His father’s eyebrows were slightly uplifted.
“Has the old gentleman been exercising his malevolent influence upon you?” he enquired, with a faintly sardonic smile. “Is that why you sent it me home in such a hurry?”
Gregory frowned gloomily.
“I simply know that I detest it,” he declared vigorously.
Sir Bertram’s expression, cynical only at first, suddenly developed humorous qualities.
“One might almost imagine you terrified by the superstition, my ingénu son,” he murmured, turning the Image around and gazing into its features. “Gad, you’re ugly, though! Different style, of course. Our vices are, after all, the vices of gentle people. Here we have an eloquent personification of brutality and bestiality. In real life I doubt whether this fellow would even be able to conduct an orgy with distinction.”
“Put the damned thing down, Father,” Gregory begged suddenly. “I lived with it for three weeks and I hate it like hell.”
Sir Bertram strolled into the inner room and replaced the Image upon the pedestal. Then he came back to his son and laid his hand for a moment upon his shoulder.
“Gregory,” he said, “you’re not going to tell me in cold blood that you actually believe in the superstition.”
“Of course I don’t believe, but listen. I wanted the other Image. Johnson and Company wanted mine. I wouldn’t sell—not likely, after all we’d been through. It was no good their naming a price for theirs, because we had no money. Do you know what Wu Ling, the Chinaman who rescued me and who apparently is one of the principals in the firm, suggested?”