at the farther end closely examining a large Constable, of the latest ”palette-knife” period, which hung to the left of the fire-place. One of the men was short, very stout, with a fringe of grey hair round his bald head, a pair of very shrewd and sparkling black eyes, a thick nose, full lips, and a double chin. He wore spectacles, and was using in addition, a magnifying gla.s.s with which he was examining the picture. Beside him stood a thin, slightly-bearded man, cadaverous in colour, who, with his hands in his pockets, was holding forth in a nonchalant, rather patronising voice.

Both of them turned at Douglas's entrance, surveying the son of the house with an evident and eager curiosity.

”You are, I suppose, Mr. Douglas Falloden?” said the short man, speaking perfect English, though with a slight German accent. ”Your father is not able to see us?”

”My father will be pleased to see you, when you have been the round of the pictures,” said Douglas stiffly. ”He deputes me to show you what we have.”

The short man laughed.

”I expect we know what you have almost as well as you. Let me introduce Mr. Miklos.”

Douglas bowed, so did the younger man. He was, as Douglas already knew, a Hungarian by birth, formerly an official in one of the museums of Budapest, then at Munich, and now an ”expert” at large, greatly in demand as the adviser of wealthy men entering the field of art collecting, and prepared to pay almost anything for success in one of the most difficult and fascinating _cha.s.ses_ that exist.

”I see you have given this room almost entirely to English pictures,”

said Mr. Miklos politely. ”A fine Constable!”--he pointed to the picture they had just been considering--”but not, I think, entirely by the master?”

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Herr Schwarz was examining a picture with a magnifying gla.s.s when Falloden entered_]

”My great-grandfather bought it from Constable himself,” said Douglas. ”It has never been disputed by any one.”

Mr. Miklos did not reply, but he shook his head with a slight smile, and walked away towards a Turner, a fine landscape of the middle period, hanging close to the Constable. He peered into it short-sightedly, with his strong gla.s.ses.

”A pity that it has been so badly relined,” he said presently, to Douglas, pointing to it.

”You think so? Its condition is generally thought to be excellent. My father was offered eight thousand for it last year by the Berlin Museum.”

Douglas was now apparently quite at his ease. With his thumbs in the armholes of his white waistcoat, he strolled along beside the two buyers, holding his own with both of them, thanks to his careful study of the materials for the history of the collection possessed by his father. The elder man, a Bremen s.h.i.+p-owner,--one Wilhelm Schwarz--who had lately made a rapid and enormous fortune out of the Argentine trade, and whose chief personal ambition it now was to beat the New York and Paris collectors, in the great picture game, whatever it might cost, was presently forced to take some notice of the handsome curly-headed youth in the perfectly fitting blue serge suit, whose appearance as the vendor, or the vendor's agent, had seemed to him, at first, merely one more instance of English aristocratic stupidity.

As a matter of fact, Herr Schwarz was simply dazzled by the contents of Flood Castle. He had never dreamt that such virgin treasures still existed in this old England, till Miklos, instructed by the Falloden lawyer, had brought the list of the pictures to his hotel, a few days before this visit. And now he found it extremely difficult to conceal his excitement and delight, or to preserve, in the presence of this very sharp-eyed young heir, the proper ”don't care” att.i.tude of the buyer. He presently left the ”running down” business almost entirely to Miklos, being occupied in silent and feverish speculations as to how much he could afford to spend, and a pa.s.sion of covetous fear lest somehow A----, or Z----, or K----, the leading collectors of the moment, should even yet forestall him, early and ”exclusive” as Miklos a.s.sured him their information had been.

They pa.s.sed along through the drawing-rooms, and the whole wonderful series of family portraits, Reynolds', Lawrences, Gainsboroughs, Romneys, Hoppners, looked down, unconscious of their doom, upon the invaders, and on the son of the house, so apparently unconcerned. But Douglas was very far from unconcerned. He had no artistic gift, and he had never felt or pretended any special interest in the pictures. They were part of Flood, and Flood was the inseparable adjunct of the Falloden race. When his father had first mooted the sale of them, Douglas had a.s.sented without much difficulty. If other things went, why not they?

But now that he was in the thick of the business, he found, all in a moment, that he had to set his teeth to see it through. A smarting sense of loss--loss hateful and irreparable, cutting away both the past and the future--burnt deep into his mind, as he followed in the track of the sallow and depreciatory Miklos or watched the podgy figure of Herr Schwarz, running from side to side as picture after picture caught his eye. The wincing salesman saw himself as another Charles Surface; but now that the predicament was his own it was no longer amusing. These fair faces, these mothers and babies of his own blood, these stalwart men, fighters by sea and land, these grave thinkers and churchmen, they thronged about him transformed, become suddenly alien and hostile, a crowd of threatening ghosts, the outraged witnesses of their own humiliation. ”For what are you selling us?”--they seemed to say.

”Because some one, who was already overfed, must needs grab at a larger mess of pottage--and we must pay! Unkind! degenerate!”

Presently, after the English drawing-rooms, and the library, with its one Romney, came the French room, with its precious Watteaus, its Latours, its two brilliant Nattiers. And here Herr Schwarz's coolness fairly deserted him. He gave little shrieks of pleasure, which brought a frown to the face of his companion, who was anxious to point out that a great deal of the Watteau was certainly pupil-work, that the Latours were not altogether ”convincing” and the Nattiers though extremely pretty, ”superficial.” But Herr Schwarz brushed him aside.

”_Nein, nein, lieber freund_! Dat Nattier is as fine as anything at Potsdam. Dat I must have!” And he gazed in ecstasy at the opulent shoulders, the rounded forms, and gorgeous jewelled dress of an unrivalled Madame de Pompadour, which had belonged to her brother, the Marquis de Marigny.

”You will have all or nothing, my good sir!” thought Falloden, and bided his time.

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