Her hand shook so as she gave it to him that much was spilled on the floor. She had pitied him once; he remembered that as he saw how she shrank from him. “Michelin has been more fortunate than I have,” he said deliberately.
“I beg your pardon.”
“You seem to be at home here.”
“I suppose you must follow the bent of your mind.”
“I suppose I must,” he agreed as he stood aside to let her pass. She had defied him that night in Florence. “Never!” she had said. And now he saw that she smiled at Camille as she went by him into the further room, and the old bad blood stirred in him and he ached with a fierce jealousy.
She had denied him. “Never!” she had said.
As he joined the group of men by the door Gontrand turned to him. “Ah, Prince, have you heard that Michelin has already sold his picture?”
“I am not surprised,” the Italian answered suavely. “If I was rich—but I am not. Who is the happy man?”
“That stout grey-haired American who left half an hour since. Did you notice him? He is Vandervelde, the great millionaire art collector.”
“May one ask the price?”