They were selling the pictures. I turned to the doorway of the great salon and squeezed my way in. The place was filled with people—all Paris was there. Men who had shaken the Count Feliciani by the hand, women who had kissed the Countess on the cheek, men and women of the highest nobility, of the greatest intelligence—très propre, to use the words of the old fool in De Morny's ante-chamber—were here, battening on the sight, and trying to snatch bargains from the ruin of their one-time friends. The Felicianis, as I afterwards learned, all but beggared, had been cast adrift, mother and daughter, by society; cast out like lepers from the pure precincts of the Court circle and the buckramed salons of the Royalist clique.
M. Hamard, the auctioneer, on his estrade, before his desk, a man in steel spectacles, the living image of the late unlamented Procurator of the Holy Synod, was clearing his throat before offering the next lot, a Gerard Dow, eighteen inches by twelve.
As the bidding leaped up by a thousand francs at a time, I edged my way through the throng closer and closer to the auctioneer, treading on dainty toes, wedging myself in between whispering acquaintances, regardless of grumbles and muttered imprecations, till I was right beside the estrade and within plucking distance of the auctioneer's coat.
"Sixty-five thousand francs!" cried M. Hamard. "This priceless Gerard Dow—sixty-five thousand francs. Any advance on sixty-five thousand francs? Gone! Well, what is it, little boy?"
"Please," said I, "can you tell me where I can find the Countess Feliciani?"
A dead silence took the room, for my nervousness had made me speak louder than I intended. People looked at one another; an awkward silence it must have been following the voice of the enfant terrible flinging the name of the woman they had cast out and deserted into the face of these worldlings who had come to examine her effects and snatch bargains from her ruin.
M. Hamard, aghast, stared down at me through his spectacles.
"You—— Who are you?" said he.
"I am her friend. My name is Patrick Mahon. My father is General Count Mahon, and I wish to see the Countess Feliciani."