“My dear Mr. St. Hilary,” again interrupted Mrs. Gordon, “surely you do not contemplate burglary?”
“That is precisely the trouble,” he complained mournfully, “I have a conscience. But findings are certainly keepings.”
“Ah, but it must be so difficult to find one’s findings,” said Jacqueline quaintly.
“Not always. Have you never heard how the Hermes of Praxiteles was discovered?”
She shook her head.
“Pausanias, an old Greek historian, wrote of that statue about a thousand years ago–how he had seen it at Olympia. There was the passage for all the world to read. He wrote precisely what there was to dig for–precisely where one was to dig. But did any one believe him? Not for a thousand years. But when, after a thousand years, a party of Germans made up their minds that perhaps there was something in the story, and dug in Olympia as he told them, there was their Hermes waiting for them. You see one may have information as to where lies one’s treasure sometimes. But so few of us have faith.”
“And have you your information as well as your abundant faith, St. Hilary?” I inquired with mock solicitude.
At this idle question, his heavily lidded eyes opened wide. The pupils dilated. A challenge flashed from their blue depths. I stared at him. But almost immediately the heavy lids drooped again.
“All this is extremely interesting, Mr. St. Hilary,” said Jacqueline. “But is it not rather wide from our Venetian palace? Why do we wait?”
“Simply, my dear young lady, because the owner happens to be of a religious turn of mind; and at this moment, I believe, is confessing his sins in San Marco’s yonder.”