isitor's feet sank into the carpet as into banked moss.
Beautiful furniture stood about. Pictures by eminent artists graced the
walls. Statuettes, vases, busts, choice antiques, were everywhere. It
was the room of a wealthy connoisseur, of an aesthete whose delicacy of
taste bordered upon the effeminate. The doctor stared hard at the Count
without permitting the latter to observe that he did so. With his hands
thrust deep in the sack-like pockets of his inverness he drifted from
treasure to treasure--uninvited, from room to room--like some rudderless
craft. The Count followed. In his handsome face it might be read that he
resented the attitude of M. Levi, who behaved as though he found himself
in the gallery of a dealer. Suddenly, before a Van Dyck portrait, the
visitor cried:

"Ah, a forgery, m'sieur! Spurious."

Count de Guise leapt round upon him with perfect fury blazing in his
blue eyes. The veins had sprung into prominence upon his forehead, and
one throbbed--a virile blue cord--upon his left temple.

"M'sieur!"

He seemed to choke. His sudden passion was volcanic--terrible.

Dr. Lepardo, still peering, seemed not to heed him; then quickly:

"Ah, I apologise, I most sincerely apologise. I was misled by the
unusual tone of the brown. But--no, it is undoubted. None other than Van
Dyck painted that ruff."

The Count glared and quivered, his fine nostrils distended, a while
longer, but swallowed his rage and bowed in acknowledgment of the
apology. Dr. Lepardo was off again upon his voyage of discovery,
drifting from picture to vase, from statuette to buhl cabinet.

"M'sieur," he rumbled, peering around at de Guise, who now stood by the
fireplace of the room to which the visitor's driftings had led him, his
hands locked behind him. "I think I can propose you for the entire
collection. Is it agreeable?"

The Count bowed.

"Ah!"

M. Levi seated himself at the writing-table--for the room was a
beautifully appointed study--and produced a cheque-book.

"Twenty thousand pounds, English?"

The Count laughed contemptuously.

"Twenty-two?"

"Do not jest, m'sieur. Nothing but thirty."

"Twenty-eight is final. It is the price I had determined upon."

De Guise considered, bit his lip, glanced at the open
cheque-book--always a potent argument--and bowed in his grand fashion.
Lepardo changed his spectacles for a larger pair, reached for a pen,
peering, and overturned a massive inkstand. The ink poured in an oil