"This picture is not for sale, Sir Benjamin," said Dora frigidly, "neither for five hundred nor for five thousand, nor for any other sum that it may please you to offer."
Lorimer would have loved to cry Bravo! "She does love him, then, still—we shall save her," he said to himself.
"You see, my dear Sir Benjamin," said he, "the offer is useless. I suppose you still have the spare thirty-six by fifty to fill up, eh?"
"Ah, ah," laughed the alderman; "yes, that is to say, no; it is a new vacancy on my walls. Everyone has his fads here on earth, has he not? The Queen gives shawls to her friends when they marry, I give pictures to mine. It gives me occasion to purchase new pictures. Well, madam," he added, turning to Dora, "I admire you—I will beg you to excuse me. I thought that, perhaps, you might have been very glad to ... I wanted very much," he went on, retiring, nervous and awkward, towards the door, "to have that picture, but I wished also to do you a good turn—to render you a friendly service which could not hurt your susceptibilities.... After all, artists try to sell their pictures, don't they?... And I should have thought that such an offer at such a time" ...
The unfortunate man floundered more and more.
"Well, excuse me," said he; "I will wish you good-morning."
His back was now against the door. The next second he was in the street again. The poor fellow mopped the perspiration from his brow.
"The woman is mad—she is a prig!" he said to himself, as he hailed a passing hansom and set out for the City, where he was more in his element.
Dora was choking with anger. Lorimer rubbed his hands with joy.
"Not even a front door of my own to protect me against the importunities of such a fool as that! Oh, the sympathy of such a man! The drop that overbrims the vase! The kick of the jackass! And you can stand there and laugh."