The pallid old eyes grew less abstracted.
“Some of it he sold a year or two before his death.”
“And the rest of it?”
“The rest of it has remained ever since in the possession of the family. They are, in fact, held in trust here by me and my sister.”
“Paintings, you mean?”
“Yes, paintings,” she admitted.
“Then they’re the property, I take it, of your niece, Julia?” suggested the young man, only too glad to direct the line of talk into more congenial channels.
“Nominally, but not altogether,” was the somewhat acidulated reply. “Julia’s father, at his death, left many obligations behind him.”
Conkling, vaguely chilled, waited for the woman in rusty black to speak again.
“In a country such as this there are few persons with a knowledge of art—of great art,” she continued with an obvious effort. “And of late it has seemed advisable—advisable that these paintings, or at least a certain number of them, should be disposed of.”