V
A SYMPOSIUM
Adrian Sorio sat opposite his friend over a warm brightly burning fire.
Baltazar Stork was a slight frail man of so delicate and dainty an appearance that many people were betrayed into behaving towards him as gently and considerately as if he had been a girl. This, though a compliment to his fragility, was bad policy in those who practised it, for Baltazar was an egoist of inflexible temper and under his velvet glove carried a hand of steel.
The room in which the two friends conversed was furnished in exquisite and characteristic taste. Old prints, few in number and rare in quality, adorned its walls. Precious pieces of china, invaluable statuettes in pottery and metal, stood charmingly arranged, with due space round each, in every corner. On either side of the mantelpiece was a Meissen-ware figure of engaging aspect and Watteau-like design, while in the centre, in the place where a clock is usually to be found, was a piece of statuary of ravishing delicacy and grace representing the escape of Syrinx from the hands of Pan.
The most remarkable picture in the room, attracting the attention at once of all who entered, was a dark, richly coloured, oval-shaped portrait—a portrait of a young man in a Venetian cloak, with a broad, smooth forehead, heavy-lidded penetrating eyes, and pouting disdainful mouth. This picture, said to have been painted under the influence of Giorgione by that incomparable artist’s best loved friend, passed for a portrait of Eugenio Flambard, the favourite secretary of the Republic’s most famous ambassador during his residence at the Papal Court.
The majority of these treasures had been picked up by Baltazar during certain prolonged holidays in various parts of the Continent. This, however, was several years ago before the collapse of the investment, or whatever it was, which he inherited from Herman Renshaw.
Since that time he had been more or less dependent upon Brand, a dependence which nothing but his happy relations with Brand’s mother and sister and his unfailing urbanity could have made tolerable.
“Adrian, you old villain, why didn’t you tell me you’d seen Philippa. Brand informed me yesterday that you’ve seen her twice. This isn’t the kind of thing that pleases me at all. I don’t approve of these clandestine meetings. Do you hear me, you old reprobate? You don’t think it’s very nice, do you, for me to learn by accident—by a sort of wretched accident—of an event like this? If you must be at these little games you might at least be open about them. Besides, I have a brotherly interest in Philippa. I don’t want to have her innocence corrupted by an old satyr like you.”