"Too insistent," he said. "Paintings will not merge."
The man was full of queer sayings, which he would drawl out with an eye to the effect he was creating on you.
He never allowed daylight to penetrate to his principal room, a great hall two stories high, lined with priceless tapestries.
"Daylight is rude and unmanageable," he said. "Artificial light I can order to suit my mood."
Another odd thing was his antipathy to red. That colour almost never appeared in his treasures. In the tapestries greens predominated; the rugs were mostly old blues and yellows. The great room never looked quite the same. Sometimes it was completely metamorphosed over night. I understood from something he let fall that the other floors of the building were stored with his treasures. He had them brought down and arranged according to his fancy. The only servant ever visible was a silent Hindoo, who sometimes appeared in gorgeous Eastern costume, encrusted with jewels. It occurred to me that that was how his master ought to dress. The sober clothes of a business man, however elegant, were out of place on Mount. Long afterwards I learned that it was his custom when alone to array himself like an Eastern potentate, but I never saw him dressed that way.
One day, to see what he would say, I asked him point blank what was the value of Miss Hamerton's lost pearls.
He consulted a note-book. "She paid me at different times exactly twenty-five thousand, seven hundred for them."
"I know," I said quietly. "But what was their value?"
He bored me through and through with his jetty eyes before answering. Finally he smiled—he had a charming smile when he chose, and spread out his hands in token of surrender. His hands were too white and beautiful for a man's.
"I see you know the truth," he said. "Well—I am in your hands. I hope you will keep the secret. Only a great deal of unhappiness could result from its becoming known."