Meissonier!—the Rothschild of the studios, the artist whose six-inch canvas would bring the gold value of a Raphael or a Titian!
Lili, breathing fast, and white as death with ecstasy, made the sign of the cross on her breast; the delicate brown hand of René shook where it leaned on his easel.
They were both silent—silent from the intensity of their hope.
“Do you know who I am?” the old man pursued with a cordial smile.
“I have not that honor,” murmured René.
The stranger, taking his snuff out of a gold box, named a name at which the painter started. It was that of one of the greatest art dealers in the whole of Europe,—one who at a word could make or mar an artist’s reputation,—one whose accuracy of judgment was considered infallible by all connoisseurs, and the passport to whose galleries was to any unknown painting a certain passport also to the fame of men.
“You are a man of singular genius,” repeated the great purchaser, taking his snuff in the middle of the little bare chamber. “It is curious—one always finds genius either in a cellar or in an attic: it never, by any chance, is to be discovered midway on the stairs—never in the mezzo terzo! But to the point. You have great delicacy of touch, striking originality, a wonderful purity yet bloom in your color, and an exquisite finish of minutiæ, without any weakness,—a combination rare, very rare. That girl yonder, feeding white pigeons on the leads of a roof, with an atom of blue sky, and a few vine leaves straying over the parapet—that is perfectly conceived. Finished it must be. So must that little study of the beggar-boy looking through the gilded gates into the rose-gardens—it is charming, charming. Your price for those?”
René’s colorless, worn young face colored to the brows. “Monsieur is too good,” he muttered brokenly. “A nameless artist has no price, except—”
“Honor,” murmured Lili as she moved forward with throbbing heart and dim eyes. “Ah, monsieur, give him a name in Paris! We want nothing else—nothing else!”
“Poor fools!” said the dealer to his snuff-box. I heard him—they did not.