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Page 1
XVII.--Two Passengers from Calais
XVIII.--Home Again
XIX.--A Shock for Sir Lucius
XX.--At a Night Club
XXI.--A Quick Decision
XXII.--Another Chance
XXIII.--On the Track
XXIV.--A Fateful Decision
XXV.--A Fruitless Errand
XXVI.--A Thunderbolt from the Blue
XXVII.--An Amateur Detective
XXVIII.--A Discovery
XXIX.--The Vicar of Dunwold
XXX.--Run to Earth
XXXI.--Noah Hawker's Disclosure
XXXII.--How the Day Ended
XXXIII.--Conclusion
IN FRIENDSHIP'S GUISE.
CHAPTER I.
THE DUPLICATE REMBRANDT.
The day began well. The breakfast rolls were crisper than usual, the
butter was sweeter, and never had Diane's slender white hands poured out
more delicious coffee. Jack Clare was in the highest spirits as he
embraced his wife and sallied forth into the Boulevard St. Germain, with
a flat, square parcel wrapped in brown paper under his arm. From the
window of the entresol Diane waved a coquettish farewell.
"Remember, in an hour," she called down to him. "I shall be ready by
then, Jack, and waiting. We will lunch at Bignon's--"
"And drive in the Bois, and wind up with a jolly evening," he
interrupted, throwing a kiss. "I will hasten back, dear one. Be sure
that you put on your prettiest frock, and the jacket with the ermine
trimming."
It was a clear and frosty January morning, in the year 1892, and the
streets of Paris were dry and glistening. There was intoxication in the
very air, and Jack felt thoroughly in harmony with the fine weather.
What mattered it that he had but a few francs in his pocket--that the
quarterly remittance from his mother, who dreaded the Channel passage
and was devoted to her foggy London, would not be due for a fortnight?
The parcel under his arm meant, without doubt, a check for a nice sum.
He and Diane would spend it merrily, and until the morrow at least his
fellow-workers at Julian's Academy would miss him from his accustomed
place.
Bright-eyed grisettes flung coy looks at the young artist as he strode
along, admiring his well-knit figure, his handsome boyish features
chiseled as finely as a cameo, the crisp brown hair with a slight
tendency to curl, his velvet jacket and flowing tie. Jack nodded and
smiled at a familiar face now and then, or paused briefly to greet a
male acquaintance; for the Latin Quarter had been his little world for
three years, and he was well-known in it from the Boulevard St. Michel
to the quays of the Seine. He snapped his fingers at a mounted
cuirassier in scarlet and silver who galloped by him on the Point Royal,
and whistled a few bars of "The British Grenadiers" as he passed the
red-trowsered, meek-faced, under-sized soldiers who shouldered their
heavy muskets in the courts of the Louvre. The memory of Diane's
laughing countenance, as she leaned from the window, haunted him in the
Avenue de l'Opera.
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