“She has,” Miss Cameron replied, and suddenly added, “And you know, Mr. Vincent, I cannot offer my friend money, nor would she sell me so important a picture as her large one, for she would think I did it to help her; now, I want to ask you, as the person she would think of as being the last one connected with me (here Mr. Vincent smiled a rather melancholy but affirmative smile), to buy two of her studies for me in some other name. I can easily dispose of them as presents, and she will never be the wiser.”
“Miss Cameron’s wishes are my commands. I will call on Miss Paterson before Wednesday, and on the day when the exhibition takes place, you can be sure that at least two pictures will be marked ‘Sold.’”
“That will give a business-like air to the whole arrangement, Mr. Vincent, and suggest to any possible buyers that other equally attractive studies are for sale. This must be a profound secret. Do you promise?”
“Certainly,” Mr. Vincent replied, and Miss Cameron knew she could trust him.
“He is really very likeable, when one sees him alone,” Miss Cameron soliloquizes; and then she reflects that it is decidedly her fault that she does not see Mr. Vincent more frequently in his best light; she remembers various occasions when she has made their duet a trio by addressing some third person, thus preventing a possible tête-à-tête.
The afternoon selected by Miss Paterson arrived, and as Miss Cameron alighted from her coupé in the humble street where art and poor students hold sway, she remarked with pleasure a goodly line of private carriages, and knew that her scheme had succeeded, and that Miss Paterson was the fashion—at least of the hour. The question was, Would they buy her pictures? And then she added to herself, “They must be sold, even if I have to find other agents, and buy them all in.” But the loyal girl might have spared herself any anxiety. As she entered the room, which was artistically draped and hung with numerous strongly-executed sketches, she saw the magic word “Sold,” not only on several of the small studies, but conspicuously placed at the base of the largest canvas, Miss Paterson’s salon picture, in which Miss Cameron is the central and principal figure.
“Isn’t it too delightful, dear?” Miss Paterson whispers to her. “An Englishman, a friend of Mr. Vincent’s, came here with him yesterday, saw my canvas, liked it, asked my price, and actually took it. Mr. Vincent also bought two other studies, and several have gone to-day. Edgar has lost no time. He has disappeared now to cable to my esteemed benefactors, ‘Marriage will take place; cheque for full amount on way.’ Extravagant of us, I know, and of course it’s extremely ‘previous,’ but we really see our way clear to happiness, and I shall always feel you did it all.”
As Miss Cameron shook hands with Mr. Vincent that day she told him that he had been instrumental in making two deserving people happy.
“It was so thoughtful to bring your friend here, who bought the large picture,” she says. And then she adds, “Did I ever see him?”
“I think you have seen him,” Mr. Vincent replies. Something in his manner betrays him, and Miss Cameron, guessing the truth, impulsively says: