his mortar-board cap on his head, opened the
drawing-room door and invited them to come across to the College Library
to see some bronzes and a few other things that Mr. Davison had
temporarily deposited there. He had divined that Maxwell Davison would
be willing to sell, and in his guileful soul the little Master may have
had schemes of persuading his wealthy friend Milwood to purchase any
bronzes that might be of value to the College or the University. Of the
ladies, only Mildred and Miss Moore, the archaeologist, braved the chill
of the mediaeval Library to inspect the collection. Davison professed to
no artistic or antiquarian knowledge of the bronzes. They had come to
him in the way of trade and had all been dug up in Asia Minor--no, not
all, for one he had picked up in England. Nevertheless he had succeeded
in getting a pretty clear notion of the relative value of his
bronzes--the Oriental curios with them it was his business to
understand. He could not help observing the sure instinct with which
Mrs. Stewart selected what was best among all these different objects.
She had the _flair_ of the born collector. The learned archaeologists
present leaned over the collection discussing and disputing, and took no
notice of her remarks as she rapidly handled each article. But Davison
did, and when at length she took up a small figure of Augustus--the
bronze that had not come from Asia Minor--and looked at it with a
peculiar doubtful intentness, he began to feel uncomfortable.

"Anything wrong with that?" he asked, in spite of himself.

She laughed nervously.

"Oh, Mr. Davison, please ask some one who knows! I don't. Only I--I seem
to have seen something like it before, that's all."

Sanderson, roaming around the professed archaeologists, took the bronze
from her hands.

"I'll tell you where you've seen it, Mrs. Stewart. It's engraved in
Egerton's _Private Collections of Great Britain_. I picked that up the
other day--first edition, 1818. I dare say the book's here. We'll see."

Sanderson took a candle and went glimmering away down the long, dark
room.

"What can this be?" asked Mildred, taking up what looked like a glass
ball.

"Please stand over here and look into it for five minutes," returned
Davison, evasively. "Perhaps you'll see what it is then."

He somehow wanted to get rid of Mildred's appraisal of his goods.

"Mr. Davison, your glass ball has gone quite cloudy!" she exclaimed, in
a minute or two.