It comforted him only partially to find that every other one of his bids had been successful. He received the parcel in a gloomy silence. His collection, minus the Haronobu, seemed little better than trash and vanity.
“Who got it—do you know?” he asked drearily.
Mr Desmund shook his head. “It was bought a broker, sir. I daresay I can find out.”
“No,” said Gilead. “No. After all it would only aggravate the sore.”
The sore, however, healed, or nearly, in the process of time. Japanese prints were really only the recreation of a mind devoted to the interests of humanity.
One day, weeks later, Gilead had occasion to motor with a friend to the city. It was a dusty morning, and the two wore goggles. At the Bank of England the car drew up by the kerb while the friend entered the building. He was gone so long that Gilead had ample time to study the endless types of humanity that drifted beside him. They were all intent on business and money-making, and he wondered if there was one in all the confused throng capable of properly appreciating his feelings over his lost Haronobu.
While he gazed, speculative, philosophic and lazy, a figure, two figures, standing by the end of Bartholomew-lane caught and fixed his attention. They were so close by that he fancied they must have that moment emerged, or he would have noticed them sooner. One was of a woman, slender, graceful, dressed in faded black and closely veiled, the other of a little girl, poorly but neatly clad and of a fairy prettiness.
He stirred, oddly smitten with some memory; and in the same instant the woman thrust out a white hand, dumbly proffering to a passer-by a little basketful of matches, and he perceived, with a certain consciousness of shock, that she was begging.
Presently he lay back again and watched the two. They stood all the time he was there at the street-corner, and during that brief space he observed that they reaped quite a small harvest in silver and copper. Mostly people gave, and demanded nothing in return. Now and then one would wisely insist on goods for his money. Men, young glossy cits and sober fathers of families, were moved obviously by the charm of the little face raised to them—and also, it seemed, by something else. Gilead was not long in discovering what that something was. The veiled woman, in addition to the mystery encompassing her, had, whether pleading or returning thanks, the softest, the most musical voice it was possible to imagine.
He looked down at her feet; the black skirt, weighted with a heavy bead trimming, dropped prettily about them. Only the veil was different. Yet he could not doubt for a moment that he saw before him Mrs Nightingale, the pitiful suppliant of Gospel Oak.