of the
most illustrious families. The palace had an air of lofty pride. The
Prince hastened to meet them, and led them through the empty salons into
the gallery. He, apologized for showing canvases which perhaps had not
an attractive aspect. The gallery had been formed by Cardinal Giulio
Albertinelli at a time when the taste for Guido and Caraccio, now
fallen, had predominated. His ancestor had taken pleasure in gathering
the works of the school of Bologna. But he would show to Madame Martin
several paintings which had not displeased Miss Bell, among others a
Mantegna.

The Countess Martin recognized at once a banal and doubtful collection;
she felt bored among the multitude of little Parrocels, showing in the
darkness a bit of armor and a white horse.

A valet presented a card.

The Prince read aloud the name of Jacques Dechartre. At that moment he
was turning his back on the two visitors. His face wore the expression
of cruel displeasure one finds on the marble busts of Roman emperors.
Dechartre was on the staircase.

The Prince went toward him with a languid smile. He was no longer Nero,
but Antinous.

"I invited Monsieur Dechartre to come to the Albertinelli palace," said
Miss Bell. "I knew it would please you. He wished to see your gallery."

And it is true that Dechartre had wished to be there with Madame Martin.
Now all four walked among the Guidos and the Albanos.

Miss Bell babbled to the Prince--her usual prattle about those old
men and those Virgins whose blue mantles were agitated by an immovable
tempest. Dechartre, pale, enervated, approached Therese, and said to
her, in a low tone:

"This gallery is a warehouse where picture dealers of the entire world
hang the things they can not sell. And the Prince sells here things that
Jews could not sell."

He led her to a Holy Family exhibited on an easel draped with green
velvet, and bearing on the border the name of Michael-Angelo.

"I have seen that Holy Family in the shops of picture-dealers of London,
of Basle, and of Paris. As they could not get the twenty-five louis that
it is worth, they have commissioned the last of the Albertinellis to
sell it for fifty thousand francs."

The Prince, divining what they were saying, approached them gracefully.

"There is a copy of this picture almost everywhere. I do not affirm
that this is the original. But it has always been in the family, and old
inventories attribute it to Michael-Angelo. That is all I c