"He sent you here to take a look round at my knick-knacks!" returned the old collector from his bed; and the sour tones of his voice were full of suspicion.
A sufferer from liver complaint nearly always takes momentary and special dislikes to some person or thing, and concentrates all his ill-humor upon the object. Pons imagined that some one had designs upon his precious collection; the thought of guarding it became a fixed idea with him; Schmucke was continually sent to see if any one had stolen into the sanctuary.
"Your collection is fine enough to attract the attention of chineurs," Remonencq answered astutely. "I am not much in the art line myself; but you are supposed to be such a great connoisseur, sir, that with my eyes shut—supposing, for instance, that you should need money some time or other, for nothing costs so much as these confounded illnesses; there was my sister now, when she would have got better again just as well without. Doctors are rascals that take advantage of your condition to—"
"Thank you, good-day, good-day," broke in Pons, eying the marine store-dealer uneasily.
"I will go to the door with him, for fear he should touch something," La Cibot whispered to her patient.
"Yes, yes," answered the invalid, thanking her by a glance.
La Cibot shut the bedroom door behind her, and Pons' suspicions awoke again at once.
She found Magus standing motionless before the four pictures. His immobility, his admiration, can only be understood by other souls open to ideal beauty, to the ineffable joy of beholding art made perfect; such as these can stand for whole hours before the Antiope —Correggio's masterpiece—before Leonardo's Gioconda, Titian's Mistress, Andrea del Sarto's Holy Family, Domenichino's Children Among the Flowers, Raphael's little cameo, or his Portrait of an Old Man—Art's greatest masterpieces.
"Be quick and go, and make no noise," said La Cibot.
The Jew walked slowly backwards, giving the pictures such a farewell gaze as a lover gives his love. Outside on the landing, La Cibot tapped his bony arm. His rapt contemplations had put an idea into her head.