Gregg made no reply. Rich directors did not appeal to him; they were generally flabby and well fed and out of drawing. If this one had some color in him—and the dealer knew—some of the sort of vigor and snap that would have appealed to Franz Hal, the case might be different. The little man waited a moment, saw that Gregg was absorbed in some brush stroke, and stepped back a pace or two. Better wait until the master’s mind was free. Then again he could sweep his eyes around the interior without being detected—there was no telling what might happen: some day there might be a sale, and then it would be just as well to know where things like these could be found. Again he tiptoed across the spacious room, stopping to gaze at the rich tapestries lining the walls, examining with eye-glass held close the gold snuffboxes and rare bits of Sèvres and Dresden on the shelves of the cabinet, and testing with his nervous fingers the quality of the rich Utrecht velvet screening the door of an adjoining room.
Gregg kept at work, his square, strong shoulders, well-knit back and straight limbs—a fulfilment of the promise of his youth—in silhouette against the glare of the overhead light, its rays silvering his iron-gray hair and the tips of his upturned mustache.
The tour of the room complete, the little man again bowed to the floor and said in his softest voice:
“And you will receive him at four o’clock?”
“Yes, at four o’clock,” answered Gregg, his eyes still on the canvas.
Again the little man’s head bent low as he backed from the room. There was no need of further talk. What Adam Gregg meant he said, and what he said he meant. As he reached the velvet curtain through which he had entered, he stopped.
“And now will you do something for me?”
Gregg lifted his chin with the movement of a big mastiff throwing up his head when he scents danger. “I was waiting for that; then there is a string to it?” he laughed.
The little man reddened to his eyebrows. The fish had not only seen the hook under the bait, but knew who held the line.
“No, only that you come with me to Schenck’s to see a portrait by Gilbert Stuart,” he pleaded. “I quite forgot—it is not often I do forget; I must be getting old. It’s to be sold to-morrow; Mr. Morlon will buy it if you approve; he said so. I’m just from his house.”