terpreting
her longings. But this place where they were secretly meeting must be
beautiful. She was as keen for that as he was. So it became a veritable
treasure-trove, more distinguished in furnishings than some of the rooms
of his own home. He began to gather here some rare examples of altar
cloths, rugs, and tapestries of the Middle Ages. He bought furniture
after the Georgian theory--a combination of Chippendale, Sheraton, and
Heppelwhite modified by the Italian Renaissance and the French Louis. He
learned of handsome examples of porcelain, statuary, Greek vase forms,
lovely collections of Japanese ivories and netsukes. Fletcher Gray,
a partner in Cable & Gray, a local firm of importers of art objects,
called on him in connection with a tapestry of the fourteenth century
weaving. Gray was an enthusiast and almost instantly he conveyed some of
his suppressed and yet fiery love of the beautiful to Cowperwood.

"There are fifty periods of one shade of blue porcelain alone, Mr.
Cowperwood," Gray informed him. "There are at least seven distinct
schools or periods of rugs--Persian, Armenian, Arabian, Flemish, Modern
Polish, Hungarian, and so on. If you ever went into that, it
would be a distinguished thing to get a complete--I mean a
representative--collection of some one period, or of all these periods.
They are beautiful. I have seen some of them, others I've read about."

"You'll make a convert of me yet, Fletcher," replied Cowperwood. "You or
art will be the ruin of me. I'm inclined that way temperamentally as it
is, I think, and between you and Ellsworth and Gordon Strake"--another
young man intensely interested in painting--"you'll complete my
downfall. Strake has a splendid idea. He wants me to begin right
now--I'm using that word 'right' in the sense of 'properly,'" he
commented--"and get what examples I can of just the few rare things in
each school or period of art which would properly illustrate each. He
tells me the great pictures are going to increase in value, and what I
could get for a few hundred thousand now will be worth millions later.
He doesn't want me to bother with American art."

"He's right," exclaimed Gray, "although it isn't good business for me to
praise another art man. It would take a great deal of money, though."

"Not so very much. At least, not all at once. It would be a matter
of years, of course. Strake thinks that some excellent examples of
different periods could be picked up now an