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Page 17
As the young artist sat watching the fire in the grate, his fancy
painted pleasing pictures. "Why should I not marry?" he mused. "Bachelor
life is well enough in its way, but it can't compare with a snug house,
and one's own dining-table, and a charming wife to drive away the
occasional blue-devils. I have money put aside, and it won't be long
till I'm making an easy twelve hundred a year. By Jove, I will--"
A noisy rap at the door interrupted Jack's train of thought, and brought
him to his feet.
"Come in!" he cried, expecting to see Nevill.
But the visitor was a telegraph boy, bearing the familiar brown
envelope. Jack signed for it, and tore open the message.
"Awfully seedy," Victor Nevill wired. "Sorry I can't get out to-night.
Am going to bed."
"No answer," said Jack, dismissing the boy. With his hands in his
pockets he strolled undecidedly about the studio for a couple of
minutes. "I hope nothing serious is the matter with Nevill," he
reflected. "He's not the sort of a chap to go to bed unless he feels
pretty bad. What shall I do now? I must be quick about it if I want
to get any dinner in town. It's past eight, and--"
There was the sound of slow footsteps out in the passage, followed by
the nervous jingling of the electric bell.
"Who can that be?" Jack muttered.
He pulled a cord that turned the gas higher in the big circlet of jets
overhead, and opened the door curiously. The man who entered the studio
was a complete stranger, and it was certain that he was not an
Englishman, if dress and appearance could decide that fact. He was
very tall and well-built, with a handsome face, so deeply tanned as
to suggest a recent residence in a tropical country. His mustaches were
twisted into waxed points, and there was a good deal of gray in his
beard, which was parted German fashion in the middle, and carefully
brushed to each side. His top hat was unmistakably French, with a flat
rim, and his boots were of patent leather. As he opened his long caped
cloak, the collar of which he kept turned up, it was seen that he was in
evening dress.
"Do I address Monsieur Vernon, the artist?" he asked in good English,
with a French accent.
"Yes, that's right."
"Formerly Monsieur John Clare?"
"I once bore that name," said Jack, with a start of surprise; he was
ill-pleased to hear it after so many years.
The visitor produced a card bearing the name of M. Felix Marchand, Parc
Monceaux, Paris.
"I do not recall you," said Jack. "Will you take a seat."
"We have not met until now," said M. Marchand, "but I have the honor to
be familiar with your work, and to possess some of it. Pictures are to
me a delight--I confess myself a humble patron of art--and a few years
ago I purchased several water-color sketches signed by your name. They
appealed to me especially because they were bits of Paris--one looking
down the river from the bridge of the Carrousel, and the other a night
impression of Montmartre."
"I remember them vaguely," said Jack. "They, with others, were sold for
me by a dealer named Cambon--"
"Monsieur is right. It was from Jacques Cambon, of the Quai Voltaire,
I obtained the sketches. They pleased me much, and I went again to seek
more--that was eighteen months later, when I returned to Paris after a
long absence. Imagine my disappointment to learn that Jacques Cambon
had no further knowledge of Monsieur Clare, and no more of his sketches
to sell."
"No; I had come to London by that time--or was in Italy," said Jack.
"But perhaps--pardon me--you would prefer to carry on our conversation
in French."
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