Still, Lanyard concluded, surveying his prize through the illusioning fumes
of his cigar, while the waiter cleared away, it wasn't so bad after all, it
wouldn't be in the end a total loss. He could afford to cart the thing back
to Paris with him and give it room in his private gallery; and some day,
doubtless, some rich American would pay a handsome price for it on the
strength of its having found place in the collection of Michael Lanyard,
even though it lacked the cachet of his guarantee.
But what the devil had made it so precious to the soi-disant Prince Victor
and his charming wife?
But for a single circumstance Lanyard would have been tempted to believe he
had been craftily rooked by an accomplished chevalier d'industrie and his
female confederate; but too much and too real passion had been betrayed in
the auction room to countenance that suspicion.
No: he hadn't been rigged; at least, not by design. Something more than its
intrinsic value had rendered the canvas priceless in the esteem of those
two, something had been at stake more than mere possession of what they
might have believed to be a real Corot.
But what?
Perplexed, Lanyard took the picture in his hands--it was not too unwieldy,
even in its frame--and examined it with nose so close to the painted
surface that he seemed to be smelling it. Then he turned it over and
scowled at its reverse. And shook a baffled head.
But when he tapped the face of the picture smartly with a finger-nail, he
gave a slight start, passed a hand over it with the palm pressed flat, and
suddenly assumed the humanly intelligent expression of a hunting-dog that
has hit on a warm scent.
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