'Pardon, sir, but I was just about to lock up and go to lunch. Are you lookin' for the figure study of Boccaccio 'imself?' James queried respectfully. 'Lydy Elling Treffinger give it to Mr. Rossiter to take down to Oxford for some lectures he's been agiving there.'
'Did he never paint out his studies, then?' asked MacMaster with perplexity. 'Here are two completed ones for this picture. Why did he keep them?'
'I don't know as I could say as to that, sir,' replied James, smiling indulgently, 'but that was 'is way. That is to say, 'e pynted out very frequent, but 'e always made two studies to stand; one in watercolors and one in oils, before 'e went at the final picture--to say nothink of all the pose studies 'e made in pencil before he begun on the composition proper at all. He was that particular. You see, 'e wasn't so keen for the final effect as for the proper pyntin' of 'is pictures. 'E used to say they ought to be well made, the same as any other h'article of trade. I can lay my 'and on the pose studies for you, sir.' He rummaged in one of the portfolios and produced half a dozen drawings, 'These three,' he continued, 'was discarded; these two was the pose he finally accepted; this one without alteration, as it were.
'That's in Paris, as I remember,' James continued reflectively. 'It went with the
'H---'s collection is still intact, I believe,' replied MacMaster. 'You were with Treffinger long?'
'From my boyhood, sir,' replied James with gravity. 'I was a stable boy when 'e took me.'
'You were his man, then?'
'That's it, sir. Nobody else ever done anything around the studio. I always mixed 'is colors and 'e taught me to do a share of the varnishin'; 'e said as 'ow there wasn't a 'ouse in England as could do it proper. You ayn't looked at the
'Not very closely. I prefer to begin with something simpler; that's rather appalling, at first glance,' replied MacMaster.
'Well may you say that, sir,' said James warmly. 'That one regular killed Sir 'Ugh; it regular broke 'im up, and nothink will ever convince me as 'ow it didn't bring on 'is second stroke.'
When MacMaster walked back to High Street to take his bus his mind was divided between two exultant convictions. He felt that he had not only found Treffinger's greatest picture, but that, in James, he had discovered a kind of cryptic index to the painter's personality--a clue which, if tactfully followed, might lead to much.
Several days after his first visit to the studio, MacMaster wrote to Lady Mary Percy, telling her that he would be in London for some time and asking her if he might call.
Lady Mary was an only sister of Lady Ellen Treffinger, the painter's widow, and MacMaster had known her during one winter he spent at Nice. He had known her, indeed, very well, and Lady Mary, who was astonishingly frank and communicative upon all subjects, had been no less so upon the matter of her sister's unfortunate marriage.
In her reply to his note Lady Mary named an afternoon when she would be alone. She was as good as her word, and when MacMaster arrived he found the drawing room empty. Lady Mary entered shortly after he was announced. She was a tall woman, thin and stiffly jointed, and her body stood out under the folds of her gown with the rigor of cast iron. This rather metallic suggestion was further carried out in her heavily knuckled hands, her stiff gray hair, and her long, bold-featured face, which was saved from freakishness only by her alert eyes.
'Really,' said Lady Mary, taking a seat beside him and giving him a sort of military inspection through her nose glasses, 'really, I had begun to fear that I had lost you altogether. It's four years since I saw you at Nice, isn't it? I was in Paris last winter, but I heard nothing from you.'
'I was in New York then.'
'It occurred to me that you might be. And why are you in London?'
'Can you ask?' replied MacMaster gallantly.
Lady Mary smiled ironically. 'But for what else, incidentally?'
'Well, incidentally, I came to see Treffinger's studio and his unfinished picture. Since I've been here, I've decided to stay the summer. I'm even thinking of attempting to do a biography of him.'
'So that is what brought you to London?'
'Not exactly. I had really no intention of anything so serious when I came. It's his last picture, I fancy, that has rather thrust it upon me. The notion has settled down on me like a thing destined.'
'You'll not be offended if I question the clemency of such a destiny,' remarked Lady Mary dryly. 'Isn't there rather a surplus of books on that subject already?'
'Such as they are. Oh, I've read them all'--here MacMaster faced Lady Mary triumphantly. 'He has quite escaped your amiable critics,' he added, smiling.
'I know well enough what you think, and I daresay we are not much on art,' said Lady Mary with tolerant good humor. 'We leave that to peoples who have no physique.
Treffinger made a stir for a time, but it seems that we are not capable of a sustained appreciation of such extraordinary methods. In the end we go back to the pictures we find agreeable and unperplexing. He was regarded as an experiment, I fancy; and now it seems that he was rather an unsuccessful one. If you've come to us in a missionary spirit, we'll tolerate you politely, but we'll laugh in our sleeve, I warn you.'
'That really doesn't daunt me, Lady Mary,' declared MacMaster blandly. 'As I told you, I'm a man with a mission.'
Lady Mary laughed her hoarse, baritone laugh. 'Bravo! And you've come to me for inspiration for your panegyric?'
MacMaster smiled with some embarrassment. 'Not altogether for that purpose. But I want to consult you, Lady Mary, about the advisability of troubling Lady Ellen Treffinger in the matter. It seems scarcely legitimate to go on without asking her to give some sort of grace to my proceedings, yet I feared the whole subject might be painful to her. I shall rely wholly upon your discretion.'
'I think she would prefer to be consulted,' replied Lady Mary judicially. 'I can't understand how she endures to
