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"You see, there is a regular course in these matters, a routine. I hope mademoiselle will have not less than ten minutes." The girl looked at Rufin and made a face. It was as though she had been overcharged in a shop; she invited him, it seemed, to take note of a trivial imposture. Her manner and gesture had the repressed power of under-expression. He nodded to her in entire comprehension.
"There is that," smiled the Minister. "See him by all means. If you are interested in gardening, you will find him charming. Otherwise, perhaps but an honest man, I assure you." "At least," said Rufin, "if everything fails, if the great painter is to be sacrificed to the newspapers and your epigrams at least you will allow me to visit him before before the " "But certainly!" the Minister bowed.
"I will do all that I can," he said earnestly. "All! I dare not do less, my child." She gulped and shivered; she had poured her soul and her force forth, and she was weak and empty. She strained to find further expression, but could not. Rufin supported her to the chair. "We must see what is happening in this trial," he said to the little official. "We have lost time as it is."
But, O squire! how could you stay from us so long, and let us be tempted by that fiend of the pit, Rufinn? we should have followed you through flood and fire, to be sure. 'Rufin! I assure you, Houghton, you have been vilely imposed upon. 'I often thought so, said Houghton,'though they showed us your very seal; and so Tims was shot and I was reduced to the ranks.
A man even a man of notable attributes and shocking manners is as easily lost in Paris as anywhere; it is a city of many shadows. At the end of some weeks, during which his work had suffered from his new preoccupation, Rufin saw himself baffled. His man had vanished effectually, carrying with him to his obscurity the great picture.
But all the same it astonishes no one when he is away for two days." "The Italians are like that," generalized Rufin unscrupulously. "His door is unlocked, Madame, and there is a picture in his room which is well, valuable." "He sold the key," lamented Madame, "and the catches of the window, and the bell-push, and a bucket of mine which I had neglected to watch.
The old man smiled charmingly; he had brought the negotiations to a point with a mot. "Adieu, cher maitre," he said, rising to shake his visitor's hand across the wide desk. Rufin seemed to have trodden into a groove of unsuccess. All his efforts were futile; he saw himself wasting time and energy while fate wasted none.
It was the memory of that consummate thing that held Rufin to his task of finding the author; he pictured it to himself, housed in some garret, making the mean place wonderful. He obtained the unofficial aid of the police and of many other people whose business in life is with the underworld.
One of the most remarkable escapes from Siberia was that of Rufin Piotrowski, a Polish emigrant who left Paris in 1844 to return to his native country, with impossible plans and crude ideas for her relief.
And the painter have you got him, too?" She stared at him, bewildered. "The painter? The painter of the picture?" "Of course," said Rufin. "Who else?" "But " she looked from him to the benign official, who had the air of presiding at a ceremony. "Then you don't know? You haven't heard?" Comprehension lit in her face; she uttered a wretched little laugh. "Ah, v'la de la comedie!" she cried.
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