“Not any price,” Gregg replied in a decided tone. It was just as he expected. These men of business gauge everything by their bank accounts. One of them had had the impertinence to ask him to fill up a blank check for the contents of his studio.
“Where did it come from?”
“Schenck told me he didn’t know. It was held for storage. It seems to interest you?” There was a slight tone of resentment in Gregg’s voice.
“Yes, it does, more than I can tell you, more than you can understand.” His voice had lost its nervousness now.
“It reminds you of some one, perhaps?” asked Gregg. There might, after all, be some spark of sentiment in the young man.
“Yes, it does,” he continued, devouring it with his eyes. “I haven’t seen it since I was a child.”
“You know it, then!” It was Gregg’s turn to be surprised. “Where did you see it, may I ask?”
“Down in Maryland, at Derwood Manor, before it was burned.”
The blood mounted to Gregg’s cheeks and he was about to speak. Then he checked himself. He did not want to know of the portrait’s vicissitudes. That it was now where he could be locked up with it, made up for everything it had come through.
“Yes, these memories are very curious,” remarked Gregg in a more gentle tone. “It reminds me also of some one I once knew. Don’t you think it is very beautiful?”