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Updated: June 6, 2025
Fontage seated herself without speaking, as though fearful that a breath might disturb my communion with the masterpiece. I felt that she thought Eleanor's reassuring ejaculations ill-timed; and in this I was of one mind with her; for the impossibility of telling her exactly what I thought of her Rembrandt had become clear to me at a glance.
Not infrequently she thus creates the misery she alleviates; and I have sometimes suspected her of paining people in order that she might be sorry for them. I had, at all events, cut off retreat in Eleanor's direction; and the remaining alternative carried me straight to Mrs. Fontage. She received me with the same commanding sweetness.
I had no authority, I explained, to purchase pictures for the Museum without the consent of the committee. Mrs. Fontage coped for a moment in silence with the incredible fact that I had rejected her offer; then she ventured, with a kind of pale precipitation: "But I understood Miss Copt tells me that you practically decide such matters for the committee."
I stood up, feeling that to cut the matter short was the only alleviation within reach. Mrs. Fontage had summoned her indomitable smile; but its brilliancy dropped, as I opened the door, like a candle blown out by a draught.
No one would give a thousand dollars for the Rembrandt; but to tell Mrs. Fontage so had become as unthinkable as murder. I had, in fact, on returning from my first inspection of the picture, refrained from imparting to Eleanor my opinion of its value. Eleanor is porous, and I knew that sooner or later the unnecessary truth would exude through the loose texture of her dissimulation.
Fontage in the fumes of an excellent cigar, when a voice at my elbow evoked her harassing image. "I want to talk to you," the speaker said, "about Mrs. Fontage's Rembrandt." "There isn't any," I was about to growl; but looking up I recognized the confiding countenance of Mr. Jefferson Rose. Mr.
From this unavailing flight I was recalled by the sense that something must be done. To place a fictitious value on the picture was at best a provisional measure; while the brutal alternative of advising Mrs. Fontage to sell it for a hundred dollars at least afforded an opening to the charitably disposed purchaser.
Mrs. Fontage, on the landing, among her strapped and corded treasures, maintained the same air of stability that made it impossible, even under such conditions, to regard her flight as anything less dignified than a departure.
I instinctively charged Eleanor with this reversal of the situation; but a moment later I saw it must be ascribed to a something about Mrs. Fontage that precluded the possibility of her asking any one a favor.
She shook her head reassuringly. "A picture a Rembrandt!" "Good Lord! Why not a Leonardo?" "Well" she smiled "that, of course, depends on you." "On me?" "On your attribution. I dare say Mrs. Fontage would consent to the change though she's very conservative." A gleam of hope came to me and I pronounced: "One can't judge of a picture in this weather." "Of course not. I'm coming for you to-morrow."
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