'There is a gentleman downstairs, signor, who wishes to buy your picture. He is waiting in the hall. Shall I send him up? It is the gentleman who jumped from the cab yesterday and caused the accident.'
I besought her not to take so much trouble, and myself ran downstairs. There was an Englishman, broad-shouldered, ruddy, and iron-grey, with bushy eyebrows and blue eyes and a square chin.
'Do you wish to see me, sir?' I asked him.
'If you're the painter of the picture I saw just now—yes.'
'It is something of a climb upstairs,' I warned him.
He took the warning as an invitation, and went upstairs, stepping firmly and solidly in his heavy boots. When he reached my room, he took his hat off and I saw he was bald. He had a good face, and a high forehead, and he was evidently of the prosperous middle classes. Mademoiselle had left the room, and had placed the picture upon the easel. He looked round the room, and then faced the picture, square and business-like—like an Englishman.
'Ah!' he said, 'that's the picture, is it? H'm. What do you want for it?'
I told him I had never yet sold a picture, and did not know what price to set upon it.
'What have you done with the rest?' he said, looking round the room again. 'This isn't the first you've painted.'
His bluntness amused me, and I laughed. He saw my circumstances, and there could be no service in disguise. I told him of my estimable Uncle.