“Eighty pounds.”
“I take it,” said his visitor, quietly.
What, no more difficulty than that? He felt almost disappointed at gaining his object so easily.
“I am obliged to you, sir; much obliged to you,” he added, for he reflected what eighty pounds were to him just then.
“It is my descendants who are obliged to you,” replied the gentleman; “the picture is immortal!”
These words were an epoch in the painter's life.
The grave, silent inspection that had preceded them, the cool, deliberate, masterly tone in which they were said, made them oracular to him.
Words of such import took him by surprise.
He had thirsted for average praise in vain.
A hand had taken him, and placed him at the top of the tree.