She wore spectacles.

Bernardet, without stopping to salute her, pointed out the portrait and
asked to see it. When he held it in his hands he found the resemblance
still more startling. It was certainly Jacques Dantin! The painting was
signed "P. B., Bordeaux, 1871." It was oval in shape; the frame was
gone; the edge was marked, scratched, marred, as if the frame had been
roughly torn from the picture.

"Have you had this portrait a long time?" he asked of the shop woman.

"I put it in the window to-day for the first time," the huge woman
answered. "Oh, it is a choice bit. It was painted by a wicked one."

"Who brought it here?"

"Some one who wished to sell it. A passer-by. If it would interest you
to know his name"----

"Yes, certainly, it would interest me to know it," Bernardet replied.

The shop woman looked at Bernardet defiantly and asked this question:

"Do you know the man whose portrait that is?"

"No. I do not know him. But this resembles one of my relatives. It
pleases me. How much is it?"

"A hundred francs," said the big woman.

Bernardet suppressed at the same time a sudden start and a smile.

"A hundred francs! _Diable!_ how fast you go. It is worth sous rather
than francs."

"That!" cried the woman, very indignant. "That? But look at this
material, this background. It is famous, I tell you--I took it to an
expert. At the public sale it might, perhaps, bring a thousand francs.
My idea is that it is the picture of some renowned person. An actor or a
former Minister. In fact, some historic person."

"But one must take one's chance," Bernardet replied in a jeering tone.
"But one hundred francs is one hundred francs. Too much for me. Who sold
you the painting?"

The woman went around behind the counter and opened a drawer, from which
she took a note book, in which she kept a daily record of her sales. She
turned over the leaves.

"November 12, a small oval painting bought"--She readjusted her
spectacles as if to better decipher the name.

"I did not write the name myself; the man wrote it himself." She spelled
out:

"Charles--Charles Breton--Rue de la Condamine, 16"----

"Charles Breton," Bernardet repeated; "who is this Charles Breton? I
would like to know if he painted this portrait, which seems like a
family portrait and has come to sell it"----

"You know," interrupted the woman, "that that often happens. It is
business. One buys or one sells all in good time."

"And this Bre