fairly Franciscan poverty, gave himself to this
ungrateful task. How he contrived to live in the shadow of the great
galleries was a mystery the solution of which one suspected to be bitter
and heroic. Gradually recognition as an expert came to him and with it an
irksome success. His fame had developed duties, and while his studies in
esthetics remained fragmentary, he was persistently consulted on all
manner of trivialities. From Piedmont to the confine of Dalmatia he knew
every little master that ever made or marred panel or plaster, and he
paid the penalty of such knowledge. Surmising the tragedy of his career
and its essential nobility I had discounted the ugly rumours connecting
him with the sale of the Del Puente Giorgione. When every fool learned
that the Giorgione at "The Curlews" was false, many inferred that
Anitchkoff, having praised it, must have a hand in Brooks's bad
bargain--a conclusion sedulously put about and finally hinted in cold
type by certain rival critics. Personally I knew that Brooks had bagged
his find under quite other advice, but while I would always have sworn to
Anitchkoff's complete integrity in the whole Del Puente matter, my wonder
also grew at so hideous a lapse of judgment. I hopelessly fell back upon
such banalities as the errability of mankind, being conscious all the
time that some special and most curious infatuation must underlie this
particular error. Anitchkoff's card interrupted some such train of
thought. He came in quietly as sunshine after fog. His face between the
curtains reminded me strangely of the awful moment in the Prestonville
Museum--paradoxically, for he was as genuine and reassuring as the Del
Puente Giorgione had been baffling and false.

We began dinner with the stiffness of men between whom much is unsaid.
As the oystershells departed, however, we had found common memories. He
recalled delightfully those little northern towns in the debatable
region which from a critic's point of view may be considered Lombard or
Venetian, with a tendency to be neither but rather a Transalpine
Bavaria. To me also the glow of the Burgundy on the tablecloth brought
back strange provincial altarpieces in this territory--marvels in
crimson and gold, and a riddle for the connoisseur. Then the talk
reached higher latitudes. He mused aloud about that very simple reaction
which we call the sense of beauty and have resolutely sophisticated ever
since criticism existed--I intent meanwhil