René flushed darkly.
"Oil pictures cost money," he said, briefly, "and—I am very poor."
Though a peasant's son, he was very proud: the utterance must have hurt him much.
The stranger took snuff.
"You are a man of singular genius," he said simply. "You only want to be known to get the prices of Meissonier."
Meissonier!—the Rothschild of the studios, the artist whose six-inch canvas would bring the gold value of a Raphael or a Titian!
Lili, breathing fast and white as death with ecstasy, made the sign of the cross on her breast: the delicate brown hand of René shook where it leaned on his easel.
They were both silent—silent from the intensity of their hope.
"Do you know who I am?" the old man pursued, with a cordial smile.
"I have not that honour," murmured René.
The stranger, taking his snuff out of a gold box, named a name at which the painter started. It was that of one of the greatest art-dealers in the whole of Europe; one who at a word could make or mar an artist's reputation; one whose accuracy of judgment was considered infallible by all connoisseurs,
