“He merely wants it to sell again.”
“You are unjust to yourself, Miss June, in thinking so. Money does not enter into your feeling about this beautiful thing; it doesn’t enter into mine. Why should it enter into the master’s, whose love of art is so intense?”
“Because his love of money is intenser. It’s his ruling passion. Where are your eyes that they can’t see a thing as plain as that?”
She must be as gentle as she could with this absurd fellow, yet she feared that such words must cause a wound. And the wound was wilfully dealt. It was so important that he should be made to see the whole thing as really and truly it was. But her hope was slight that he would ever be brought to do so.
“I beg you,” he said, almost with passion, “to let me have it back, so that I may give it to the dear old master.”
“It is madness,” said June bitterly. “He has no true feeling for the picture at all.”
She saw that her words were unwise. They made her own position worse. But faced by such an appeal she had to do her best on the spur of the moment.
“I know how much it means to you.” Pain was clouding the eyes of this dreamer. “I know your love for it is equal to mine, but that will make our joy in giving it to your uncle so much the greater.”
“But why to Uncle Si—of all people?”
“He wants it.” William’s voice was low and solemn. “At this moment, I believe he wants it more than anything else in the world.”