"How I have longed for a genuine Greuze to add to my collection," he remarked, "and this—this is the most perfect specimen in the world. My dear Guy, how can I ever be grateful enough to you?"
Was there a dash of sarcasm in his voice? If so, the young man did not notice it. He was moved to genuine emotion.
"It is a little thing in return for all you have done for me," he replied earnestly. He laid his hand on the elder man's arm as he continued, "There's nothing I would not do which would add to your happiness—you have given me so much."
Hora shook off the grasp.
"The air is overcharged with sentiment," he said lightly. "Myra here might have been trained in an English boarding school for young ladies, she is so full of it. And now you." He held up his hands in derision.
Guy laughed gaily. He was used to Hora's moods.
"Sentiment does sound a little incongruous from the lips of a successful burglar, doesn't it?" he said, and he laughed again at the whimsicality of the idea. "Yet you know that at heart, Commandatore, you are just as much of a sentimentalist as either Myra or myself. What else can be the motive of your perpetual enmity with the world?"
"What else; ay, what else," murmured Hora musingly, a bitter smile about his lips. "But, all the same, there's no need to debauch our minds with contemplation of sentiment. It's dangerous."
He returned to an examination of the picture.
"The fool who owned this," he said, "would have sold it. He's no poorer for the loss. It is not the loss of the work of art that he will regret, but the loss of the ten thousand guineas he gave for it."