but
with its own queer sharp beauty of paint, he was perfectly satisfied
still that he had made no error, heavy though the price had
been--heaviest he had ever paid. And next to it was hanging the copy of
"La Vendimia." There she was--the little wretch--looking back at him in
her dreamy mood, the mood he loved best because he felt so much safer
when she looked like that.

He was still gazing when the scent of a cigar impinged on his nostrils,
and a voice said: "Well, Mr. Forsyde, what you goin' to do with this
small lot?"

That Belgian chap, whose mother--as if Flemish blood were not
enough--had been Armenian! Subduing a natural irritation, he said: "Are
you a judge of pictures?"

"Well, I've got a few myself."

"Any Post-Impressionists?"

"Ye-es, I rather like them."

"What do you think of this?" said Soames, pointing to the Gauguin.

Monsieur Profond protruded his lower lip and short pointed beard.
"Rather fine, I think," he said; "do you want to sell it?"

Soames checked his instinctive "Not particularly"--he would not chaffer
with this alien.

"Yes," he said.

"What do you want for it?"

"What I gave."

"All right," said Monsieur Profond. "I'll be glad to take that small
picture. Post-Impressionists--they're awful dead, but they're amusin'.
I don' care for pictures much, but I've got some, just a small lot."

"What DO you care for?"

Monsieur Profond shrugged his shoulders. "Life's awful like a lot of
monkeys scramblin' for empty nuts."

"You're young," said Soames. If the fellow must make a generalisation,
he needn't suggest that the forms of property lacked solidity!

"I don' worry," replied Monsieur Profond smiling; "we're born, and we
die. Half the world's starvin'. I feed a small lot of babies out in my
mother's country; but what's the use? Might as well throw my money in
the river."

Soames looked at him, and turned back towards his Goya. He didn't know
what the fellow wanted.

"What shall I make my cheque for?" pursued Monsieur Profond.

"Five hundred," said Soames shortly; "but I don't want you to take it
if you don't care for it more than that."

"That's all right," said Monsieur Profond; "I'll be 'appy to 'ave that
picture."

He wrote a cheque with a fountain-pen heavily chased with gold. Soames
watched the process uneasily. How on earth had the fellow known that he
wanted to sell that picture? Monsieur Profond held out the cheque.

"The English are awful funny about pictures