E. Phillips Oppenheim

“ Sir John continued his lunch undisturbed. His capacity for receiving chaff at least remained. He looked after the young people curiously when presently they left the table.
“Damned good-looking girl, Mademoiselle Claire,” he observed. “The young man's a limb of Satan all right. Face of a seraph and a blackened soul. You know the sort of thing, Cardinge. Ortorde used the type in those hellish caricatures of his. Cousins, indeed! They're not of the same strain, Madame, and you know it. Am I keeping you both? I am sorry. The coffee on the train was undrinkable, and the roll like sawdust.” ”

“ Sir John had lost much of his healthy color. He had lost also his fussy manner of speech. There was something approaching dignity in his tone as he took up his stand.
“Madame,” he said, “I played hell with you in those days when you and your Virgins were the sensation of Paris, but, young though we were, there was no place for fools with us. You send for me. You insist that I redeem my fifteen-year-old pledge. Very well—I agree. You force me into acquiescence. I place everything in your hands, and you send a babe and a fool to do a man's work.” ”

“ You see what I am now—a well-known man, an artist of repute, famous, with a place in the orderly ways of life. Those two or three years of madness in Paris were all very well while they lasted, but they lie back in the past which one must forget. When I received your summons, I came—not because I recognized the obligation of the call, but as a matter of business, and because, of course, I want my confession back. I am not a wealthy man, but I have saved a little money. If you are not disposed to give me back the packet I deposited with you, I have come to buy it. ”

“ Madame leaned forward.
“You very foolish man,” she scoffed. “It isn't the three thousand guineas for the picture we're thinking about. It's the hundred thousand pounds those emeralds will fetch.”
Sir John for a moment or two was absolutely speechless. He had, indeed, the appearance of a man about to indulge in a fit. The waiter looked at him in concern. Madame only smiled,
“The gentleman is troubled with indigestion,” she confided. “Leave the brandy, waiter. He will be better directly. Hugh, and you two children, go and gamble. I will look after Sir John.” ”

“ I shall finish the picture when you have gone.”
She became thoughtful.
“Say, I feel somehow all set against going away, Sir John,” she confided.
“Why, you've booked your place next Thursday,” he reminded her.
“I know,” she assented. “But what's the use, after all, of being one of the richest women in the world, if you can't change your mind now and then?”
“It's getting very bot here.”
“Hot weather agrees with me. How long are you going to stay, Sir John?”
“I shall be leaving very soon after you,” he assured her. “I shall probably finish the picture at home.” ”

“ You know how fond one can be sometimes of wicked things that are pose. There are times when I'm very fond of Armand. He's clever,” she went on, dropping her voice a little and looking uneasily around. ”He watches me. He knows just the right thing to say at the right moment. ”

“ Madame repeated, “you are going to paint her. She will probably wear an even more outrageous gown than she has on to-day. She will certainly wear more jewelry. She will also wear the Van Dresser emeralds. You will insist upon that. You always did love emeralds, didn't you, Johnny?”
He laid down his knife and fork. The healthy color had gone from his cheeks. The man's desire to eat good food had also left him.
“I won't do it,” he declared.
“You will,” she replied. “There is artist's villa—a tiny little place—to be let at Cagnes, with a large studio. It is in the hands of the agents here. ”

“ He has seen a charming little villa at Cagnes with a studio he would like to take. I'm afraid he's terribly extortionate, but, as you know, when a man is at the top of his profession—”
“Say, you can cut that out,” Mrs. Hodson Chambers intervened. “I guess I can afford to pay Sir John's fee.”
“These dear men won't discuss such things themselves,” Madame continued smoothly. “He wants two thousand guineas for the picture and a thousand guineas extra, if it is hung in the Academy, and he wants to do you in black.” ”

“ Madame muttered.
“When we get to Nice,” he went on, “she says, 'We will lunch first.' We lunch. 'And now, Sir John,' she says, 'there is Madame, Madame's nephew, you, and my emeralds.' Then she told me how she recognized Armand.” ”

“ She drank and thrust her arm through his.
“At least,” she murmured, “we have one another. And, John, I think I hear the cops. Go out and see, please, and then drive me to the Police Station at Nice. Afterwards, we will have some lunch.”
“Not to-day,” he declined. “I've had enough of this place. I'm going home to-night, if I have to stand in the corridor all the way.”
“Afterwards,” she repeated firmly, “We will have some lunch, and you shall tell what you know about my emeralds.”
“What the devil do you mean?” he gasped.
“Wait until after luncheon,” she told him. ”

“ Our friend here resembles a bourgeois shopkeeper moving to his villa for the week-end.”
Armand swung round. He had spent several years at an English public school, and was inclined to cultivate a certain slanginess of phrase.
“Who is the old johnny?” he demanded. “And what's he bringing with him?”
“He appears to be some sort of itinerant artist,” Hugh Cardinge declared.
[Illustration: “Who is the old johnny?” demanded Armand. “And what's he bringing with him?”]
“I do not remember such a person amongst my Virgins,” Madame remarked. “We shall soon know.” ”

“ Think of the emeralds.”
“Well, no one can say that I'm obstinate,” Mrs. Hodson Chambers declared. “I always believe in letting any one have their own way in a matter of this sort.”
AN ATTENDANT came and whispered in her ear. She rose to her feet.
“My seat at the baccarat table,” she complained. “They always wait for me. That is settled, Sir John, isn't it? I can come any morning, and you'll let me know where.”
“I suppose so,” he answered with an attempt at cordiality.
Mrs. Hodson Chambers swept out. Madame threw back her head and smiled. Sir John lit a cigar and ordered some more coffee. ”

“ As regards morals you were the Bluebeard of your profession. Time after time I have visited your studio to find the walls bare, and your easel as virgin as your reputation.”
“I laid foundation stones in Paris,” Sir John declared, disposing of the cocktail which had been brought to him, in a single gulp. “Where can I wash my hands before luncheon? I am very hungry and very dirty.”
Armand stepped gracefully forward. ”

“ Accordingly as she loves wisely or foolishly, as fate may chance to deal with her, so will she become paintable or the reverse. Our young friend there has already chosen his way in life, or rather, perhaps, it has been chosen for him by latent propensities.... ”

“ The longest-living author of this work died in 1946, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 77 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. ”