"Ach!" said the German, apologetically... "I have made a mistake. As a matter of fact, I passed through here this morning when M. Steinheil wanted to show me some old bibelots and prints in a small sitting-room you have up here... I came here quite accidentally, and we were going down, your husband and I...."
He stammered and looked most embarrassed. "It is really most extraordinary," I said to him in German, "that you should have found your way in here, especially in the dark. There is a light in the hall, whilst there is none in the staircase at present." Then, as I wished to see this person in a full light, for the passage where we stood was only faintly lit by the light coming from the sewing-room, I added: "If you are fond of old prints, I can show you some downstairs."
I ran and told Couillard to turn the lights on in the drawing-room.
When I was, at last, able to see the man clearly, I was amazed and disgusted. The "wealthy foreigner" was a small man of about fifty with a long Jewish nose, with scanty hair and moustache that were dyed black, small beady eyes, sly and shifty, and a sallow complexion. His dress-suit was shabby and even greasy. The shirtfront was not clean and was adorned with two large paste-diamond studs. The man's ill-shaped hands wanted washing and were certainly not the hands of a gentleman. His whole figure inspired me with repulsion, even with fear.
"It appears," I told him, "that to-night you are attending an important dinner with some princes to whom you wish to show the portrait of Fallières which my husband made for you.... Could I see that portrait?"
The Jew brought out an album of medium size, from which he took a portrait which my husband had drawn of Fallières. As he replaced it in the album I could see that there were other drawings at which he evidently did not want me to look. The haste with which he shut up the album aroused my suspicions once more.
"Still," I remarked, "I cannot understand why you asked M. Steinheil for a portrait of the President. M. Steinheil seldom paints portraits. Like Meissonier, his master, his speciality is miniatures in oils, representing historic scenes, and genre pictures. You should have gone to M. Bonnat, who is the official painter of Presidents."
The man's looks grew almost threatening, and something of a snarl came into his voice: "You forget, Madame, that your husband has painted President Faure!"
"Quite so, but the picture you are referring to could hardly be called a portrait. The right thing to ask M. Steinheil for your album of celebrities would have been a sketch for a stained-glass window, a study of some medieval personage or a seigneur of the Renaissance period...."
The German collected himself. "Perhaps you are right, Madame.... At any rate, I am very thankful to M. Steinheil, and I will try to repay him for this portrait by bringing here some rich clients."