n to leave me! A
few moments, I beg of you. I am too happy to have a chat with a man like
you. Besides, we have more than one common bond. Our friend Hemerlingue
has told me that you, too, are much interested in pictures."

Jansoulet trembled. The two words--"Hemerlingue," "pictures"--meeting
in the same phrase so unexpectedly, restored all his doubts, all his
perplexities. He did not give himself away yet, however, and let Le
Merquier advance, word by word, testing the ground for his stumbling
advances. People had told him often of the collection of his honourable
colleague. "Would it be indiscreet to ask the favour of being admitted,
to--"

"On the contrary, I should feel much honoured," said the Nabob, tickled
in the most sensible--since the most costly--point of his vanity; and
looking round him at the walls of the room, he added with the tone of a
connoisseur, "You have some fine things, too."

"Oh," said the other modestly, "just a few canvases. Painting is so dear
now, it is a taste so difficult to satisfy, a true passion _de luxe_--a
passion for a Nabob," said he, smiling, with a furtive look over his
glasses.

They were two prudent players, face to face; but Jansoulet was a little
astray in this new situation, where he who only knew how to be bold, had
to be on his guard.

"When I think," murmured the lawyer, "that I have been ten years
covering these walls, and that I have still this panel to fill."

In fact, at the most conspicuous place on the wall there was an empty
place, emptied rather, for a great gold-headed nail near the ceiling
showed the visible, almost clumsy, trace of a snare laid for the poor
simpleton, who let himself be taken in it so foolishly.

"My dear M. Le Merquier," said he with his engaging, good-natured voice,
"I have a Virgin of Tintoretto's just the size of your panel."

Impossible to read anything in the eyes of the lawyer, this time hidden
under their overhanging brows.

"Permit me to hang it there, opposite your table. That will help you to
think sometimes of me."

"And to soften the severities of my report, too, sir?" cried Le
Merquier, formidable and upright, his hand on the bell. "I have seen
many shameless things in my life, but never anything like this. Such
offers to me, in my own house!"

"But, my dear colleague, I swear to you----"

"Show him out," said the lawyer to the hang-dog servant who had just
entered; and from the middle of his office, whose door remai