d touch something,"
La Cibot whispered to her patient.

"Yes, yes," answered the invalid, thanking her by a glance.

La Cibot shut the bedroom door behind her, and Pons' suspicions awoke
again at once.

She found Magus standing motionless before the four pictures. His
immobility, his admiration, can only be understood by other souls open
to ideal beauty, to the ineffable joy of beholding art made perfect;
such as these can stand for whole hours before the _Antiope_
--Correggio's masterpiece--before Leonardo's _Gioconda_, Titian's
_Mistress_, Andrea del Sarto's _Holy Family_, Domenichino's _Children
Among the Flowers_, Raphael's little cameo, or his _Portrait of an Old
Man_--Art's greatest masterpieces.

"Be quick and go, and make no noise," said La Cibot.

The Jew walked slowly backwards, giving the pictures such a farewell
gaze as a lover gives his love. Outside on the landing, La Cibot
tapped his bony arm. His rapt contemplations had put an idea into her
head.

"Make it _four_ thousand francs for each picture," said she, "or I do
nothing."

"I am so poor! . . ." began Magus. "I want the pictures simply for
their own sake, simply and solely for the love of art, my dear lady."

"I can understand that love, sonny, you are so dried up. But if you do
not promise me sixteen thousand francs now, before Remonencq here, I
shall want twenty to-morrow."

"Sixteen; I promise," returned the Jew, frightened by the woman's
rapacity.

La Cibot turned to Remonencq.

"What oath can a Jew swear?" she inquired.

"You may trust him," replied the marine store-dealer. "He is as honest
as I am."

"Very well; and you?" asked she, "if I get him to sell them to you,
what will you give me?"

"Half-share of profits," Remonencq answered briskly.

"I would rather have a lump sum," returned La Cibot; "I am not in
business myself."

"You understand business uncommonly well!" put in Elie Magus, smiling;
"a famous saleswoman you would make!"

"I want her to take me into partnership, me and my goods," said the
Auvergnat, as he took La Cibot's plump arm and gave it playful taps
like hammer-strokes. "I don't ask her to bring anything into the firm
but her good looks! You are making a mistake when your stick to your
Turk of a Cibot and his needle. Is a little bit of a porter the man to
make a woman rich--a fine woman like you? Ah, what a figure you would
make in a shop on the boulevard, all among the curiosities, gossiping
with ama